Statewide, voters settled the question of legalizing cannabis 13 years ago, when Washington’s Initiative 502 passed 56% to 44% and decriminalized marijuana for people over age 21.
But the debate’s still going on in Yakima County, where 58% of county voters rejected I-502.
An advisory measure on the Nov. 4 ballot asks voters whether county commissioners should lift a local ban on growing, processing and selling marijuana in unincorporated areas that Yakima County commissioners imposed in 2014.
While legal cannabis shops have sprouted in incorporated areas where the county’s ban doesn’t apply, the rule has held firm outside city limits for more than a decade. In 2017, nearly 59% of voters favored it in an advisory vote similar to the one on the current ballot.
Apparently, county voters’ sentiments haven’t changed much over the years.
Perhaps they should, though — for two practical reasons.
First, the ban is largely symbolic and isn’t accomplishing what the county intended by passing it back in 2014.
Rural residents aren’t forbidden to travel — no doubt most of them regularly visit cities where marijuana is legal and readily available. It’s illogical to think that the ban is doing much of anything to block anyone’s access to cannabis.
And despite the numerous health warnings that Commissioner LaDon Linde himself detailed in a recent YH-R guest commentary, it’s unlikely the ban is dissuading anyone who wants to indulge.
So continuing it seems like a futile gesture.
Second, the county is passing up tax revenue from cannabis sales.
The state’s legalization of marijuana made way for a 37% excise tax on licensed cannabis products that consumers pay at the cash register. The state keeps most of that money, but some of it goes back to local jurisdictions that allow sales.
The local ban disqualifies the county from collecting what could amount to about $500,000 a year, according to state estimates.
And half a million dollars, as Yakima County Commissioner Kyle Curtis told the YH-R‘s Olivia Palmer, could help pay for additional sheriff’s deputies and supplement local drug-education programs.
It could also come in handy if a predicted county budget shortfall comes to pass.
Whatever voters have to say in next week’s election, the ban’s fate remains solely in the hands of county commissioners.
We urge them to lift the ban, but we suspect they’ve made that decision more difficult for themselves by placing this measure on the ballot. Whichever way Tuesday’s vote goes, commissioners will have to balance split opinions among their constituents.
Yakima Herald-Republic editorials reflect the collective opinions of the newspaper’s local editorial board.
