Mayors on board with McGinn on sex ads, pot

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The U.S. Conference of Mayors urged a major sex ad website to stop the practice of accepting escort ads without age verification and also asked the federal government to stop prosecuting users and providers of medical marijuana, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn said.

In a Saturday morning interview with KOMO Newsradio, McGinn said mayors of cities around the nation shared a number of common concerns as they gathered for their 80th annual meeting this week in Orlando, Fla.

One of the issues McGinn cited was the sexual exploitation of minors through sex ad websites, such as Backpage.com.

"I asked the Conference of Mayors to join me in urging Backpage.com to stop sexual exploitation of minors by requiring in-person age verification for their escort ads, and that unanimously passed," McGinn said.

He said the resolution urged Backpage.com to change their practices and also encouraged state and federal lawmakers to change their laws to make it illegal to post sex ads without age verification.

Also high on the agenda was the conflict between state and federal laws on marijuana, which leave cities caught in the middle, McGinn said.

He said he and Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland asked the Conference of Mayors to approve a measure encouraging the federal government to change its classification of marijuana from a Category 1 drug to a Category 2 drug. That measure also was passed by the mayors, he said.

"There are a number of states that have passed medical marijuana laws, and even though its legal for use if it's prescribed, you can't buy it from a pharmacy, and it's still illegal at the federal level," McGinn said.

"So you can have a situation where a U.S. attorney decides to crack down on those who are using medical marijuana because it is illegal at the federal level, so this is an important issue for a lot of other mayors."

In other action, he said, the mayors urged the federal government not to make deep budget cuts at the expense of cities and state that are also hurting from the economic downturn.

"The Conference of Mayors called on Congress and the president to work in a spirit of compromise to resolve budget issues, and deep cuts at the federal level could have very significant effects on our local budget and the services we provide," McGinn said.

Hundreds of mayors attended the annual gathering, including those of most major U.S. cities.