With the recent opinion on I-502 moratoriums released by WA State AG, it seems that local governments can effectively ignore the state laws and ban even state-backed and controlled retailers within their jurisdiction. Additionally, local governments can establish land use regulations that would make it highly impractical to attempt establishing marijuana retailers within their borders.

Basically, even though the voters overwhelmingly supported legalization, cities and counties can still decide to ban marijuana stores.

I find myself divided on this topic. On one hand I can see the pot-friendly masses being in uproar. After all, if local governments can just decide what they would like in their region, what’s to say that laws against prostitution or violence can’t vary from town to town? Should there not be some unifying thread that links the cities and counties to the state as a whole?

On the other hand, I don’t see how this is too different than WA and CO deciding to do something outside of what federal law decrees. Are the cities and counties found within a state not entitled to that same microcosm of choice for which their parent state fought so hard to achieve?

A lot of the pro-pot voices in WA are up in arms about this assessment by the AG. Personally, I don’t really care too much. If a certain city or county votes to install a moratorium on cannabis retail, that is their prerogative (though, I wonder how much that moral ground upon which they stand begins to erode when they get a sniff of all the lost revenue such moratoriums would garner.)

There are counties in this country that are dry (don’t sell alcohol) there is even at least one county that refuses to observe Daylight Savings Time. As a Seattle resident, I feel pretty safe about always being able to find a retailer, but I think I would still be okay with having to travel to a “green” region to get my buds if I lived in a moratorium county.

The thing that would really start to raise alarms for me is if certain towns/counties were allowed to re-criminalize cannabis. But that does not appear to be a looming threat.

Don’t want to sell it? Ok. Just keep your cuffs away from my puffs and we’ll get along just fine.