It shouldn’t surprise us that our Kent City Council has proven once more their expertise at wasting time and money. Our time, and our money.
A citizen group appointed to the Financial Sustainability Task Force spent a year studying options, to educate the public, for sustainable funding for our cash-strapped city and their sixth recommendation was to license recreational marijuana stores. We approved I-502 almost four years ago by 56 percent and to date the sky has not fallen.
At the time the report was finalized and presented to the council, members Boyce, Ralph, Berrios and Thomas voted to continue prohibition of medical marijuana by banning highly regulated, very small scale medical marijuana co-ops that are registered with the state and inspected.
Mayor Cooke threatened to veto this ordinance and said she would refuse to sign it as she understands cannabis has healing powers.
We seem to be stuck in this spin cycle with the majority of our council members, some who will run for mayor in 2017. They justify we drive to Covington, or Renton, or Auburn, or Des Moines, where they collect the sin tax and add to the coffers for legal medical or recreational cannabis. Is that somehow stopping its consumption in our city?
A National Institute of Health 2010 report stated 88,000 people a year die from alcohol use disorder and 10 percent of U.S. children live with a parent with an alcohol problem.
A U.S. Surgeon General 2014 report stated tobacco harms nearly every organ in the body and its use is responsible for 1-5 deaths each year or 480,000 people.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse 2010 reported no documented overdose due to marijuana, but at the same time drug overdose deaths numbered 38,329 with 58 percent of those involving pharmaceuticals.
Times they are a changing but not here in the sixth largest city in the state in one of the most liberal states in the union. For some reason, these four council members cannot see that there are adults that have safely used cannabis for medicine when pharmaceutical have caused them great harm, that voters approved recreational marijuana and now the only place for a medical patient to access their medicine is through a licensed recreational store where they pay the same tax as a recreational user.
What’s wrong with this picture needs to be changed when we vote in 2017. In the mean time, I’m hoping for a miracle. Mayor?
– Sandi Lynden
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