The City of Lakewood has produced a website titled, Marijuana: What’s The City of Lakewood’s Take? I compliment the City of Lakewood for making this information available to the public on a user-friendly basis.
In the meantime, Democratic Representative David Sawyer has been pushing Lakewood City Council and the Pierce County Council by threatening to introduce legislation intended to stop alcohol tax dollars from flowing into Lakewood and unincorporated Pierce County. By threatening to pencil Lakewood and Pierce County out of truckloads of dollars currently and customarily generated by the sale of alcohol in the two jurisdictions, his objective is to force Lakewood and Pierce County to allow dope shops in their respective areas.
Representative Sawyer’s strong effort behind this issue in the face of violating Federal Law causes me to wonder if politicians are allowed to accept campaign contributions in the form of cash, checks, and marijuana.
A majority of citizens voted to legalize dope, but that does not negate Federal Law. Weed smoking voters do not seem to get that. Perhaps their minds can’t focus on the reality of the situation when taking hits on a roach.
The big fight is not about recreational dope being legal. That fight is over. The argument is about Lakewood and Pierce County allowing dope shops in their jurisdictions. Dope supporters like to sugar coat the terminology by calling dope shops dispensaries. That is like calling a whore house a home for unwed mothers. I prefer the more accurately descriptive term, dope shops.
After reviewing Mr. Sawyer’s tactics, the old Mafia tool, extortion, comes to mind.
I wonder why any politician would push for an action that violates Federal Law instead of working to change the Federal Law. Three things come to mind.
- It is possible a politician could be a weed smoker him or herself.
- It is possible a politician has a financial interest in the dope industry and stands to make millions of dollars.
- It is possible a politician is receiving impressive amounts of cash, marijuana, or campaign contributions in exchange for political influence.
Let’s review the facts.
Fact 1: The City of Lakewood and unincorporated Pierce County have liquor sales establishments inside their jurisdictions which generate liquor tax revenue.
Fact 2: The City of Lakewood and unincorporated Pierce County do not have marijuana dispensaries/dope shops in their jurisdictions. There are no sales of weed, and therefore no dope tax is generated.
Regarding Fact 1: If Lakewood and Pierce County generate alcohol sales taxes, there is no reasonable justification for Lakewood and Pierce County not being able to receive their fair share of the alcohol tax revenue.
Regarding Fact 2: If Lakewood or Pierce County does not generate sales tax from the sale of dope, then I can understand Representative Sawyer promoting the idea that Lakewood and Pierce County should not share in the dope tax income. That passes the common sense tax test. There may be some technicalities that are beyond me, but common sense-wise I get no dope sales equals no dope taxes equals no dope tax money for Lakewood and Pierce County.
Representative Sawyer is fighting for weed on another front. He recently passed House Bill 2136 which will put the question of allowing dope shops on the ballot. The vote in the House of Representatives was 67-28-3 in favor of the bill. The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration. If Mr. Sawyer’s bill passes, Lakewood and Pierce County will have to vote on dope shops before either jurisdiction will be authorized to disallow dope shops.
While I think it is good to see what the majority of the public may want, weed is still dope in the eyes of our Federal Government and therefore a violation of Federal Law. How can the city or county justify violating Federal Law?
If Lakewood chooses to violate Federal Law, then citizens can choose to comfortably violate City of Lakewood ordinances. Yes, we can pick and choose which laws we are willing to follow and essentially become a lawless society.
Instead of using extortion to force the city and county to violate Federal Law, Mr. Sawyer should consider taking the high road by modifying Federal Law back in Washington DC thereby making it easier for Mr. Sawyer’s constituency to get high on weed in Washington State.
Because there are more and more dopers walking the planet than old-school non-dopers like me, the dopers will probably eventually win the marijuana issue. Once that is accomplished, the politicians can move forward on legalizing heroin dens.
It is all about money and marijuana.
Why can’t dope smokers drive into Tacoma for their crutch? I have to drive into Tacoma to go to Costco.
Representative Sawyer, if your extortion tactic works for dope shops, how about threatening to cut Lakewood off from all retail sales tax revenues unless they bring a Costco to Lakewood?
One solution would be to sell pot at Costco. Then we could get a hot dog and soda for a buck and a half along with some marijuana. Get high on dogs and dope at Costco. Don’t worry about driving home with your kids. It should be ok.
This is the consequence of having at the Federal level an administration between 2008 and 2016 which routinely picked and chose which laws to enforce, ignore, or violate. When such lawlessness is pervasive at the Federal level you can bet that state and local government will take that as license for them to pick, choose and violate laws at all levels. One only needs to look at so called “sanctuary cities” to see this at work. Breaking the law is breaking the law be it by a private citizen, an elected official, government bureaucrat or governments at any level. Once you permit this to happen you are no longer a country of laws but rather a country of men/women with the consequence of a country where equality before the law does not exist.
Since Lakewood is so close to Ft Lewis, lets put Lakewood on Federal Land and tell this Democrat where to go. I know that won’t happen BUT Dem Sawyer must be a pothead or use to be and his brain is fried or he is just doing this to get his name recognized. After reading this, there is several voters who WON’T vote for him again. Thank you for that.
A shout out to Lakewood City Council…..there is a lot of us voters that don’t want pot smokers here or near. We don’t have a police force big enough to control pot smokers who drive, who smoke in parks, in front of children and they’ll cry if a blood test is administered if they are pulled over, saying they are violating their rights.
Many people don’t understand I guess that smoking pot gets you thirsty, and most don’t go for a glass of milk….alcohol is the main choice.
Lakewood should have MJ shops in Tillicum. I am all for it!!!!
Legal shops outway the illegal selling in Lakewood (Tullicum).