Marijuana Ban in Washington County Upheld By Judge

A superior court judge on Monday agreed with an opinion issued by the Washington Attorney General’s Office earlier this year, concluding that nothing in a pot legalization initiative overrides local governments’ authority to regulate or ban marijuana businesses

This allows Initiative 502 to continue to be implemented. Every court to consider this issue has now agreed with the Attorney General’s opinion.

The ruling on Monday came from Pierce County Superior Court Judge Ronald Culpepper in the case of Green Collar LLC v. Pierce County. The plaintiffs in the case sought to open a marijuana business in Pierce County despite the county’s ban on such businesses. A formal opinion released by the AGO in January 2014 concluded that I-502 does not prevent cities and counties from banning marijuana businesses.

This is the second I-502 case to be heard before Culpepper. This is the fifth ruling in a row that agrees with the AGO opinion that nothing in Initiative 502 overrides local governments’ authority to regulate or ban marijuana businesses.

“As I have said from the beginning, the drafters of Initiative 502 could have required local jurisdictions to allow the sale of recreational marijuana,” Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a statement. “It could have been done in a single sentence, but it was not. Now it is up to the Legislature to decide whether to require local governments to allow for the sale of marijuana.”