The Failed Promise of Legal Pot
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New laws on marijuana were supposed to boost tax revenues and free up cops to go after “real” criminals. But underground sales—and arrests—are still thriving.
It's just after four o’clock on a hot Seattle afternoon, and Thomas Terry is standing in the parking lot of a Jack in the Box. Known for fights that end with police sirens and sometimes ambulances, it’s a spot some locals half-jokingly call “Stab in the Box,” but today the scene is quiet.
A man is walking up the street toward Terry and a few other young men who are gathered in the shade of a brick wall where the parking lot meets the sidewalk. As he draws near, one of them opens his mouth, and the words tumble out:
“Kush? You want some weed?”
Whether the man does or not, he says nothing, and keeps walking. It’s the middle of August, two years and eight months after voters in Washington passed an initiative to permit both the possession and sale of recreational marijuana—making the state the second in the nation to do so. In large part, the law was aimed at eliminating the black market for marijuana and redirecting those sales from parking lots and living rooms into stores, where the state could monitor and tax the transactions. Yet, although legal marijuana has generated real declines in arrests, the presence of Terry and the young men on the corner points to a hitch not just in the nuts and bolts of marijuana sales but in one of legalization’s most touted goals.
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