I just wanted to briefly thank one and all for their hard work on I-1068 and let everyone know that we’re basically taking a breather the remainder of this week. We’ll be back next week with various announcements about what Sensible Washington will be doing over the next six months. One thing should not be in doubt: we will be filing a marijuana legalization initiative next year.

BTW, I do have comments closed on the site right now. This is a temporary move, designed to do nothing more than keep spam comments from piling up.

A short time ago, I learned that on a 314 to 185 floor vote, the Washington State Democrats endorsed I-1068 at their convention in Vancouver this afternoon. Everyone at Sensible Washington and I-1068 appreciates this endorsement.

Angela Johnson’s signature gathering vigil in Spokane is back on at at a safe approved location on the corner of N. Division and E. Desmet in the old Burgans Furniture lot. She will be on the corner. Everyone spread this fast. People are looking for her to sign 1068. Spokane area vols get down there and help her please. And please help keep this vigil going through this coming weekend to the end of the month. She’s located just north of where Division and Ruby split. A map is here.

For those of you who didn’t catch today’s earlier events, please read this press release describing how Johnson was allegedly assaulted and harassed by a large, angry male property manager.

If anyone wants to do something similar elsewhere in Washington State–hint, hint–let us know about it.

We’ve got two weeks left in I-1068’s signature gathering campaign. In 1999, the all-volunteer I-695 campaign got 250,000 signatures in the campaign’s final two weeks. The people of this state were angry at high car taxes and an initiative that offered to replace onerous taxes with a flat $30 car tab was so appealing that in that campaign’s final weeks thousands of volunteers hit the streets to make sure the initiative got on the ballot. How’d they do that?

“It’s not rocket science,” Tim Eyman once told me about making I-695’s final weeks successful.

We just need to get as many people as possible in front of as many of their fellow citizens as possible. That’s all.

With I-1068, I’m pretty sure we’ve got an issue that rings the public’s bells as hard as car taxes did in 1999. I-1068 offers marijuana legalization and subsequent re-regulation by the State Legislature instead of the continuance of onerous and wasteful criminal penalties for adult use, possession and cultivation. There’s plenty of polling at this point to suggest that the public embraces the concept. We’ve just got to get the signatures.

Right now, we need to get about two-thirds of the 250,000 signatures I-695 got in 1999 to make sure I-1068 gets on the ballot. If they could do it in 1999, we can do it in 2010. We just have to stay on the job.

And to do that we need you to continue collecting signatures and to help us find new volunteers. You should also take a look at this instant volunteer kit created by one of our Bellingham coordinators Matthew Scott.

If you need copies of the initiative, you can contact your area coordinator. A list of coordinators statewide is here. We’ve got many thousands of copies of I-1068 available statewide. And you can always fill out our volunteer form right here.

You can also download copies of the initiative itself at the top right side of this page. Please only have it reproduced on 11×17 paper, double-sided, black and white. You’ll need to go to a professional print shop to do it–sorry, but the rules in this state are so archaic–but you can handle most of that exchange via email with most shops. Or you can upload it to a website such as Fedex Office allows and place your order electronically and pick it soon after at one of their local outlets.

You can keep on top of events we’re covering by keeping in touch with us on Facebook.

So let’s get out there and get this done. We need every signed petition in the state sent our way each remaining Monday of June or turned into an area coordinator each remaining Monday of the month. Our mailing address is on the petition.

I wanted to give you all an update on the status of the signed I-1068 petitions which were seized by federally-funded WestNET personnel in a raid of the North End 420 Club in Tacoma two weeks ago. The 420 Club is operating as a medical marijuana dispensary.

Two of the seized petitions will be returned to us promptly, according to a WestNET detective I spoke with earlier this morning. They will be picked up by our Bremerton coordinator from the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office evidence room, likely before the end of today.

These two petitions have been photocopied and I have asked WestNET to destroy those photocopies. They tell me they cannot without an agreement between the prosecution and defense because, well, that’s the way these things work. We will be working to make that agreement happen, but it will take some time. My sense of things, from talking with the WestNET detective, is that no one on the law enforcement side will oppose the destruction of those photocopies.

Why were they seized as evidence in the place? The WestNET detective I spoke with said their search warrant authorized them to take any kind of list or ledger they encountered during their search. That’s their explanation. I simply wish the officers who conducted the raid would’ve used a bit more discretion when they were grabbing lists and ledgers because I-1068 petitions are clearly marked as an initiative to the people and even have formal language directed to Secretary of State Sam Reed. Not exactly evidence of criminal activity.

The remaining problem is that the 420 Club people insist that there were 10 signed petitions seized in the raid and WestNET tells me they only have two and that they have gone through their evidence boxes from the raid and there are no other copies of the petition. So we’ve got a discrepancy here that I cannot account for. Neither can WestNET or the 420 Club. My hope is that these missing eight petitions will turn up later somewhere in the chain of evidence and be returned to us before July 2, our deadline to submit signed petitions to the Secretary of State.

My fingers are officially crossed both for the missing petitions and for the 420 Club people as they begin to defend themselves against charges all because our state’s medical marijuana law is vague–even the WestNET detective agrees with me on this–and offers slim protection to people providing physician-authorized medicine to legitimate patients.

The 420 Club raid is another example of why it is imperative to get I-1068 on the ballot, so if you haven’t signed the initiative please do so. If you’d like to volunteer to help gather signatures, please fill out our volunteer form right here and we’ll be in touch promptly. We only have until the end of June to get this done, so let’s all get this done.

Sensible Washington has learned that one dozen signed copies of I-1068, the marijuana legalization initiative for Washington State of which Sensible Washington is the sponsor, were seized last week by the federally-funded WestNet drug task force. Our estimate is that 200 signatures are sitting in WestNet’s offices in Port Orchard, apparently seized as evidence during a series of raids against the North End Club 420 in Tacoma. The club is operating as a medical marijuana dispensary.

We have made repeated calls to WestNet’s office, but have yet to receive any assurance that the task force’s personnel have secured the signed petitions and that they plan to promptly return them to Sensible Washington.

“It proves how insane marijuana prohibition has gotten that law enforcement would seize signed copies of I-1068 as ‘evidence’ in a drug raid,” said Philip Dawdy, I-1068 campaign director and an initiative co-author. “The only thing they are evidence of is democracy in action. It is not a crime or evidence of a crime for citizens to sign a statewide initiative.”

Sensible Washington calls upon WestNet to immediately return the seized petitions to our offices at 3161 Elliott Avenue, Suite 340, Seattle WA 98121 or to make other arrangements for their immediate delivery to Sensible Washington.

Press reports this morning indicate that Steve Sarich, executive director of CannaCare in Kirkland, was the victim of a home invasion robbery of his medical marijuana grow at about 5 a.m. today. One of the robbers fired on Sarich with a shot gun. Sarich fired on them and hit two of his assailants; one has reportedly been hospitalized with life-threatening injuries. Sarich was treated and released from an area hospital. King County Sheriff’s Office personnel are investigating the crime.

Sarich is a friend of Sensible Washington and a true warrior for the cause. We’re all glad that he is OK. Certainly what went on in unincorporated King County earlier today would not be going on if I-1068 gets on the ballot and passes in November.

I’ll have more on this case as it develops.