Smokers celebrate as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — The crowds of happy people lighting joints under Seattle's Space Needle early Thursday morning with nary a police officer in sight bespoke the new reality: Marijuana is legal under Washington state law.

Hundreds gathered at Seattle Center for a New Year's Eve-style countdown to 12 a.m., when the legalization measure passed by voters last month took effect. When the clock struck, they cheered and sparked up in unison.

A few dozen people gathered on a sidewalk outside the north Seattle headquarters of the annual Hempfest celebration and did the same, offering joints to reporters and blowing smoke into television news cameras.

"I feel like a kid in a candy store!" shouted Hempfest volunteer Darby Hageman. "It's all becoming real now!"

Washington and Colorado became the first states to vote to decriminalize and regulate the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana by adults over 21. Both measures call for setting up state licensing schemes for pot growers, processors and retail stores. Colorado's law is set to take effect by Jan. 5.

Technically, Washington's new marijuana law still forbids smoking pot in public, which remains punishable by a fine, like drinking in public. But pot fans wanted a party, and Seattle police weren't about to write them any tickets.

In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

The mood was festive in Seattle as dozens of gay and lesbian couples got in line to pick up marriage licenses at the King County auditor's office early Thursday.

King County and Thurston County announced they would open their auditors' offices shortly after midnight Wednesday to accommodate those who wanted to be among the first to get their licenses.

Kelly Middleton and her partner Amanda Dollente got in line at 4 p.m. Wednesday.

Hours later, as the line grew, volunteers distributed roses and a group of men and women serenaded the waiting line to the tune of "Chapel of Love."

Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

In dealing with marijuana, the Seattle Police Department told its 1,300 officers on Wednesday, just before legalization took hold, that until further notice they shall not issue citations for public marijuana use.

Officers will be advising people not to smoke in public, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

He offered a catchy new directive referring to the film "The Big Lebowski," popular with many marijuana fans: "The Dude abides, and says 'take it inside!'"

"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."

Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.

But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.

The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.

"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress."

The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.

That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

Alison Holcomb is the drug policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and served as the campaign manager for New Approach Washington, which led the legalization drive. She said the voters clearly showed they're done with marijuana prohibition.

"New Approach Washington sponsors and the ACLU look forward to working with state and federal officials and to ensure the law is fully and fairly implemented," she said.

___

Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

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Operators at 311 are accustomed to oddball calls

Just before Thanksgiving a few years back, Raquel Lopez fielded her umpteenth call of the day to find an irate man on the line.

Someone had littered his lawn with Butterball turkeys.

"This is not funny!" he shouted, demanding the shrink-wrapped birds' immediate removal.

It was another priceless moment for Lopez, who has been answering L.A.'s 311 information line for seven years.

"We're like a human Google," she said, laughing one recent morning as she sat, headset on, in a gray cubicle on the 10th floor of a building across Main Street from City Hall.

And she never can guess what she'll be asked next.

"One call to City Hall," the city's website proclaims, provides residents a "personal gateway to the services Los Angeles has to offer."

But what does that mean, really?

Some L.A. residents have singular ideas:

One caller told Lopez she wanted a wall where her kids played handball tested for STDs because she'd seen a transient urinate on it.

Another refused to accept that she'd have to hire a private service to get rid of bees in her backyard. "They're not my bees," she kept saying. "They're the city's bees."

Then there was the guy who called, very frightened, because he heard strange beeps in his house. Had someone planted something in his walls? Lopez suggested he check the batteries in his smoke alarms.

A man named Kelly had called for years just to talk — after the 911 operators cut him off. His wife, he complained, was sleeping with Dr. Bloomfield — and everything had gone to pot after the Northridge earthquake.

There is an irony in callers' certainty that the city can and should solve their every problem, given that the 311 service has woes of its own.

Budget cuts have shriveled the call center.

When it was launched with much fanfare in 2002, 311 operated all day, every day. Then the hours were chopped — first to 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., then 8 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Staffing fell from 70 to 35.

Not that the phones stopped ringing. On weekdays, the center averages 2,000 to 3,000 calls; 700 to 900 come in on a typical Saturday or Sunday. Busy agents end up apologizing to callers who complain about having to wait on hold.

Big screens around the room display the number of calls that have been answered so far that day and how many agents — speaking English and Spanish — currently are on the phone. (If someone calls in another language, say Persian or Thai, an interpreter from a contract translation service can be patched in quickly.)

On rapid-fire days, the saving grace for the agents is the personalized recorded message that plays for a few seconds when they first pick up:

"Thank you for calling 311. This is Raquel. How may I assist you?"

Callers don't notice the voice isn't live, and "it lets you take a breather in between," Lopez said.

Many of the 311 calls, of course, are sensible, expected and easily resolved. People ask how to dispose of bulky items. They report dead animals, fallen tree limbs, graffiti or illegal dumping. Someone wants to set up a building inspection. A pothole has appeared. A streetlight is out.

Sophisticated programs let agents quickly find information. They can zoom in, for instance, on maps that show the location of each streetlight, then confirm that they've located the right one by checking to see that a photo matches the caller's description.

Some agents work radios, sending reports directly to crews out on the streets. When it makes sense to, that is.

Mario Aldaz, 34, who has worked at 311 since it opened, said an agent once took a call about an abandoned couch in an alley. The caller didn't ask for the couch to be removed. She wanted the city to remove graffiti on the couch.

As for those Butterballs, Lopez did in the end offer help. She contacted the Bureau of Sanitation — which, among other things, is responsible for collecting dead animals and spoiled meat.

nita.lelyveld@latimes.com

Follow City Beat @latimescitybeat on Twitter or at Los Angeles Times City Beat on Facebook.

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Khaled Meshal, the Leader of Hamas, Makes First Visit to Gaza

Wissam Nassar for The New York Times

Khaled Meshal, left, the head of the political bureau of Hamas, arrived for a visit to the Gaza Strip on Friday. With him is Ismail Haniya, Hamas's prime minister in Gaza.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Khaled Meshal, whom the Israelis tried to assassinate in Jordan in 1997, arrived for his first visit to the Gaza Strip on Friday as head of the political bureau of Hamas, which has established a ministate here.

For Mr. Meshal, 56, it was a triumphant visit, and Hamas fighters, armed with rifles and wearing balaclavas, lined the streets where he was to travel. He entered from Egypt, through the Rafah crossing, an indication of a new alliance with Cairo.

“Gaza, with its martyrs, cannot be described in words,” he said as he arrived here in Rafah, with tears in his eyes. “There are no words to describe Gaza, to describe the heroes, the martyrs, the blood, the mothers who lost their sons.

“I say I return to Gaza even if I never have been here. It has always been in my heart.”

Mr. Meshal fled the West Bank with his family after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and had never returned to Palestinian territory. In 1997, when he was in Amman, Jordan, agents from the Israeli intelligence service, posing as Canadian tourists, tried to kill him by injecting him with poison. The agents were captured by Jordanian authorities, and Mr. Meshal lay in a coma until the agents handed over the antidote.

He arrived in Gaza to celebrate the 25th anniversary on Saturday of the founding of Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has also risen to power in neighboring Egypt and has been a key to the Arab “awakening” that has shaken old alliances throughout the Middle East.

“This is my third birth,” Mr. Meshal said. “The first was my natural birth. The second was when I recovered from the poisoning. I ask God that my fourth birth will be the day we liberate all of Palestine.”

Mr. Meshal also plans to celebrate what Hamas considers a victory over Israel in the recent conflict here, eight days of fighting featuring Israeli airstrikes and shelling and Hamas rocket launches against Israel. The Israeli government claims that it sharply reduced Hamas’s military capacity, destroying storehouses of rockets and weapons and killing the operational commander of the Hamas forces, Ahmed al-Jaabari, at the outset of the fighting.

Still, Hamas negotiated a cease-fire with Israel through the agency of the Egyptians, and for the movement it may represent an important step toward becoming a more recognized international player and representative of at least a portion of the Palestinian people.

Mr. Meshal was expected to visit the homes of Mr. Jaabari; the Dalu family, who lost 10 members in an Israeli airstrike in the November fighting; and Sheik Ahmed Yassin, an assassinated Hamas spiritual leader.

The Fatah movement controls the West Bank, which Israel still occupies, and the rivalry between Fatah and Hamas is the defining principle of Palestinian politics, despite continuing efforts by Egypt to bring about a reconciliation. The uprising in Syria drove Mr. Meshal and the Hamas political bureau out of its offices in the Syrian capital, Damascus, to resettle in Egypt, pulling Hamas farther from Shiite Iran, which continues to help sponsor it, and closer to its Sunni Muslim roots. That has also made Hamas potentially more attractive to Egypt and Israel as a negotiating partner, however indirect, in trying to preserve stability in the region.

But Hamas, which considers itself a fighting force in contrast to Fatah, which has engaged in direct negotiations with Israel, is proud of its accomplishments in Gaza, even as it has put a more repressive and Islamist stamp on society here.

Decorating the stage where the anniversary celebration will be held is a mock-up of a large rocket, called the M-75, that Hamas claims it has built on its own and can reach almost 50 miles, close to Tel Aviv. The M stands for a dead founder of Hamas, Ibrahim Maqadma, killed in an Israeli airstrike in 2003.

In fact the Hamas anniversary is Dec. 14, but the organization moved the celebration forward a week to honor the first intifada against Israel.

Fares Akram contributed reporting.

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Eddie Redmayne: 5 Things You Should Know

By Mary Green and Julie Jordan

12/07/2012 at 10:15 AM EST

Eddie Redmayne, breakout star of Les Miserables, is receiving awards buzz as the student French revolutionary Marius, who falls in love with Cosette, played by Amanda Seyfried. Redmayne, who also played Michelle Williams's love interest in My Week with Marilyn, is enjoying a booming career. But you'd never know that the 30-year-old Brit has Kim Cattrall to thank for his success, or that he was destined for a role in Les Mis as a child. P.S.: Redmayne's also won a Tony and an Olivier Award for the play Red.

Here are five things you should know about Redmayne:

• Kim Cattrall's approval was pivotal: "I did a play in London called The Goat," he recalls. "I won a prize, and I couldn't go be there, but my parents went, and Kim Cattrall gave the prize. When my dad saw that Samantha from Sex and the City was giving me a prize, then it affirmed in my parents' mind that they were allowed to let their son continue to be an actor."

In fact, the two stars didn't meet til years later, but Cattrall is anxious to see his latest turn: "In 2005 I had the honor of presenting him the Ian Charlston Award as 'the most promising new comer' at the Evening Standard Awards in the U.K.," she told PEOPLE Thursday. "Unfortunately he was away working, but I did meet him a few years later and he told me his father was impressed he won the award but over the moon I was presenting. I have followed his career ever since and cannot wait to see him in Les Miserables."

• His first Les Mis experience: "I saw it when I was 7 and wanted to be Gavroche, [the young street urchin who helps the rebels]."

• His 'oh s--t' moment on set: "We were lying in the sewers half dead, swimming in s--t, and you're actually lying there for 12 hours. We're doing a close-up, and [director Tom Hooper] is saying, ‘Hugh, Eddie, you need to be still. Or it doesn't look like you're dead.' We're like, ‘Dude! We can't control our bodily functions.'"

•Be careful going to karaoke with him: "My karaoke song of choice is "Bat Out of Hell". About three minutes in to the 12-minute song, I keep getting ‘shut up!'"

•He's pals with Spider-Man: "Andrew Garfield is is one of my best friends," he says. "I get great inspiration from he and Tom Sturridge, friends of mine who are my age who are doing great work."

Redmayne in Les Miserables

Universal Pictures

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Celebrations planned as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — Legal marijuana possession becomes a reality under Washington state law on Thursday, and some people planned to celebrate the new law by breaking it.

Voters in Washington and Colorado last month made those the first states to decriminalize and regulate the recreational use of marijuana. Washington's law takes effect Thursday and allows adults to have up to an ounce of pot — but it bans public use of marijuana, which is punishable by a fine, just like drinking in public.

Nevertheless, some people planned to gather at 12:01 a.m. PST Thursday to smoke in public beneath Seattle's Space Needle. Others planned a midnight party outside the Seattle headquarters of Hempfest, the 21-year-old festival that attracts tens of thousands of pot fans every summer.

"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."

In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

That law also takes effect Thursday, when gay and lesbian couples can start picking up their wedding certificates and licenses at county auditors' offices. Those offices in King County, the state's largest and home to Seattle, and Thurston County, home to the state capital of Olympia, planned to open the earliest, at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, to start issuing marriage licenses. Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

The Seattle Police Department provided this public marijuana use enforcement guidance to its officers via email Wednesday night: "Until further notice, officers shall not take any enforcement action — other than to issue a verbal warning — for a violation of Initiative 502."

Thanks to a 2003 law, marijuana enforcement remains the department's lowest priority. Even before I-502 passed on Nov. 6, police rarely busted people at Hempfest, despite widespread pot use, and the city attorney here doesn't prosecute people for having small amounts of marijuana.

Officers will be advising people to take their weed inside, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.

But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.

The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.

"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress" — a non-issue, since the measures passed in Washington and Colorado don't "nullify" federal law, which federal agents remain free to enforce.

The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.

That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

Colorado's measure, as far as decriminalizing possession goes, is set to take effect by Jan. 5. That state's regulatory scheme is due to be up and running by October 2013.

___(equals)

Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

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Man dumped soiled adult diapers around Orange County, police say

The Orange County district attorney's office has filed one misdemeanor charge against a man suspected of dumping soiled adult diapers in Newport Beach and Laguna Beach.

Tomoo Kawai is scheduled to be arraigned Dec. 17. He faces probation and up to six months in jail if convicted.

Although the D.A.'s office did not release Kawai's address or city of residence, police previously said the suspect is a 67-year-old man from Newport Beach.

In September, Laguna Beach police found a bag of dirty diapers that also contained an envelope with an address on it.

After tracking that address to a home in Newport, they followed a man who
drove toward Laguna. Officers stopped him near the Crystal Cove Promenade in Newport and saw a bag of adult diapers in the car.

The single charge of prohibited waste disposal does not necessarily correlate to only one incident. It covers a range of time from June 27 to Sept. 24, a D.A. spokeswoman said.

"We want to see this case resolved in a way that's going to stop the behavior as well as what will be in the best interest of justice as a whole," spokeswoman Farrah Emami said.

- Jeremiah Dobruck, Times Community News

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3 Charged With Plotting to Export Carbon Fiber to Iran

Three people have been charged with conspiring to illegally export to Iran and China a superstrong material called carbon fiber that can be used to make machines that can enrich uranium, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said on Wednesday.

Iran has been pursuing carbon-fiber technology for years, and has had difficulty in obtaining the material. Enriched uranium can be used as fuel for nuclear reactors and atom bombs.

Another man was charged in a purported scheme to illegally export to Iran via South Korea components for helicopters that could be used for military purposes, the authorities said.

Three of the four men have been arrested. One of them, Hamid Reza Hashemi, 52, a dual United States and Iranian citizen who runs a company in Tehran that the United States government says has been trying to obtain carbon-fiber technology, was arrested on Saturday at Kennedy International Airport as he entered the country, prosecutors said.

Another defendant, Peter Gromacki, 48, of Middletown, N.Y., was accused of arranging for the export of more than 6,000 pounds of carbon fiber from the United States to China via Belgium, in violation of federal law, the government said.

“The law prohibits the exportation of goods to Iran and certain goods to China,” said George Venizelos, who heads the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s New York office.

A third defendant, Amir Abbas Tamimi, 40, an Iranian accused in the purported helicopter-component deal, was arrested at Kennedy Airport in October, the authorities said. He and Mr. Hashemi are being held without bond, while Mr. Gromacki was released on bond, the government said.

The fourth defendant, Murat Taskiran, a Turk accused in the purported carbon-fiber scheme, has not yet been arrested.

The charges do not specify precisely what the government believes the carbon-fiber technology was going to be used for in Iran.

But Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, whose office is prosecuting the men, said “carbon fiber in the wrong hands poses a serious threat” to the national security of the United States.

“Two of these defendants are charged with arranging its export to Iran, where it most assuredly had the potential to end up in the wrong hands,” Mr. Bharara said.

The government charged that in March and April 2008, Mr. Hashemi and Mr. Taskiran worked with an unidentified European broker to arrange for the shipment of carbon fiber from the United States to Iran through Europe and Dubai.

Carbon fiber is used to make rotors for centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium.

The government also charged that this year Mr. Hashemi sent messages to the European broker, indicating that he wanted to travel to the United States to see a carbon-fiber-winding machine that he wanted to buy. Such machines can be used to make the rotors.

Lawyers for the three men who have been arrested could not be reached for comment Wednesday evening.

William J. Broad contributed reporting.

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Apple to return some Mac production to U.S. in 2013: report

(Reuters) – Apple Inc is planning to bring back some of its production of Mac computers to the United States from China next year, Chief Executive Tim Cook said, according to a report published Thursday.

The company will spend more than $ 100 million to build the computers in the United States, Cook was cited as saying in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek.

“This doesn’t mean that Apple will do it ourselves, but we’ll be working with people and we’ll be investing our money,” Cook said.

He told NBC in an interview to be aired late Thursday that only one of the existing Mac lines would be manufactured exclusively in the United States.

Higher-tech products are largely made overseas, often in subcontracted factories not owned by the brands whose products they are making.

Cheaper labor costs have been key in encouraging U.S. manufacturers to have move production to China, but with Chinese wage and transport costs increasing, the advantage against the U.S. has narrowed in recent years.

(Reporting by Nicola Leske; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Ashley Hebert and J.P. Rosenbaum's Wedding Photo Revealed

TV Watch
People Exclusive

12/06/2012 at 10:45 AM EST

J.P. Rosenbaum and Ashley Hebert

Bob and Dawn Davis Photography & Design

Ashley Hebert and J.P. Rosenbaum's wedding was picture perfect.

In an exclusive shot from the couple's weekend nuptials, the newlyweds – who met on season 7 of The Bachelorette and got engaged on the season finale – beam with joy.

Hebert, 28, and Rosenbaum, 35, say that even though their wedding was filmed for TV (it will air Dec. 16 as a two-hour special on ABC) their love is as genuine as it comes.

"The ceremony was simple, sweet and personal," Hebert tells PEOPLE in its new issue, on newsstands Friday. Adds Rosenbaum, "We didn't want it to be a circus."

On the day they exchanged vows, Hebert reiterated their commitment to keeping their relationship focused on the important things in life.

"Today is all about our friends and family," Hebert said. "It's about standing with J.P., looking around at all the people we love in the same room there to celebrate our love."

The wedding was attended by family, friends and fellow Bachelor and Bachelorette alumni, including Ali Fedotowsky, Emily Maynard, Jason and Molly Mesnick and Ryan and Trista Sutter. The franchise's on-air host, Chris Harrison, officiated the ceremony.

For many more details and exclusive photos of the intimate wedding, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.

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Celebrations planned as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — Legal marijuana possession becomes a reality under Washington state law on Thursday, and some people planned to celebrate the new law by breaking it.

Voters in Washington and Colorado last month made those the first states to decriminalize and regulate the recreational use of marijuana. Washington's law takes effect Thursday and allows adults to have up to an ounce of pot — but it bans public use of marijuana, which is punishable by a fine, just like drinking in public.

Nevertheless, some people planned to gather at 12:01 a.m. PST Thursday to smoke in public beneath Seattle's Space Needle. Others planned a midnight party outside the Seattle headquarters of Hempfest, the 21-year-old festival that attracts tens of thousands of pot fans every summer.

"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."

In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

That law also takes effect Thursday, when gay and lesbian couples can start picking up their wedding certificates and licenses at county auditors' offices. Those offices in King County, the state's largest and home to Seattle, and Thurston County, home to the state capital of Olympia, planned to open the earliest, at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, to start issuing marriage licenses. Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

The Seattle Police Department provided this public marijuana use enforcement guidance to its officers via email Wednesday night: "Until further notice, officers shall not take any enforcement action — other than to issue a verbal warning — for a violation of Initiative 502."

Thanks to a 2003 law, marijuana enforcement remains the department's lowest priority. Even before I-502 passed on Nov. 6, police rarely busted people at Hempfest, despite widespread pot use, and the city attorney here doesn't prosecute people for having small amounts of marijuana.

Officers will be advising people to take their weed inside, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.

But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.

The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.

"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress" — a non-issue, since the measures passed in Washington and Colorado don't "nullify" federal law, which federal agents remain free to enforce.

The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.

That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

Colorado's measure, as far as decriminalizing possession goes, is set to take effect by Jan. 5. That state's regulatory scheme is due to be up and running by October 2013.

___(equals)

Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

Read More..