I have to wonder at this Democratic-controlled Legislature. Last year, the Democratic contingent came out quite vocally in support of the Marijuana Legalization Initiative, and yet to date, not one of them has even broached the idea of legalization for the purposes of freeing up the hemp industry.
The new jobs created in the cloth/textiles, paper, food, bio-diesel and farming industries would create new revenue streams for the anemic state coffers, finally putting Washington farmers back into the position where they can make a healthy profit again (as opposed to subsidizing foreign farmers to grow it) and putting thousands to work across our beleaguered state.
It would create new employer/employee tax revenues. There would be all new industrial licensing fees, and it would put a healthy dent in our outrageous unemployment figures, with the creation of corporate/industrial jobs as well as in new state government positions in the obligatory industrial regulatory infrastructure.
Affirmative action toward the creation of jobs and new sources of state revenue, instead of continuing the status quo (nearly 10 percent of the state’s workforce praying for yet another extension of their sub-starvation wage unemployment check).
The solution to the state’s financial woes has been right in front of your eyes the whole time; the public was has just been miss-directed to the topics of recreational/medicinal uses only. A legalized hemp industry has no downside in terms of the economic recovery.
All you have to do is be able to think outside of the baggie.
Skot Pierson
Edmonds
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