Joe Mabel |
The medical marijuana industry in Washington state does not oppose legalization in the wholesale manner in which Dominic Holden, above, claims they do; they merely object to many of I-502’s provisions |
By Philip Dawdy
Special to Toke of the Town
The road to cannabis legalization is certainly proving to be an odd one in Washington State, filled with so many ironies that I’ve lost count. Here comes another set of ironies.
On April 13th, the New York Times published an op-ed by Dominic Holden, “news” editor of The Stranger. Its contents prompted me to send the following letter to the editor, which the paper decided wasn’t important enough to share with its readers. In my opinion, Holden has been writing about I-502 in a way that is both deceptive and journalistically unprofessional.
Here’s what I sent the Times:
In journalism school, I was taught that journalists should strive to avoid conflicts of interest and should always reveal them in instances where they cannot be avoided. Interesting then that in his “Smokeless in Seattle” opinion piece on April 13 in which he lambasted the medical marijuana industry for opposing a legalization initiative in Washington State, Dominic Holden did not inform readers that he used to be an employee of the ACLU of Washington.