Most Recent Posts

David Greene talks to NPR's Scott Horsley and Tamara Keith about the latest on the "fiscal cliff" negotiations between the White House and Republican congressional leaders.

Marijuana might be legal in Washington state as of 12:01 a.m. Thursday, but last month's ballot initiative that made it legal also contained a deal-sweetener for hesitant voters — a new DUI standard that may actually make life riskier for regular pot users.

The new law makes it legal for adults to possess up to 1 ounce of marijuana, but illegal for that same adult to drive if the THC content of his blood reaches 5 nanograms per milliliter.

Steve Sarich, who uses medical marijuana for back pain, says he wakes up at four to five times the legal limit. Six weeks ago, he said that if the legalization initiative passed — along with the new DUI standard — he'd either have to hire a driver, or leave Washington.

"I haven't left the state yet," he says. "But you know, I realize that I take my legal life in my hands every time I do get behind the wheel."

Sarich ran the most vocal opposition campaign to the initiative — mainly on the issue of the new blood-content limit. He's convinced that he and other regular users of medical marijuana will be stuck on the wrong side of the law.

He's right to worry, says Peter Pequin, one of Seattle's top DUI lawyers.

"It is a Pandora's box," he says.

Pequin says driving impaired by pot was already illegal, but what changes now is that pot users have to learn to think in nanograms per milliliter. Even for someone who has built up a high tolerance, Pequin's advice is simple.

"I'm telling him, do not get behind the wheel," he says. "Even if he's feeling totally fine because the mere fact of having that level in his blood and driving a car makes him a criminal."

Surprisingly, the advice from the Washington State Patrol is a mellower. Spokesman Bob Calkins says pot users should keep in mind that troopers won't be pulling people over for random blood tests.

"Regardless of whether this person has been a regular user of marijuana, may have a routine THC level in his blood of this point or that point, if he's driving OK, he's probably not going to come to our attention," Calkins says. "And if he's driving badly, he probably is going to come to our attention."

Besides the DUI question, pot users in Washington face another conundrum: Where to get it? The new law legalizes possession, but there's still no legal way for recreational users to acquire it. The law calls for the state to set up a network of licensed growers and pot stores, but that'll take at least a year assuming it's not challenged by the federal government. Marijuana is illegal under federal law.

In practice, though, pot is readily available especially in places like Seattle's University District. You could go with the dealers outside the Jack In the Box, or just walk into a medical marijuana store.

Three young guys are sipping Starbucks cups filled with mushroom tea; they plan to round off their afternoon with a bit of weed. Questions about Thursday's legalization are met with a shrug.

"Nothing really changes for medical card members. If you have your cannabis card, then you're set," says one of them. "Nothing changes. You can still go to the dispensary and get your buds."

The reality is it's easy to get medical marijuana cards for complaints like "anxiety" usually from alternative medicine clinics. Still, some obstacles to the untrammeled enjoyment of marijuana do remain in Washington. One pro-pot group was all set to hold a legalization party in a county-owned facility until officials realized it would run afoul of the state's strict ban on smoking — any kind of smoking — in public spaces.

Negotiators reached an agreement late Tuesday to end an eight-day strike that crippled the nation's largest port complex and prevented shippers from delivering billions of dollars in cargo to warehouses and distribution centers across the country, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said.

Villaraigosa emerged from the talks to make the announcement just a few hours after he had escorted in the federal mediators who had just arrived from Washington.

"The negotiating team has voted to approve a contract that they'll take to their members," Villaraigosa said, flanked by smiling negotiators, union members and the two mediators.

The deal came after days of negotiations that included all-night bargaining sessions suddenly went from a stalemate to big leaps of progress. Villaraigosa said the sides were already prepared to take a vote when the mediators arrived.

The strike began Nov. 27 when about 400 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union's local clerical workers unit walked off their jobs. The clerks had been working without a contract for more than two years.

The walkout quickly closed 10 of the ports' 14 terminals when some 10,000 dockworkers, members of the clerks' sister union, refused to cross picket lines.

At issue during the lengthy negotiations was the union's contention that terminal operators wanted to outsource future clerical jobs out of state and overseas — an allegation the shippers denied.

Shippers said they wanted the flexibility not to fill jobs that were no longer needed as clerks quit or retired. They said they promised the current clerks lifetime employment.

During the strike, both sides said salaries, vacation, pensions and other benefits were not a major issue.

The clerks, who make an average base salary of $87,000 a year, have some of the best-paying blue-collar jobs in the nation. When vacation, pension and other benefits are factored in, the employers said, their annual compensation package reached $165,000 a year.

"We know we're blessed," one of the strikers, Trinnie Thompson, said during the walkout. "We're very thankful for our jobs. We just want to keep them."

Union leaders said if future jobs were not kept at the ports the result would be another section of the U.S. economy taking a serious economic hit so that huge corporations could increase their profit margins by exploiting people in other states and countries who would be forced to work for less.

Combined, the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports handle about 44 percent of all cargo that arrives in the U.S. by sea. About $1 billion a day in merchandise, including cars from Japan and computers from China, flow past its docks.

Shuttering 10 of the ports' 14 terminals kept about $760 million a day in cargo from being delivered, according to port officials. The cargo stacked up on the docks and in adjacent rail yards or, in many cases, remained on arriving ships. Some of those ships were diverted to other ports along the West Coast.

The clerks handle such tasks as filing invoices and billing notices, arranging dock visits by customs inspectors, and ensuring that cargo moves off the dock quickly and gets where it's supposed to go.

The $1 billion a day in cargo that moves through the busy port terminals is loaded on trucks and trains that take it to warehouses and distribution centers across the country.

President Obama has warned the Syrian government not to use chemical weapons against its own people or face serious consequences. The new warning comes after the U.S. apparently detected activity at Syrian chemical weapons sites. Tom Bowman talks to Melissa Block about Syria's program and what the U.S. options might be.