PORT TOWNSEND — A cosponsor of Initiative 502 will talk about marijuana at 7 p.m. Thursday.
Roger Roffman will be featured at the Northwind Reading Series in the Waterman & Katz Building, 701 Water St.
The reading is free and open to the public. Donations are accepted.
Voters approved Initiative 502 in 2012, legalizing recreational marijuana for adults.
“Attitudes about marijuana are in the midst of a sea change, both in our country and in many others,” Roffman said.
“We may be on the cusp of entirely striking criminal penalties for growing or possessing the drug from the law books,” he added.
“But might a dramatically different future for cannabis be just over the horizon?”
Roffman, a University of Washington professor emeritus of social work, has published his memoir, Marijuana Nation: One Man’s Chronicle of America Getting High: From Vietnam to Legalization.
Over a 40-plus year span beginning in 1967 when he was the first to survey GIs serving in Vietnam about their use of pot, Roffman has experienced marijuana through a multi-faceted kaleidoscope.
In addition to cosponsoring I-502, he has been a casual user, a lobbyist for decriminalization and for medical marijuana and a university researcher who tested counseling approaches for adults and adolescents.
Roffman lives in Seattle. He retired from the University of Washington faculty in October 2009.
For more information, phone Bill Mawhinney at 360-437-9081.