Part I: Love

In 1967, San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood was the epicenter of the Summer of Love. As the Scott McKenzie song implored, thousands of hippies—with flowers in their hair—converged on the city, looking for a stake in the counterculture phenomenon that helped define a generation.

In 2013, Washington, more specifically Seattle and King County, are on the verge of a Summer of Love of a different kind. Six months after Washington passed Referendum 74 making same-sex marriage legal in our state, the wedding bells just keep ringing: In King County, roughly 52 percent more marriage licenses were issued between December 2012 and March 2013 compared to the same period a year earlier, according to the county.

For Seattle’s Shotgun Ceremonies, a Pioneer Square chapel that specializes in fast and unique hitches, that increase has come almost exclusively in the form of same-sex marriages.

“It’s been fabulous. We’ve probably over doubled our business,” says co-owner Browen Stevenson, who opened the 800-square-foot chapel three years ago along with business partner Sara Qureshi. “It’s been extremely helpful.”

Other counties haven’t seen the same spike. In Pierce County, which rejected R-74 by a slim margin of just under 3,000 votes, 2,292 marriage licenses were issued between December 6 and May 9. Of those, according to the Pierce County Auditor’s Office, only 275 were for same-sex couples. In Thurston County, where R-74 was approved by 15,000 votes, the results have been similar: 717 marriage licenses were issued between December 2012 and April 2013, as compared to 559 over the same period a year earlier. (The Thurston County Auditor’s Office could not provide information on how many of those licenses went to same-sex couples.) In Snohomish County, where R-74 was approved by almost 20,000 votes, 1,468 marriage licenses were issued between December 2012 and April 2013, as compared to 1,192 over the same period a year earlier. (Here too, the figures for same-sex couples could not be provided.)

Meanwhile, east of the mountains in Adams County—which, by percentage, rejected R-74 by the largest margin—there has been exactly one same-sex marriage.

Back in Seattle, Stevenson says Shotgun Ceremonies performs 20 to 40 marriages a month, and since R-74 became law, at least half have been same-sex. Prior to legalization, Shotgun Ceremonies presided over plenty of civil unions, Stevenson says, but since December 2012 the same-sex-marriage business has been booming.

In part, the brisk business at Shotgun Ceremonies has been aided by shrewd marketing. To celebrate the historic change, last December Stevenson and Qureshi offered a week of free same-sex marriages. But according to the entrepreneurs, that decision had far less to do with boosting business than with simply doing the right thing for people who had long deserved the right to get hitched.

“We wanted this so badly for everyone. [A week of free same-sex marriages] was the only way we could think of. We wanted to reverse all the negativity in the wedding industry,” says Stevenson of the special. “It’s hard for me to hear people ask if we do gay weddings. . . . There are a lot of officiants that still won’t do same-sex marriages. It’s sad. It’s like, ‘Of course we do that!’ ”

As Washington is one of 12 states that have legalized same-sex marriage (a list we hope will grow), Stevenson says many Shotgun Ceremonies customers venture to Seattle from elsewhere in the country to tie the knot. She estimates that about one-third of their clientele is “out-of-towners.”

“Hopefully, America will evolve a little bit and move on and see how wonderful [same-sex marriages] are,” says Stevenson.

Truer words have never been spoken.

Until then, however, we can celebrate the Summer of Love in Seattle.

Part II: Drugs

Last year, Seattle Hempfest lacked the friendly vibe it had become known for. Instead of pot-based camaraderie and good, high times, a fierce and contentious debate raged.

Washington’s Initiative 502, which would legalize the possession of up to an ounce of pot for adults, was on the ballot but not yet law. Though legalizing marijuana had long been a goal of the Hempfest crowd, many in the community were fearful of I-502, leery of the DUI provision it contained and the power it gave the state in creating Washington’s pot marketplace.

This year, according to Hempfest Executive Director Vivian McPeak, things will be different at the festival. Though plenty of people are still skeptical of I-502 and the legalized-pot landscape it has created in Washington, McPeak says one of the goals of Hempfest 2013 is to “let some healing happen.”

“I think the community is going to come together. . . . In general, I think the community has more in common than in disagreement,” says McPeak of what he expects from this year’s Hempfest, scheduled for August 16–18 at Myrtle Edwards and Centennial Parks (and still awaiting its permit from the city). “This is the Petri dish we’re living in. I think the smart people look for a way to move forward.”

Based on the contentiousness of the I-502 debate, that might not be easy. But after six months of legalized marijuana—albeit without clarification from the feds or finalized rules from the state agency tasked with overseeing pot’s production and sale—some things are becoming clear.

In the lead-up to November’s passage of I-502, one of the greatest fears was the DUI provision the initiative contained, allowing for DUI charges for anyone found driving with over five nanograms of active THC per liter of blood in their body. Many medical-marijuana advocates argued that that provision essentially would bar medical-marijuana patients from ever getting behind the wheel.

“As a medical-marijuana patient, I will never be under five nanograms,” activist Steve Sarich declared during an I-502 debate on the University of Washington campus last October. Sarich led the “No on I-502” campaign.

“I’ve had my blood tested and I’m probably four to five times the legal impairment limit right now. That will be every medical-marijuana patient,” said Sarich, proclaiming that this unrealistic measure of impairment would wrongfully put thousands in jail and launch a new age of prohibition. “I am for legalization. . . . Unfortunately, this is not legalization. Don’t be fooled,” he warned of the initiative.

However, six months into Washington’s legal weed experiment, those fears have yet to materialize. The King County Prosecutor’s Office says only 14 DUI cases have been filed under the five-nanograms provision, while the Seattle City Attorney’s Office says it has filed exactly one case (though spokesperson Kimberly Mills says there are “several under review for possible filing”). The Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office, meanwhile, reports a total of 19 marijuana-related DUI charges so far in 2013.

Stats aside, McPeak says, “It’s too early for either camp to start waving a banner of ‘We were right’ ” about I-502’s DUI provision. Of the expected tenor of this year’s Hempfest, he adds, “I think it would be very helpful if people would just chill. . . . We disagree, but we’re all in the same camp.”

“No one has ever legalized marijuana before,” he says. “There’s no right way to do it.” E

mdriscoll@seattleweekly.com