County jail won’t store inmates’ pot

So now that marijuana is (sorta, kinda) legal, what happens if someone has some and gets arrested for something else and has go to jail? It’s a question people are asking, apparently.

Here’s an answer from Shari Ireton, spokeswoman for the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the county jail in downtown Everett.

When people are booked into the jail, any alcohol, tobacco or legally possessed pot they have cannot be held with other personal belongings such as clothes and money, she said.

“The corrections booking staff do not have the authority to distribute legally controlled substances,” she said. “Only the state liquor board or facilities licensed by the board have the authority to do that. Any such items are returned to the arresting agency.”

There’s no consensus about how to handle pot among the people who run county corrections systems around the state, either, she said.

For background on the topic, see the most recent Herald story by reporter Sharon Salyer. Here also is a story from earlier this week by the Associated Press.