"You go from zero legality to full legality, people are going to make some bad judgments. Regrettably they're gonna put themselves behind the wheel and regrettably we've got to arrest them," Crandall said.

The last time Ashley Weber turned her head to look to the side, it was to watch the drunk driver who had just wrecked the truck she was a passenger in walk away from the car. He’d said he was going to take her on the ride of her life, and refused to hand over the keys to the car, let her out at her house or even buckle his seatbelt. She buckled it for him. But speeding down country roads near Wiggins ended in a rollover accident, and Weber says she knew, immediately, she had broken her neck.

Frank Schnarr, Frankie's Sports Bar & Grill Owner, Welcomes Pot Smoking In Bar

OLYMPIA, Wash. Dec 10 (Reuters) - Thanks to a successful ballot initiative last month, Washington state residents can legally smoke marijuana in the privacy of their living rooms as of Thursday.

When that gets old, bar owner Frank Schnarr suggests, area stoners have another option: grab a booth at Frankie's Sports Bar & Grill in Olympia and toke up there.

New legislation in Washington state went into effect this week that legalizes for the first time in ages the possession of marijuana. Federal law still says otherwise, though, setting up the Justice Department to make some serious determinations. Even as smoking up became protected by state law in Washington starting Thursday, coast-to-coast prohibition as provided by a long-standing federal ruling remains on the books. For marijuana advocates in the Pacific Northwest, the lifting of the ban is a pretty big victory.

On Thursday, Washington became the first state to officially legalize marijuana, soon to be followed by Colorado as their new laws legalizing the drug for recreational use go into effect. A survey out Friday shows what Americans want the federal government to do about the states whose drug laws clash with national laws: Leave them alone. Fifty-one percent of Americans in the new HuffPost/YouGov poll said that in the two states that have legalized marijuana use for adults, the federal government should exempt any adults following state laws from federal drug law enforcement.