I'm pretty excited to see what happens in Seattle with this, but the thing I hate most about pot is pot heads. I work really close to weed central here in Vancouver, BC near a place called the Amsterdam Cafe. I don't mind the occasional waft coming in through my 3rd floor office window, but I can't stand walking past the cafe's storefront on my way home, through the inevitable loitering cadre of obnoxious misanthropes. Hopefully this vote for decriminalization will also alleviate a bit of its stigma and relinquish it's fringe culture, for a lot of those punks I feel are not in love with pot itself, but with the fringe that surrounds it.
You're from Vancouver? I live in kits at the moment. And that is a pretty gross area, regardless. There's certainly more to that part of town than weed, unfortunately. Hopefully we'll see BC follow suit. It's a tremendous waste of resources here, perhaps more so than Washington, and would really do some good if it was not pushed under ground.
From Michigan. Been in Vancouver for just over 4 years now - West End style. On my way to permanent residency. The Amsterdam Cafe is very much a pot smokers scene - almost exclusively. Until, of course, you make your way up the back steps to where the Hells Angels conduct and manage local affairs. Then, all bets are off. I've heard to never pet their bulldog. For sure the DTES is just a few blocks away but the harder stuff doesn't typically go west of Cambie. That of course is just splitting hairs, but the micro-geography is interesting none-the-less.