Can marijuana money save education?

Washington lawmakers are asking whether marijuana can help pay for public schools.

They'll need to raise billions of dollars for education during the next session -- which starts on Monday.

The current bidding starts between $2 billion and $4 billion for enough money to make sure every school district in the state can afford smaller class sizes and well-qualified teachers.

But after years of talks, there was still no consensus among lawmakers at Friday's Associated Press legislative forum.

“If we're going to throw out a plan out there, I look at this as a 'where's the beef"?' moment,” said House member Dan Kristiansen, a Republican.

That's where marijuana might come in. Should the taxes from booming pot sales be dedicated to education?

“That's one idea where we put it into a pot, and we use it only for education,” said La Center Republican Sen. Ann Rivers.

If that's sounds familiar, many believe the State Lottery money was supposed to be for education.

“I think it's something like $140 million," said Bainbridge Island Democratic Sen. Christine Rolfes. “It's not a huge amount of money and most of that is going for the state grants for low-income kids to go to college.”

So would there be enough marijuana money to make a dent in the billions needed?

“What was it -- $732 million in revenue for the upcoming biennium?” Sen. Rivers said. “That's not small potatoes. Think about what that could buy.”

But no one thinks pot is a panacea.

“It doesn't come close, it doesn't come within a thousand yards. It doesn't come within several billion dollars of needs,” Gov. Jay Inslee said.

“There are so many things that go around and so many discussions that are occurring, maybe you'll see it, maybe you won't,” Rivers said.

Cox Media Group