The legalize-marijuana initiative, I-1068, lost a donor the other day. The person was ready to come through with some cash, but heard that the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington was not supporting it, and he backed away. So said Philip Dawdy, spokesman for I-1068. Dawdy noted that ACLU-WA had opposed his effort from the start, having posted this statement back in February. “The ACLU has caused us problems from the first day we filed the initiative,” he said.

That is an interesting thing, because ACLU-WA favors marijuana legalization, and has had a program to advocate it. “We think it should be fully legal. Bring it out in the open and out of the black market,” said Alison Holcomb, ACLU-WA’s drug policy director. She directed me to the group’s published statement, which criticizes I-1068 for lacking “a controlled regulatory system.”

It is true that I-1068 imposes no regulatory system. The reason, Dawdy said, is that legalization and regulation are two different subjects. If he had included both, a court might have found I-1068 a violation of the law that says an initiative must have only one subject. A court did that to Tim Eyman’s $30-tabs initiative a decade ago, and the 1068 people don’t want it to happen to them.

Dawdy said that if I-1068 passes in November, the regulatory system could be added by the Legislature in January. Indeed, there is talk of a special session before then, because the state might be short half a billion dollars in Medicaid money.

ACLU-WA’s statement says, “The ACLU isn’t willing to support an incomplete initiative in hopes that the Legislature will fix it.”

I can understand why a group of attorneys might take that position. But the ACLU statement also says, “A negative vote on the initiative would be a significant setback for our ongoing reform movement.” And that is also true.

My view is that on a big issue like this, if an individual voter likes the gist of an initiative, he should support it. Tim Eyman told me once that all initiatives are lobbying, and clearly that is true here. Don’t fuss the details. A public vote is about the idea. All the nuances about the text being “poorly written” will be forgotten after election day; if the measure fails the people who oppose the idea will claim victory, and their claim will be believed.

If you like the idea, vote yes. (And, more important right now, sign the initiative petition.)

Especially if all that is missing is regulation. People in government will fix that. Regulation is what they do. What they’re not good at is embracing new ideas. And that’s why we have initiatives.