WA House COG - Committee Meeting
(January 15, 2021)

Friday January 15, 2021 10:00 AM - 11:45 AM Observed
Washington State House of Representatives Logo

The Washington State House Commerce and Gaming Committee (WA House COG) considers issues relating to the regulation of commerce in alcohol, tobacco and cannabis, as well as issues relating to the regulation and oversight of gaming, including tribal compacts.​

Public Hearing

  • HB 1019 - "Allowing residential marijuana agriculture."
https://app.leg.wa.gov/committeeschedules/Home/Documents/28152

Observations

Members heard concerns from three police and prevention advocates on new legislation to allow adults to grow up to six cannabis plants in their residence, and positive remarks from all other speakers.

  • Home growing of cannabis for adults was reintroduced in the legislature with slight modifications and heard by a policy committee with new membership.
    • Adult cannabis cultivation legislation had been introduced in prior years:
    • WA House COG had notably differing membership from the 2019-2020 session: 
      • Chair Shelley Kloba
        • Former Chair Strom Peterson was assigned to lead the Housing, Human Services, and Veterans Committee in 2021.
      • Vice Chair Emily Wicks (new to committee)
      • Ranking Minority Member Drew MacEwen
      • Assistant Ranking Minority Member Eric Robertson (new to committee)
      • Representative Kelly Chambers
      • Representative Steve Kirby
      • Representative Melanie Morgan
      • Representative Brandon Vick
      • Representative Sharon Wylie (new to committee)
    • Kloba reviewed process changes for remote testimony to the legislature (audio - 3m, video).
    • Committee Counsel Peter Clodfelter provided a staff briefing on the bill which would allow Washingtonians 21 and older to produce up to six cannabis plants per adult “subject to production and possession limits and other restrictions” like a cap of 15 plants per housing unit (audio - 5m, video).
      • He indicated that the legislation would require “clear marking” of both plants and containers with more than “one ounce of usable cannabis” to include information “such as the person’s name, their date of birth, their address, as well as the planting date and harvest date of the marijuana.”
      • HB 1019 “expressly retains the right of property owners to prohibit the cultivation of cannabis by a renter,” Clodfelter explained, commenting that the new bill was similar to HB 1131 and SB 5155 in this regard. 
      • Clodfelter said a new provision in the bill was a restriction against cannabis cultivation “in a housing unit that’s used to provide early childhood education and early learning services by a family daycare provider or a foster family home.”
      • Additionally, class III civil infractions were created for cannabis gardens reported as “readily smelled from a public place or the private property of another housing unit” or for plants “visible in the ordinary public view.” He added that the definition of public view didn’t include “any elevating devices, visual aides, or manned or unmanned aircraft.”
      • Clodfelter said another new feature of the proposed law would prohibit the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) “from investigating or enforcing compliance with the new home grow authorization requirements” which meant “there’d be no enforcement by the Liquor and Cannabis Board.”
      • Clodfelter explained that the legislation would limit “seizure and forfeiture of real property” as well as when such property could be seized.
      • The legislation would add a “new definition of the term ‘commercial activity’” to Washington’s Controlled Substance Act, he reported.
      • Vick asked how the law would compare to home brewing of alcohol (audio - 1m, video).
    • Kloba introduced the bill as its primary sponsor, thanking MacEwen and the bill’s bipartisan co-sponsors. She remarked that she’d “seen the momentum for this idea build." She acknowledged that I-502 had intended “a very strong regulatory framework” that included disrupting the illicit market, decreasing youth access, “and to start to undo the harms that were borne disproportionately by our communities of color as a result of the failed war on drugs.” Kloba argued that “at the time perhaps the ability to grow cannabis at home was outside the comfort zone” of most voters while “in the years since, we have seen 35 other states follow our lead and take some steps to legalize cannabis, or at least decriminalize it.” Pointing out that “growing cannabis at home is now allowed in ten different states and the District of Columbia” she reported that “it has become a fairly standard part of policies that states enact with regard to their cannabis legalization efforts.” After almost a decade to “mature this industry,” Kloba said the public had “experienced legalized cannabis in practice” and many concerns around the plant “have not materialized” leaving the criminalization of small gardens an “antiquated policy.” She noted that citizens could cultivate “your own hops and barley, and brew your own beer” or grow grapes “and make wine out of them.” Kloba believed the time had come for adults interested in growing cannabis be “allowed to do so in reasonable quantities with common sense safeguards in place” (audio - 4m, video).
  • Opponents recognized that changes to the legislation limiting cannabis from view, addressing odors, and prohibiting growth in homes with child-focused businesses had increased the proposal’s viability compared to past years - but remained concerned.
    • James McMahan, Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC) Policy Director (audio - 3m, video). McMahan said he was “unfortunately here to testify opposed to this bill.” Though he recognized “the arguments, and the statements, and the positions, and experiences” of supporters, he said “our members, candidly, are not comfortable with the public safety aspects” arising from the legislation. McMahan said that law enforcement had seen “very dangerous and violent” home invasions around cannabis plants “even while home grows of marijuana are not lawful in this state.” He also conveyed “significant concerns over diversion of home grown marijuana into the illicit market.” McMahan added his organization was also worried that "exposure to children" was too great though he conceded equivalent exposure “occurs daily, frankly, in many households, relating to alcohol.” He asserted that HB 1019 was “inconsistent and contrary to the reasons why we understand the voters enacted initiative 502.” Lastly, to set “expectations [about] our ability to do this,” McMahan said there’d be no “realistic and proactive enforcement by our officers relating to the limitations and provisions of this act” absent being invited into a residence or getting “a warrant under probable cause standards which we think is going to be fairly rare.”
      • Morgan stated that police were expected “to respond to robberies of TVs, of anything inside my house” and that potential theft of plants would be “part of your purview anyway,” which McMahan agreed with. As for child exposure to cannabis, “we allow drinking in the home, we allow smoking in the home, we allow home brewing” and other risky hobbies, she observed. “What I hear you say to me,” Morgan commented, “is that only people who can afford a license” can participate “in this industry.” She asked that law enforcement work with policy makers to find “ways that people, lay people” can participate in cannabis agriculture without becoming a licensee (audio - 2m, video).
      • Chambers asked about “the value of a plant.” Though McMahan was uncertain, Wicks contributed that she’d seen research suggesting “five plants would cost about” $1,000 (audio - 1m, video).
        • Morgan asked for “clarification on Representative Chamber’s question” and whether it was the value of an unharvested plant, or the “street value after you get all the plants and stuff ready to go.” Chambers said she was asking about the value of plants “ready to be harvested.” Morgan suggested the plant value was higher due to constraints on cultivation (audio - 1m, video).
      • Wicks asked if civil infractions for visibility of cannabis gardens could impact the chance of robbery. McMahan thanked Kloba and HB 1019 cosponsors for including the infractions, even though “it doesn’t get us to the position of being comfortable with this notion, it certainly makes it better” and could help "reducing and mitigating some of those fears" (audio - 1m, video).
      • Compare McMahan’s testimony in 2019 and 2020.
    • Jesse Jimenez, Prevent Coalition Coordinator (audio - 3m, video). Jimenez said that he worked for Educational Service District 112 (ESD 112) and the coalition he helped coordinate covered several legislative districts and rural communities. He was “gravely concerned about the unintended consequences” of the legislation, and his group was particularly critical of the “lack of ability for local law enforcement and other entities to actually enforce what’s being proposed.” Jimenez believed that with no registration or licensing, adults would have no “training or other safeguards” compared to commercial licensees. Additionally, he argued that police ability to address “the risk of youth substance use” would be diminished by WSLCB having “no authority or responsibility to investigate.” In effect, Jimenez found, the bill “language actually removes the ability for the experts at the Liquor and Cannabis Board to protect public health.” He said the coalition didn’t want an “environment where adults are freely growing, producing, and processing marijuana at home without any training or standardization.” Jimenez reported that the current regulations around cannabis made it available to adults “without increasing youth marijuana use because” of WSLCB regulation. He concluded that HB 1019 would “put our youth at risk.”
    • Seth Dawson, Washington Association for Substance Abuse and Violence Prevention (WASAVP) Lobbyist (audio - 4m, video). Dawson began by saying he was “reluctantly in opposition to this bill” and had submitted detailed written comments to the committee. He allowed that the policy discussion for home grows had focused on adults “and our view, of course, focuses more on youth.” Dawson was thankful for “the provisions regarding child protection” but remained concerned about increased youth access to cannabis. WASAVP members had “particular heartburn” over any proposals “that expand marijuana access or promotion” or decrease “perception of harm.” He called attention to a 2020 survey by Canadian health officials which he said showed “a number of different health impacts that are negative that are associated with home grows.” Dawson believed I-502 was passed by voters “because it was advocated in terms of a very tightly regulated commercial market” and worried about a lack of enforcement measures “especially when we get to issues such as potency.” The initiative had included funding for substance abuse prevention research which Dawson said was "swept away" by lawmakers as part of a 2015 bipartisan budget deal, leaving WASAVP concerned “with efforts to expand the initiative at the same time we’ve taken away” some prevention dollars. Dawson said it was possible for WASAVP to be “less oppositional” to HB 1019 if “we could couple this with restoring at least some of the prevention funding that was promised.”
      • Morgan spoke up to thank Dawson for “balancing us out.” As a mother of four children, she “always want[ed] to protect them as well, but the reality is that we have only legislated that firearms should be locked up” and not legal intoxicants like alcohol or tobacco. Morgan stated, “we have to provide safety for adolescents in everything in our homes” and those decisions were up to “the parents in that home” (audio - 2m, video).
      • See Dawson’s testimony on adult home cultivation from February 2020 and read WASAVP’s written opposition to the predecessor bill.
  • A wide range of stakeholders spoke to the bill’s merits, including a former prosecuting attorney from Colorado and an economist from Washington State University (WSU).
    • John Kingsbury, Homegrow Washington Co-Founder (audio - 4m, video). Kingsbury began by thanking the committee and stating that he would be “addressing the concerns that we’ve heard over the years in regard to this topic.”
      • He asked committee members to actively question “does this concern describe actual activity that would be legalized by this bill, or is it describing something else.” He said there’d been “conflation” of “legalizing six plant, non-commercial home gardens” with public safety concerns from large-scale illicit grows. Kingsbury believed objections often centered on “what bad activity could it lead to” yet legal home growing in “thirteen other states and Washington D.C.” meant problems should already be demonstrable. “Crime hasn’t exploded in states that allow home growing,” he said, “and tax revenues have not suffered.”
      • Kingsbury explained that with “reasonable suspicion of illegal activity” law enforcement could secure a warrant since “that system appears to be working well.” He commented that odor control and mitigation was easily done with six plants whereas it was “nearly impossible” for gardens of a hundred plants.
      • Kingsbury said as a patient, growing a few plants cost him “$3 per gram plus a whole lot of work” while his neighbor could find a better selection in the state’s retail stores. In the end, he was only likely to consume the harvest himself, or give some to his neighbor “to brag about what a good job I’ve done.” Confident few people would forego cannabis shops, Kingsbury summarized his interest in cultivation as being “challenging and rewarding, and when I grow it for myself I know what went into producing it. And that is a right I would like to have.”
      • Check out Kingsbury’s testimony on home grow legislation in 2019 and 2020.
    • Lara Kaminsky, The Cannabis Alliance Government Affairs Liaison (audio - 3m, video). Kaminsky said her organization was in favor of the bill as “the time has come for Washington state to catch up with other states.”
      • She reported that of “15 fully legal states only two do not have legal recreational home grow,” Washington and Illinois. Kaminsky described the bill as bringing Washington “into harmony with other legal states” as opposed to being “in front of this issue.”
      • The Cannabis Alliance members supported the bill in the hopes it would help “mature” consumers and the industry. She compared potential outcomes to “what occurred in the beer industry” where market consolidation had resulted in “limited variety.” That trend was reversed by “the growth of home brewers and microbrewers” which increased demand for variety and “attracted new, more educated consumers into the market.” Kaminsky told the committee that she believed a similar trend was possible for cannabis consumers who wanted to “become more interested in the plant, its cultivation, and its quality” on a path towards becoming “more discerning.”
    • Timothy Nadreau, WSU Research Faculty (audio - 3m, video). Nadreau said that he worked for the university's “economic IMPACT Center” and was formally “indifferent to the passage of this bill, but that being said, the economics of this piece of legislation have been fascinating to study.”
      • Nadreau told lawmakers he’d looked at what “portion of the state’s 2020 gross state product (GSP) could rightly be attributed to the cannabis sector” as well as “the range of marijuana excise taxes likely to be collected if HB 1019 were in effect during 2021.” His findings were that “the cannabis sector was responsible for $1.8 billion of Washington’s” 2020 GSP with “direct cannabis excise tax collections” for the year being $468.5 million. After counting other areas like property and corporate taxes, or taxes paid by employees, Nadreau determined the cannabis industry provided approximately “$883 million of the state’s total tax collection” in 2020.
      • “Excise tax collection from the cannabis sector are rising faster than any other selective sales tax line item,” Nadreau reported, “and there’s every reason to believe that that trend will continue in 2021.”
      • If home cultivation of cannabis were allowed in 2021, “excise taxes would still be projected to grow” to around $520 million, he stated. Even with “conservative assumptions,” Nadreau estimated cannabis sector growth would be “11% higher than what was collected last year.” The more “optimistic” projections he found were for $585 million in revenue for a growth of “about 25% higher than what was collected last year” he said. In all, Nadreau testified that there was “minimal downside risk from legalization of home production, and large potential economic returns.”
      • "Network externalities" were an economic phenomenon that Nadreau said could “increase the size of the market overall” similar to Kaminsky’s comparison to the beer industry. He added that his entire research on 2020 Contributions of the Washington Cannabis Sector was available online.
    • Stanley Garnett, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck Partner (audio - 5m, video). Garnett called HB 1019 “very prudent and thoughtful” and supported its passage as a former elected district attorney in Boulder County, serving from 2009 to 2018 and past president of the Colorado District Attorneys' Council (CDAC).
      • He said there were “urban legends” about Colorado's 2000 medical cannabis law which permitted “a fair amount of home grow” to supply patients before an “explosion” in medical dispensaries starting in 2008.
      • Though he had opposed legalization for medical and recreational use, Garnett reported that his “firm conviction...is that Colorado’s experiment is working. We made some mistakes early that we’ve corrected” and he wanted to share the view of “most thoughtful law enforcement people in Colorado...that legalization and regulation had made Colorado safer” and was “working overall.”
      • He said that an earlier 99 plant limit for patients “did become a problem" but lawmakers had “since scaled that back dramatically” and contemporary medical cannabis laws allowed patients to grow six plants. Garnett considered HB 1019 to have “thoughtful and careful limitation” which would make it “very easy for law enforcement and regulatory agencies to monitor and enforce this.”
      • Garnett said that dealing with cannabis odor was a common concern of Colorado communities and that the bill’s language was smart “and very appropriate.” 
      • Garnett was also supportive of landlords retaining “the choice of whether to permit their tenants to grow marijuana in their properties.” When municipal governments were given “enough local control over how to manage this,” Garnett said, Colorado officials found “we could make it work long term.”
      • Vick asked how state law enforcement viewed adult cultivation as compared to home brewing and asked about Garnett’s experience prosecuting those offenses. Garnett said Boulder had a large student population leading to a variety of cannabis, alcohol, and other substance offenses. He didn’t believe that “blanket prohibitions" worked and that it was preferable to “permit a certain amount and then you have to have regulations that can be enforced.” He said home brewing had not been a noticeable problem for his office while cannabis garden complaints “about the smell, about other issues” were reported to law enforcement and treated as “a manageable issue” (audio - 2m, video).
      • Morgan asked about equity in cannabis home grow enforcement and whether there were demographic data on violations. She was also interested in whether cultivation regulation had impacted housing policy, as giving landlords control over tenants' gardens was “starting to be inequitable that not everybody will have the ability to participate.” Garnett conceded that Colorado officials “did not get out ahead” of social justice issues and voters passed constitutional amendments for cannabis without any “framework for regulation, and control, and for enforcement” resulting in “rigidity” that made changing the law difficult. While he didn’t have statistics on enforcement, he promised to check with the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division and noted he’d discussed home cultivation with Director Jim Burack who told him “the statistics do not show a disproportionate enforcement in different communities” (audio - 3m, video).
      • Chambers wanted to know about complaint driven enforcement. Garnett answered that “in the early days a lot of it was law enforcement initiated” particularly when Colorado was “the one state that had any level of legalization.” Over time, law enforcement had moved away from scrutinizing plant counts, he explained, in favor of policing harder drugs and letting cannabis investigations be complaint driven. It was treated similarly to “having neighbors whose dogs bark all the time” as a “zoning or planning department concern,” Garnett said (audio - 2m, video).
    • Danica Noble, NORML Women of Washington Director (audio - 4m, video, written comments). Noble lent her support to the bill drawing on her experience as the Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) Antitrust, Consumer Protection, and Unfair Business Practices Section Chair and Cannabis Law Section Co-Founder.
      • Noble noted home growing led to greater access as some counties and cities banned licensed cannabis businesses. The bill was less about rights as consumers, Noble reasoned, and more about “rights as citizens.”
      • The failed drug war remained the key driver for her group’s support, she said. The policy failed to “achieve its ends,” was conceived under “racist stereotypes,” and had been incredibly costly in Noble’s estimation - especially for communities of color which suffered disproportionate policing of drug laws. Maintaining prohibition of small scale cultivation meant continued unequal enforcement, she argued, as evidenced by continuing disparities in cannabis arrests in Washington. “As long as we keep home grow illegal it will be disproportionately borne by communities that have already borne this failed policy,” Noble said. She added that while Illinois didn’t legalize adult cultivation, it was a civil infraction there, while in Washington “it remains a felony.”
      • Check out Noble’s remarks from the 2019 and 2020 hearings on home grow legislation.
    • Lukas Hunter, Harmony Farms Director of Compliance (audio - 3m, video, written comments). Hunter told lawmakers he was in favor of the legislation and that Harmony Farms viewed it as “a great way to normalize the rights of Washingtonians.” He was concerned about adults’ access to “seeds, clones, or plants” and asked that the bill include provisions for the cannabis industry to sell these items equivalent to what was allowed for medical cannabis patients already. He called this “a clean way” for patients and medical cooperatives to get cannabis plants, suggesting that including this with home growing would remove “any form of illicit market that could be formed.” He noted that for Chamber’s question about the value of plants, cannabis clone and “pre-flowering” plants sold for between $15 and $70.
    • Don Skakie, Washington Homegrow Co-Founder (audio - 5m, video). Skakie said his group was made up of “private citizens who just want to grow a few plants of something that we sell like beer.”
      • He told Vick that he’d heard from WSLCB Chief of Enforcement and Education Justin Nordhorn that officers fielded calls "a couple of times a year" about home brewing, mostly finding it was “within limit.”
      • As for the value of mature cannabis, he said that “this bill does not provide for any sales” and encouraged committee members to watch a video from Homegrow Washington for an example of a “typical home grow.” Skakie said that most new growers would be “inexperienced” horticulturalists who could expect “maybe two or three ounces a plant” while continuing to shop in retail stores “because of variety.” He added that there was “a very narrow window at harvest time” where the plants were mature enough to be harvested and valuable, but “you can’t just take it off the plant and smoke it.” Moreover, allowing adults to grow cannabis would lead to a general public “less likely” to view cannabis plants as targets for robbery, he remarked.
      • He explained that he was “a landlord that would allow this” and found that “if you give people a good law to follow, that’s easy to enforce and easy to understand” then compliance with the rules would be higher. Skakie acknowledged there would be complaints, but neighbors may be more apt to mediate disagreements. For complaints, “this is part of law enforcement now,” Skakie indicated, and that while he supported legal sales of seed or cannabis clones, it was “a separate part of law” from adults’ right to grow.
      • Check out Skakie’s 2019 and 2020 testimony on home grow legislation.
    • Bailey Hirschburg, Washington chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (WA NORML, audio - 5m, video, written comments). Hirschburg said that before his role with WA NORML and Cannabis Observer he was a volunteer organizer with I-502 which was “a new approach, not a final answer to cannabis policymaking.”
      • During the campaign, “we heard many more complaints that [home cultivation] was not included” as opposed to “people saying that they liked the initiative” because home growing was left out.
      • He suggested that parents were already “expected to maintain any number of dangerous items” in a residence, calling cactuses one example of a potentially dangerous plant grown in homes which did not entail training or state licensure. “I don’t see why that has to be expected for cannabis,” Hirschburg commented, except that “there’s been the presumption that cannabis consuming adults won’t behave responsibly.” He said this had been “implied in the past” and that aside from being “pretty insulting” to consumers he wasn’t aware of evidence justifying it.
      • Hirschburg added that by passing HB 1019, “we’re expecting law enforcement to focus on large, criminally-connected grows, and those are more difficult cases than simply being able to say ‘we saw a plant, it’s in a home, it must be a crime.’” He said police in Washington already exercised discretion around cannabis cultivation investigations, shying away from investigating small gardens. “We should formalize this informal practice,” he said, as it would “lead to more significant arrests” even if there were fewer cases “overall.”
      • Hirschubrg also didn’t appreciate “groups that were opposed to the initiative,” like WASAVP and WASPC, “trying to tell us what the intent of voters was. I don’t think they have that great an idea.”
      • Additionally, there was a “constitutional issue” relating to a “clear privacy clause” in Article 1, Section 7 of the Washington State Constitution, Hirschburg alleged, leaving him doubtful that policing this behavior was “warranted, or necessary, or really constitutional.”
      • Hirschburg spoke to equity concerns briefly, saying that the subject wasn’t emphasized “enough” in the original campaign. He was concerned that cultivation, even “at this small scale” was still being “disproportionately enforced against communities of color.” Hirschburg closed by saying that “one of the only ways to address” inequitable policing was through “better policies that lead to rational enforcement.”
      • Read Hirschburg’s 2019 and 2020 testimony on home grow legislation.
    • Before Kloba adjourned the meeting, Wicks identified people who had signed up to testify “but we did not see them in the attendee list” (audio - 2m, video): 

Written testimony submitted regarding HB 1019, a bill dealing with adult cannabis cultivation, revealed a large amount of encouraging feedback and a couple of dissenting critiques.

Here are some observations from the Friday January 15th Washington State House Commerce and Gaming Committee (WA House COG) meeting.

  • Changes to the way citizens can sign in or provide written testimony on legislation have impacted the availability of public input on bills, and some positions on adult cannabis agriculture were submitted in the day after the hearing.
    • Prior to the implementation of remote legislative activity due to the coronavirus pandemic, testimony in legislative committee meetings was almost always limited to individuals present at the legislature in Olympia who signed in positions on bills and asked to testify or noted availability for questions. While the Senate made a little-used remote testimony program permanent in 2019, visibility into who was signed in was limited to those at the hearing, users on the capitol campus network, and subsequent public records requestors.
    • Here’s how to remotely sign up to testify or register a pro/con/other position.
      • On Cannabis Observer, look for the link labeled Committee Sign In – Remote Testimony at the bottom of legislative event screens.
      • Click on the chamber where the bill is being heard.
      • Use the ‘Committee: Please Select’ drop down box.
      • Then, select a date and time from the ‘Meetings: Please Select’ drop down box.
    • In addition to signing in or testifying remotely in 2021, committees also accepted written testimony sent to the entire committee and staff for inclusion in a bill’s legislative record.
      • After selecting a committee meeting, bills on the agenda will be displayed.
      • Select legislation and then ‘Select type of testimony’ which includes an option to provide written testimony.
      • It’s Cannabis Observer’s understanding that written testimony may be provided up to 24 hours after the start of a public hearing.
    • Just below that is a box labeled ‘See who has signed in for this agenda item.’ Selecting this option will show a list of those who have signed in to speak or registered a position on the bill.
      • This information is publicly available leading up to a hearing without having to register or sign in. The option is removed prior to a bill’s hearing, but precisely when seems to be inconsistent or dependent on committee staff action.
    • The January 15th observation of the public hearing for HB 1019 (“Allowing residential marijuana agriculture.”), several people testified and Vice Chair Emily Wicks indicated had signed in at the time of the hearing. Materials from a public records request listed all who signed in as well as all written testimony submitted.
    • The committee passed HB 1019 on January 22nd before it was assigned to the Washington State House Appropriations Committee (WA House APP). Though the bill’s original fiscal note was $0, an amendment resulted in a revised fiscal note in advance of a fiscal committee public hearing scheduled for February 9th.
  • Like spoken testimony, written comments and sign ins overwhelmingly supported the bill, while one person was neither in favor nor against HB 1019’s current language.
    • See in person testimony supporting the bill.
    • Marcus Bailey, Honey Bee Acres Microfarm, described how he “moved to Washington State 16 years ago to learn how to grow my own medicine” and earned “a legal income with medical dispensaries back in the day.” Supportive of the bill, he’d “found seeds in recreational packaging” and suggested the state had “many places to obtain traceable plant materials” for adult growers.
    • Patricia Colvin, Beggs n Achin, testified that purchase of “marijuana for medicinal purposes, even with a prescription, is left entirely at the expense of the patient, and can be prohibitively expensive” and that wider home grow rights “can be a big step toward enabling patients to get their medicine that would otherwise be unable to do so.”
      • She shared family members' health struggles around accessing medical cannabis, admitting “none of these people are financially able to afford the medicine realistically.”
        • SB 5004, “Providing a tax exemption for medical marijuana patients,” would lift the 37% excise tax burden from registered patients. The bill was heard on January 18th and scheduled for an executive session in the Washington State Senate Ways and Means Committee (WA Senate WM) on Thursday February 11th.
      • Colvin believed the state was “long past the days of treating this substance in the same manner as heroin. We brew beer at home, and children can potentially have access to that. Yet alcohol is responsible for violence, chemical dependency, diabetes, liver failure, and crime.”
      • She added that “home growers aren't as skilled” as commercial producers and wouldn’t “get a giant plant, whereas a professional will. Tax dollars will keep coming as much as ever, even after this bill is passed.” 
    • Michael Dare testified that cigarettes were “toxic and I can buy enough of them to kill myself and everyone I know” and that alcohol was “toxic and I can buy enough to drown a horse.” Arguing cannabis wasn’t lethally toxic, he wrote that it “makes absolutely no sense” for him to be able to “only buy an ounce and I can't grow it” instead of the right to “grow marijuana without any limits whatsoever.”
    • Ramsey Doudar, Patients and Users for Reasonable Policy (PURP) Founding Member, wrote committee members that while “being one of the first two states to legalize,” the State created “a regulated marijuana economy but continues to disallow personal cultivation.”
      • Doudar stated, “Bills similar to this one have been introduced multiple times since initiative 502 went into effect 6 years ago, and they stalled because home grows have been unfairly viewed as a ‘low priority.’”
      • He went on to tell lawmakers, “I implore you to prioritize and implement HB 1019 because it will have a subtle but important effect on COVID-related issues” like maintaining “adequate social distancing protocols when visiting a brick and mortar cannabis dispensary, and considering cannabis delivery is still illegal, depriving your constituents of the legal right to cultivate their own cannabis puts them at risk” by limiting them to “being exposed at a physical [but essential] business or being an outright criminal.”
      • Doudar mentioned that the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) had been directed “to study regulatory structures for home grows.” He noted opponents’ “only valid concern is ‘increased youth access’ to cannabis” and asked legislators to consider “the fact that we as a state trust adults to safely store firearms, alcohol, pharmaceuticals, nicotine products, knives, laundry detergent pods, drain cleaner, and other household poisons where their children” couldn’t get at them.
    • Jeff Doughty, Capitol Analysis CEO and Chemistry Manager, wrote that as “the owner of an accredited cannabis testing laboratory” he could “see why the patient community does not trust the recreational market, and have made many presentations as to why the label on the package in retail does not match the product contained therein.” Looking ahead “as we transition to [the Washington State] Department of Ecology managing lab accreditations, as a member of the steering committee of the Cannabis Science Task Force” he was convinced that “homegrow is essential to a true cannabis legalization scheme.” The policy gave cultivators “the ability to know the source of their medicine and how the plant has been cared for. This bill will help to mitigate the lack of trust in the cannabis consumers, in that they will then control, if they desire, their own supply chain.”
    • Ezra Eickmeyer, Producers NW Lobbyist, relayed that he was “supportive of this legislation. We would like to recommend an amendment clarifying that consumers are allowed to buy clones from both retailers and producer/processors, however, to clarify how people are supposed to get access to their starts or seeds.” He included that sizing “limitations on plants could help ensure that flowering plants are not sold to the public.”
    • Ian Eisenberg, Uncle Ike's Owner, informed lawmakers that he owned “5 cannabis stores and have a fair understanding of the market. I see no downside to allow individuals the right to grow a small amount of cannabis.” He did “not feel it will [affect] the state's taxes or create a public safety issue.”
    • Francis Fauls, Evergreen GroPro LLC, wrote that he’d “strongly support passage of HB 1019.”
    • Richard Freeman asked that the committee “write and pass on some sensible legislation that respects our rights as intelligent, responsible adults and citizens to grow a few cannabis plants for our own use and consumption.” He stated that it made “sense on so many levels, but especially from a perspective of recognizing freedom from interference in everyday life, a basic American value.” The bill “also makes sense on an economic level” since anyone choosing “to grow will require supplies, which they will need to pay for, and that money will cycle through communities.”
    • Matthew Friedlander, Skagit Organics Founder, communicated that he personally supported the bill “as does my licensed cannabis company Skagit Organics. As a company we are not concerned about the financial impact and as a citizen I believe we should have a right to grow cannabis at our home without fear of prosecution.”
    • Betty Frizzell, Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP), explained her experience “as a resident of Washington State and as a former police chief” as well as a member of LEAP, “a nonprofit group of police, prosecutors, judges, and other criminal justice professionals who speak from firsthand experience on how we can strengthen public safety by building police-community cooperation.”
      • As a law enforcement officer, she’d been “taught to make an arrest when someone was violating the law. When I arrested someone for growing a marijuana plant in their home, I knew that they did not pose a threat to public safety, but I was not taught to consider the long-term societal impact of arresting that person.” In time, she “came to understand that this law I had to enforce was actually making people lose trust in my role as a public servant.”
      • Following Frizzell’s “long career in law enforcement, I have seen the consequences play out, damaging police-community relations and public safety overall” by arresting people “safely growing marijuana at home.” She continued that “quite simply, this particular law is nonsensical. When police relationships with community members deteriorate, policework becomes more challenging.” She wrote when “detectives knock on doors to find witnesses of serious crime, people will not open their door if they have a marijuana plant inside, or if they distrust police because they know someone who has been arrested for a marijuana plant. Our ability to protect the community depends on people opening their doors.” 
      • Furthermore, “prohibition on growing marijuana at home is also needlessly bringing more people into the justice system” which leaves them “branded as a criminal when they apply for a job, professional license, housing, benefits, or a college scholarship or loan...We cannot pretend that one in four Washingtonians is so irredeemable that they must be branded with a lifetime mark of criminality,” Frizzell commented. She concluded that “we need to prioritize the crimes with victims. As an officer, I focused on sexual assault cases and other serious violent crimes...Policing is not going to solve our drug problem.”
      • Frizzell also indicated the bill could “help people who live far from dispensaries or have a physical disability that limits their mobility...a simple opportunity to help stabilize our communities and improve trust in our justice system at pivotal time.”
      • See Frizzell’s testimony on prior home grow legislation in 2020.
    • Steven Hadley, Seattle HEMPFEST, stated that “other states with adult cannabis use have homegrow. Crime, addiction, death, juvenile use, has not increased.” He asked the committee to permit “Washingtonians this same freedom.”
    • George Howard wrote that he was a “medical marijuana user and feel better off growing my own plants.” Additionally, the bill stood to “create a ton of jobs,” he stated.
    • Jim MacRae, Straight Line Analytics Founder, wrote that he “would prefer that the bill use the term ‘cannabis’ in place of the racially-loaded term ‘marijuana’, if possible.” As a former medical patient, he conveyed that the Washington State Department of Health (WA DOH) patient “registry repelled me on principle” due to his understanding that a “contract for the creation of the registry database” included a requirement that “a dedicated report was to be created from the PATIENT registry for quarterly transmission to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) of the Federal Government.”
      • MacRae didn’t find the state’s legal market met his needs. He had a “lack of trust in the quality and safety of the products currently available” due to his involvement in Ike’s OK program and having “analyzed the first two years of data produced by the WSDA/WSLCB joint cannabis pesticide testing effort.” He wrote that a “million-plus adult recreational cannabis consumers in Washington today are routinely being exposed to pesticides at levels that would be considered [quality assurance] failures were the product to be tested for pesticides.”
      • Having also made his own wine, MacRae had found “produced commercial wines are much better than what I was able to produce and the result did not justify my effort.” Though he had “not grown cannabis in Washington, as it is illegal for me to do so under state law. I look forward to being able to try my hand at growing cannabis one day” and that if the bill passed into law he’d “grow 1 crop each year, using the sun as the primary (sole) source of light.”
      • Furthermore, if “WSLCB ever see fit to require testing the cannabis it regulates for pesticides, the likelihood that I would continue to grow this annual plant into the future would decrease” and while MacRae would “like to see a limit higher than that provided in HB-1019, but a limit of six is infinitely better than a limit of zero.”
    • David Mesford wrote that “If my neighbors can produce their own alcohol I should be able to produce my own cannabis.”
    • Lee Newbury wrote that he favored adult cultivation since the “retail market is full of mass produced low quality cannabis. The citizens of Washington deserve to be able to provide for themselves.” Beyond parity with home brewing, he noted the “quality I was able to grow and/or obtain through medical dispensaries prior to I-502 was far superior at better pricing compared to what I currently find at the local cannabis stores.” Newbury backed “allowing folks to provide for themselves rather than just using cannabis as a tax revenue source.”
    • John Novak signed in as “Other,” neither in favor of, nor opposed to, the bill as written. He wrote that although he did “support this bill,” he had “serious concerns of public safety when it comes to some of the language as my concerns were not addressed in this new version of the bill.”
      • “Please fix the fatal flaw in the forfeiture section (Section 2, Page 7, line 28) that sets the commercial limit at 5 or more plants or a pound or more marijuana. I am requesting that you raise those numbers, not make an exception to them as the amounts below represent personal amounts already.” He stated that the exception “also forces every county superior Court to establish new forfeiture precedence” which meant “people will be raided and have their property seized,” before officials “hit you with criminal charges.”
        • In an executive session for HB 1019 on January 22nd, WA House COG Chair Shelly Kloba, the bill sponsor, offered amendment H 0516.1 which changed section two of the bill by raising a threshold for seizure and forfeiture of property.
      • Novak advised lawmakers to increase “the numbers and mandate preponderance of evidence must include proof of a controlled purchase.” He described this as “changing the parameters a bit, leaving the major fixes to the forfeiture laws for a full forfeiture reform bill.” Additionally, labeling “requirements in section 1 must be removed as it creates a preponderance of evidence paper trail in Federal law for commercial activity,” which Novak cautioned was akin to “a catch 22 between state and federal laws.”
      • See Novak’s testimony on prior Senate and House home cultivation legislation from 2019.
    • Crystal Oliver, Washington SunGrowers Industry Association (WSIA) Executive Director, wrote that “Passage of this legislation would comport Washington law with those of the other adult use states” and since adults “can already brew their own beer and make their own wine” cannabis merited “this same privilege.” 
    • Shane Schrader supported “legalization of being able to grow a limited number of [cannabis] plants at home.”
    • Micah Sherman, WSIA Board Member, communicated that the bill was “the strongest yet” and would “get Washington state on the same page as other legal states and this is one area where we need to catch up. Not having the ability to legally produce a small amount of a product that is now readily available for purchase is not serving anyone's interests.” He wrote that having personal cultivation “still illegal is harmful to our pursuit of justice under the law due to the disproportionate effect on people of color as a result of this continued prohibition.”Sherman was a ”licensed commercial cannabis farmer” who did not “believe this bill will substantially impact our industry, and even if it did it would still be the right thing to do.”
    • Phillip Singleton, FMS Global Strategies and Washington Build Back Black Alliance (WBBBA), conveyed that WBBBA was “proud to support HB 1019” finding the bill to be “a good step to ensuring that residents of Washington state can grow their medical prescription(s) without having to worry about local law enforcement confiscating their medication.” He credited Kloba for “meeting with our team to ensure that communities of color were accounted for in this process.”
    • Don Skakie, Homegrow Washington Co-Founder, reiterated several points in favor of the bill he’d made during his spoken testimony (audio - 5m, video).
    • Shawnna Stafford found retail cannabis was “not affordable to many who would choose for botanical medicinal purposes.” Stafford also wanted seizure and forfeiture to “be stricken from the bill's language.”
    • Brian Stone, wrote that “As the first State to de-regulate Cannabis for personal use, our citizens deserve this CIVIL LIBERTY.”
      • He stated that it was “conclusively proven that personal cultivation does not significantly affect the retail market” since the “loss of tax revenue from Cannabis sales will be more than replaced by the tax on the sale of expensive grow equipment.”
      • HB 1019 could be “of benefit to citizens with medium to minor health issues that can be mitigated with Cannabis, but who might not qualify for the more restrictive qualifying conditions presently allowed,” Stone remarked. He urged lawmakers to lead “in the effort to normalize Cannabis consumption” and support legislation that “will go a long way to correcting this deficiency in our law.”
    • Lisa Vos wrote that “We need to decriminalize growing our own just as we do any garden.”
    • Carly Wolf, National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) State Policies Coordinator, testified “in favor of the advancement of House Bill 1019” because “NORML believes that adults should have this legal option as an alternative to solely purchasing cannabis from a licensed retail outlet.”
      • Wolf stated that “many consumers prefer specific strains...Permitting consumers the option to produce these specific strains at home assures that they will have an uninterrupted and cost-effective supply of cannabis that is best suited to their own particular interests.” She added that home grow would assist “those who do not live within a reasonable distance of a retail outlet, or those who may not be able to afford cannabis available at retail outlets, from purchasing from the illicit market.”
      • Wolf informed the committee that HB 1019 “would comport Washington law with those of the other states that have enacted policies regulating the adult use of marijuana -- 13 out of 15 of which allow adults to grow limited quantities of cannabis in private. None of these jurisdictions have ever repealed their home-grow laws, and these regulations have not created any tangible public safety risk.”
      • She closed by comparing adult cannabis cultivation “with the state’s alcohol regulations...citizens can brew their own beer and make their own wine for personal consumption, and it is consistent with this policy to similarly permit personal cultivation of cannabis.”
      • See posts from Wolf on the NORML blog.
    • Oleg Zharsky told the committee that “this will be very important for medical patients and won’t get in the way of cannabis retail revenue.”
    • Pro Sign ins not announced in the hearing:
  • Two people wrote testimony critical of the bill and three people signed in against the measure without providing comments.
    • See in person testimony against the bill.
    • Rob Huss, Washington State Patrol (WSP) Investigative Services BureauAssistant Chief, stated that “passage of this legislation would further hinder law enforcement efforts already having difficulties keeping up with the scale of the illicit market.”
      • “Drug trafficking organizations (DTO) have taken advantage of the illicit marijuana industry in Washington” Huss said, because differing laws meant that when “transported to states where marijuana remains illegal, a $1000 worth of Washington marijuana can sell for $3000-4000.”He testified that big “illicit grows are a problem in the state and this bill could add to the permissive environment in Washington exploited by large-scale DTO’s.” 
      • Huss warned that the bill could result in more crime as law enforcement was already handling “diversion of marijuana across state lines, money laundering, human trafficking, and other criminal enterprises funded by illicitly gained proceeds.” He asserted legal gardens “will reduce the criminal risk to DTO’s and others interested in diverting Washington marijuana.” He wrote that the bill would “make it harder for law enforcement to investigate and prosecute criminal activity. Establishing probable cause for illicit marijuana production will be nearly impossible” leading to an “already booming illicit industry [growing] nearly unobstructed.”
    • Stacey Okland, Okanogan County Community Coalition Executive Director, explained that she’d watched the hearing and wanted to relate that she opposed the bill “on behalf of youth substance abuse prevention.” She stated that advocates like herself “push back on marijuana expansion because we know the impacts tobacco and alcohol have had on youth and adults over the years.”
      • Okland wrote, “This may not seem fair, but we have seen this play out in long and short-term health consequences for young people who consume substances like alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana.” As brain development was sometimes said to continue into a person’s “early to mid 20’s...it’s important for us to have policies and laws that take that into consideration,” Okland noted.
      • She wrote that in her region “it is not unheard of for there to be a large gap in age between siblings, have multiple generations living in a home, or extended family members living in a home with younger family members...This is about anyone over 21 years old growing plants that when processed is an impairing substance.” Though appreciative that HB 1019 had “a section to keep marijuana growing out of foster homes and early learning centers” she asked for the bill to be amended with sanctions ensuring “that no children be allowed to live in a home with home grows, and that there be a provision that follows I-502 in keeping marijuana 1000 feet from all schools and parks.” 
      • Okland said that after cannabis retailers opened in 2014, businesses “claimed to be committed to making sure youth did not have access to marijuana from their stores.” However, when WSLCB first “conducted compliance checks, the owner of a retail store sold to a youth operative. Second time out, the store that was the most adamant they would not sell to a minor” did, and she advised that “without some sort of checks and balances there’s no protection for youth.”
        • The earliest reported cannabis sales to a minor in that area in June 2015 resulted in felony charges for a budtender at Caribou Corner Cannabis, also known as 4US Retail. The next compliance check announced in Okanogan County by WSLCB that October didn’t show that the retailer sold to minors.
        • In 2016, Okanogan County Community Coalition began to partner with local law enforcement on additional compliance checks, finding “disappointing” compliance rates for area alcohol licensees. Months later, checks found 100% compliance from alcohol, but a different area cannabis retailer, The Sage Shop, sold to an underage buyer.
        • Okland failed to mention that as project coordinator for her organization’s compliance checks in 2018, no cannabis retailers sold to minors, leading her to say at that time her group was “happy that local business owners and clerks continue to turn away underage buyers.” 2019 alcohol checks revealed two of 19 stores sold to underage customers; she described that “most businesses used ID scanning devices to check ID, so we appreciate the efforts businesses have taken to make sure their employees have the tools to make sure they do not sell to a minor.”
        • In a November 2020 webinar, Okland provided a comment that “One thing that was happening in Omak was people over 21 were buying mj and then selling it to kids in the parking lot of the retail store.” 
      • Lastly, Okland turned to theft, telling the committee there was “outdoor growing in our county. I do not see a provision that these plants need to be grown indoors just that there is a provision for smell.” She was aware of a criminal incident where thieves “cut through the fence and took a bunch of plants that were ready for harvest,” so she opposed adults being able to grow their own.
        • HB 1019 included a provision about visibility, creating a class III civil infraction for cannabis gardens “visible in the ordinary public view.”
    • Con sign ins not announced during the hearing:

Information Set