WSLCB - Board Caucus
(September 17, 2019)

Here are some observations from the September 17th Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) Board Caucus.

My top 3 takeaways:

• The Board discussed plans for the first public Cannabis 2.0 meeting and shared notable developments in the project regarding participation by other agencies (audio – 4m).
  • Cannabis 2.0 (C2.0) was a WSLCB project to create Washington state’s next generation of cannabis policy in coordination with other state agencies. The first external meeting was in June.
    • Since that time the Board endeavored to meet directly with other state agency leaders and intended to collaborate on request legislation.
    • During a recent presentation to lawmakers, the agency shared an informational graphic depicting an aspirational distribution of existing and new cannabis authorities amongst state agencies which overlapped with WSLCB’s regulatory responsibilities.
  • Board Chair Jane Rushford announced the next C2.0 meeting was slated for the morning of November 14th and would “involve all of the Board” as well as numerous department directors or their designees. Rushford said it would “be largely preparation for work in session 2020.”
    • If at least two members of the WSLCB Board planned to be present, the next C2.0 meeting would be open to the public. Rushford originally forecast C2.0’s first public meeting for October.
    • Read more about the agency’s proposed request legislation for the coming year, and see the latest versions of the medical cannabis/small producer and social equity program drafts.
  • Rushford said that she and Director Rick Garza had been meeting with leaders from other agencies who had been unable to attend the first C2.0 meeting to impress upon them the benefits of working collectively with all of the institutions involved in controlling cannabis. She said they’d soon be meeting with the Washington State Department of Ecology (DOE) and the Washington State Health Care Authority (HCA). Garza previously met with leadership at the Washington State Patrol (WSP), and agency staff talked about the project with the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA).
  • Board Member Ollie Garrett met recently with the director of the Department of Commerce (Commerce) to discuss equity issues and C2.0. She asked Rushford whether she believed these meetings outside WSLCB were generating interest in the project. Rushford responded that the “longevity of those meetings is uncertain at this point” but noted that “what’s been so favorable is everyone’s very responsive to it.” She added that her hope was for “rekindling” relationships with other agencies and creating an “ongoing exchange” about best practices and shared responsibilities. Garrett said that Commerce Director Lisa Brown had responded well and designated a staffer to attend the next C2.0 meeting.
  • Rushford also mentioned that she’d been in contact with interested state legislators who “have been very, really responsive to that level of collaboration.” Considering Cannabis 2.0 and their request legislation, Rushford concluded the agency had several “big things in progress.”
• Chair Jane Rushford expected an autumn and winter schedule packed with events and meetings attended by board members and agency leadership including the Washington State Prevention Summit and the next Cannabis Advisory Council meeting (audio – 3m).
  • Rushford quickly listed various upcoming meetings and events:
    • Garrett planned to attend an equity discussion at the Marijuana Management Symposium October 1st through the 3rd, hosted by the City of Denver and Infocast. Garrett learned about the event from Prosper Portland, which administered that city’s equity grant program.
    • The Washington State Prevention Summit in Yakima November 5th and 6th will see Rushford speak to attendees alongside Sara Cooley Broschart, WSLCB’s Public Health Education Liaison.
    • The 30th Annual Centennial Accord Meeting with tribal nations was planned for November 5th and 6th.
    • The next Regulators Roundtable for legal cannabis states would occur in December. Read Cannabis Observer’s coverage of agency staff recollections from the last roundtable in Alaska.
    • The next Cannabis Advisory Council (CAC) meeting date remained to be determined. The last CAC meeting occurred on July 17th.
  • Rushford asked Executive Assistant Dustin Dickson to “review that list of dates that we have and get it out to the board members.” She admitted the Board would “lose a couple of weeks to holiday[s]” due to canceled meetings around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Rushford indicated meetings could still occur “if we need to stay on schedule” despite major holidays but she sounded optimistic as Policy and Rules staff had “also been attentive to that likelihood.”
• Board Members described meetings they’d recently participated in, including a visit from a cannabis testing laboratory and a regional conference of alcohol regulators curious about convergence with cannabis.
  • Garrett told the group she’d met with Testing Technologies the week before, an Olympia cannabis laboratory equipped to test for pesticides. The lab’s representatives made several claims which had stuck with her, the most significant being that WSLCB’s efforts to help struggling small licensees had not considered the labs. By not “making pesticide testing mandatory [the lab] and what they’ve invested” to do that testing ended up “really hurting them financially.” At the time, Testing Technologies wasn’t “getting the volume that they would have hoped to come through.” Rushford noted that this perspective had also been mentioned at the agency’s listen and learn forum for the Quality Assurance Testing and Product Requirements rulemaking project (WSR 18-17-041, audio – 2m).
    • Cannabis Examiner Manager Kendra Hodgson recently provided her quarterly lab update on August 28th.
  • Rushford reported that she’d attended a regional conference of the National Conference of State Liquor Administrators (NCSLA) in Portland, Oregon. She found it “really well done” with a “meaningful agenda.” Rushford argued that NCSLA’s regional conferences might be more valuable than the organization’s annual conference “because you’re interacting with [regulators] nearby” which enabled coordination on shared issues. At publication time, NCSLA’s Central/Western region included several legal cannabis states aside from Washington (audio – 2m).
    • Cannabis Observer previously reported that Garza, Licensing Director Becky Smith, and Liquor Supervisors Marcy Wilsie and Jon Engelman planned to attend the conference. NCSLA Hall of Fame member Rick Garza was slated to speak on a panel with his peers from Oregon and California about “the creative regulatory solutions taking shape in cannabis.”