The Cannabis Alliance - March for Homegrow - 2023 - Speech - Shelley Kloba
(August 27, 2023)

Here are some observations from the Sunday August 27th March for Homegrow organized by the Cannabis Alliance.

My top 2 takeaways:

• Cannabis Alliance President Caitlein Ryan welcomed Representative Shelley Kloba, who had become a key legislator in cannabis policymaking in the Washington State House of Representatives (WA House), including on bills to legalize limited cannabis growing by adults at home (audio - 2m).
  • When passed in 2012, Initiative 502 (I-502) made no allowance for adults to cultivate plants for personal consumption. Since then, limited home cultivation has become the predominant policy in legal cannabis states, with only Illinois and New Jersey barring home growing at time of publication.
    • There had been legislation introduced in Washington to allow home cultivation as far back as 2015, with the most recent being HB 1614 in 2023. Sponsored by Kloba, the latest measure was heard by Washington State House Regulated Substances and Gaming (WA House RSG) members on February 2nd, recommended for passage on February 16th, and heard by the Washington State House Appropriations Committee (WA House APP) on February 22nd, though the bill was pulled from the schedule without a vote.
  • Kloba had co-chaired the WA House RSG since it was established in 2023, and before that chaired the Washington State House Commerce and Gaming Committee which had oversight of the state cannabis sector.
    • Kloba previously discussed her background and how she came to be looked to as a leader on cannabis issues in remarks at an October 2022 event hosted by the Alliance, and during a symposium convened by the University of Washington Addictions, Drug, and Alcohol Institute (UW ADAI) in September 2022.
  • Following the March for Homegrow through downtown Seattle, Ryan introduced Kloba to those attending in support of the event, which included Washington NORML member and Citizen Observer Bailey Hirschburg. “Representative Kloba has ended up being an accidental advocate,” said Ryan, ”and we are so grateful that she has because she approaches everything with curiosity, and honesty, and persistence to get to the best possible solution.” She lauded Kloba, adding “from a very personal place, I want to say thank you with deep gratitude for all you have done.”
  • Talking about Kloba’s role in the legislature and sponsorship for HB 1614, Ryan described her as “instrumental in evolving our state's new legal cannabis industry, ensuring that children are protected, patients have access, and businesses have clear guidelines to operate.” She added that Kloba also served in “a lead role in gambling policy, and had passed legislation around a “voluntary program allowing people who struggle with gambling disorder to exclude themselves from gambling in multiple venues.”
  • Finally, Ryan credited Kloba as “sponsor of a really key piece of legislation that we passed…that just went into effect..protection for patients” from arrest who obtain an authorization for medical cannabis, but who don’t join the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) patient registry.

• Kloba’s comments addressed how she came to be involved in cannabis lawmaking, and how home cultivation fit into a broader need for state leaders to decriminalize some personal substance possession (audio - 5m).
  • Kloba talked about her history representing the first legislative district in Washington: “it has been my honor to serve in the legislature for seven sessions so far and I come to it from a background that is, maybe not the typical one for someone who's serving in an office. I was for more than 20 years, a registered massage therapist and I worked in a physical therapy clinic, so I understand people in pain and I understand the need for medications that are helpful and don't have the same kinds of side effects.”
  • She conveyed how “parallel to my career as a massage therapist, I was a leader” in her local Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), “and I like to say everything I need to know I learned in PTA because I served on their legislative side of things, and got to advocate for kids and families.” After this, she’d serving on the City Council in Kirkland where she commented council members “had a really deep conversation when the first licensee came to city council and was trying to get their license.” She noted that they were able to balance concerns of different stakeholders “to get to a point where both the licensee and the public were very pleased with that and congratulated…us on it.”
    • The first retailer in Kirkland opened in February 2015.
  • As an “accidental tourist into the world of cannabis,” Kloba viewed herself as building “upon everything that so many of those, the first line of advocates, have done and the table that you have set.” She mentioned that lawmaking was “actually the same process in the massage room as it is in legislation, strangely enough…you're faced with a problem” and “you get as much information about the problem as you can, you create a strategy to address it, and then you apply that strategy.” However, she argued that something which “often gets forgotten in legislature, is what I call the last step, which is the Dr. Phil step, you have to ask yourself, ‘how is that working for you?’” Since passing I-502, she recognized that there were changes around cannabis, “some nibbling around the edges, but we can't rest and we can't just say, ‘okay, done’...we still need to keep working on it.”
  • After thanking members of the Cannabis Alliance for representing “all aspects of the industry including patients,” Kloba committed to the home growing legislation. “Someone had left the legislature and it was a little orphan bill, and I thought, well that's not right,” she stated. Kloba noted, “in the atmosphere that we have had in the legislature where we tried to address the Blake decision, which was about illicit drugs and simple possession, there's a real appetite amongst the legislature, amongst the public to decriminalize low levels of possession.” Her goal was to use momentum around this issue broadly to help pass home cultivation legislation.
  • Wrapping up, Kloba said,“I really appreciate the awareness that all of you are doing this great campaign,” and felt it didn’t make sense that “growing plants at home is a class C felony. We need to change that and with all of your help, I'm hoping that we can get that done this year. And if we don't I'm not giving up so stay with me, people!”
  • In separate comments prior to the rally, Kloba indicated she was considering introducing a revised home grow bill in the 2024 legislative session, but had not settled on new language.