WSLCB - Work Group - Cannabinoid Science - Public Meeting
(December 7, 2023)

Here are some observations from the Thursday December 7th Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board Cannabinoid Science Work Group (WSLCB - Work Group - Cannabinoid Science) Public Meeting.

My top 4 takeaways:

• WSLCB Acting Research Manager and Operations Research Specialist Sarah Okey welcomed a smaller cohort of work group members and offered context about how their work related to the agency Research Unit.
  • The work group last convened on October 5th, when WSLCB staff and members reviewed prior edits and suggested final changes on draft recommendations.
  • Okey chaired the gathering and began by “quickly reintroducing” herself as a recent addition to the group, now heading a Research Unit established in the Spring of 2023 (audio - <1m, Video - WSLCB).
    • She took over as work group lead when former Research Manager Kathy Hoffman transitioned to work at the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries in October.
  • Okey considered the Research Unit to be “just starting out,” but she was “really excited that the research team will stay as the main facilitator of this work group while simultaneously creating an open platform for the Policy [and Rules] team and for other teams at LCB to come and gain valuable insight.” Additionally, Okey felt “the transition from Kathy Hoffman facilitating this group to myself…has really come at a really optimal time given that the recommendation document that was finalized on the detectable levels of THC [tetrahydrocannabinol] and cannabis products safety has been finalized.” Under her leadership, she intended for the group to “start reviewing what the next topic of interest is going to be” and what the “group will look, look like going forward and reviewing research interest areas from the team” (audio - 1m, Video - WSLCB).
  • A roll call revealed that, besides agency staff, only four work group members were in attendance. At their inaugural meeting a year earlier in December 2022, the group included 14 members from outside the agency (audio - 2m, Video - WSLCB).

• Okey posed questions from the Policy and Rules team relating to the implementation of SB 5367, asking about preferred definitions, particularly as to what constituted “synthetic” cannabinoids.
  • Board members opened a rulemaking project on SB 5367 on June 21st, and agency staff last discussed regulations on December 5th.
  • According to Okey, Policy and Rules Manager Cassidy West had planned to attend, “however, she is not able to make it today.” Staff were gathering feedback on West’s behalf so she could finish “drafting a document right now to be able to send to you to get any more feedback…if you have the ability to do that.” This included more public “stakeholder engagement sessions on [December] 15th and the 19th [and 21st] to…have this topic more publicly discussed” (audio - 1m, Video - WSLCB).
  • The first question was around the definitions, as Okey said SB 5367 furthers “a need for having standardized definitions of things, and understanding how we're defining certain words, and how they might go into rulemaking.” She commented how West “was hoping to discuss…how we're differentiating between ‘active THC,’ ‘Total THC,’ [and] ‘THC concentration.’” Okey invited “thoughts about how you might define or differentiate those” (audio - 6m, Video - WSLCB).
    • Jessica Tonani, Verda Bio CEO, indicated her impression that “statute generally, we always refer ‘total THC’” and used a formula that was “essentially delta-9[-THC] plus 0.87 times THCa,” or tetrahydrocannabinolic acid, which was regarded as “potential” THC. Okey said rulemaking was expected to “strike the delta-9 to include all other THC components,” asking for clarification on how Tonani might frame the definition. “To be brutally honest, I think that we attempted to not have that language,” Tonani answered, “we attempted to have the specific cannabinoids called out so that labs would know what to test for and have the math around it.” Without that math for different cannabinoids “it's difficult to tell essentially the potential for…let's call it impairment. But if… for example THCa is not equal to THC, there's…that decarb[oxylation].” She concluded “it's pretty difficult…if we don't have a definition of what the compounds are, to say what the math the lab should have behind it is.”
    • University of South Carolina School of Medicine Columbia Postdoctoral Fellow and researcher Taylor Carter concurred, sharing that delta-9-THC and the cannabinoid tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV) “from a molecular standpoint” were “so far apart…giving the same total information, but the actual cellular effect…on the person is so vastly different” as to nearly be “misleading in that statement.” Carter didn’t have a ready answer for how to define the varying THC definitions, “but just my opinion on it would be to potentially group” some cannabinoids like delta-9-THC and delta-8-THC because “I could understand…they're very similar dose-dependent response immunologically similar,” though they did differ in the human nervous system. Compounds like THCV were more challenging, he insisted.
    • Tonani mentioned some “differentiation also between…naturally occurring…extracted from the plant versus semi-synthetic or synthetic.” She commented, “if you differentiate those I think it becomes a little bit easier.” She added that she considered the intent of the law important: “if we step back and say the intent was to prevent some of these compounds being sold…without some sort of regulation around the potential for impairment,” she advised attempting to “differentiate the best way to initiate rules around that intent.” Tonani summed up that, “labs have to have a list of what they're going to test to.”
      • SB 5367 did include restrictions related to “any synthetically derived, or completely synthetic, cannabinoid” in a product, with exceptions for those with approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA).
  • Okey remarked that defining ‘synthetic’ was another question West wanted input on for staff to consider in rule development (audio - 7m, Video - WSLCB).
    • West had drafted “three different options for this:”
      • “The first one is because it's not currently defined, it defaults to like a dictionary definition of synthetic which states something ‘resulting from synthesis rather than occurring naturally, especially a product of chemical synthesis.’”
      • “Language of synthetic cannabinoid in RCW 69.50.455, which says synthetic cannabinoid ‘includes any chemical compound identified, or by the Pharmacy Quality Assurance Commission under RCW 69.50.201.”
      • “Or we could create an entire new definition for synthetic cannabinoid or synthetically-derived cannabinoid.”
    • Once Okey opened the floor to feedback, Tonani offered that “the problem with that is people are synthesizing compounds like delta-8 that occur naturally in the plant and there's no robust mechanism” for testing labs to “differentiate whether it's synthetic, or whether it's naturally occurring from the plant.”
    • Brad Douglass, Spoke Sciences Chief Regulatory Officer and Vice President of Chemistry, regarded the dictionary wording to be “a little tautological" as it “defined synthesis by something that's synthetic.” He felt there was some professional disagreement around what synthetic meant which required more “meat” in their definition to be “enforceable.” The established definition in RCW 69.50.455 was “too broad because it refers to a broader class of compounds that act on cannabinoid receptors,” argued Douglass. He referred back to earlier discussions in deliberative dialogues on cannabis impairment and plant chemistry hosted by WSLCB in 2021 and 2022 where “we talked about anything that's been chemically modified as a way to define it broadly” to include “beyond [a] synthetic step, or beyond decarboxylation, which is common to cannabinoid manufacturing.”
    • Tonani added that “heat, light, and pressure” should be the only processes allowed by licensees, and Douglass remembered that those three were “the only allowable operations where you could…chemically modify any cannabinoid, and…not be chemical synthesis, or not be synthetic.” Tonani noted that this was to allow for decarboxylation. “I personally think it's easier to define what people can do versus what is not allowed,” she said, with Douglass seconding that view.
  • Okey shared that West would be following up on the definitions as rulemaking for SB 5367 implementation moved forward. She knew there’d been “questions related to the recommendation doc that was recently finalized” and asked Policy and Rules staff whether they had additional details. Policy and Rules Coordinator Denise Laflamme responded that they did not (audio - 1m, Video - WSLCB). Okey promised the recommendation document would be distributed to members for their review in the near future (audio - 1m, Video - WSLCB).

• Staff and members contemplated what research topics the work group could investigate next.
  • Okey brought up the charter for the group, stating that their purpose had been outlined as providing “an environment for scientific and data-driven discussion about cannabinoids with the objective to collaboratively and transparently explore and build foundational understanding of cannabis, as well as its synthetic equivalents.” An offshoot of the Research Unit, she said the office’s “mission [was] to conduct and analyze and report internal and external research that is evidence-based, objective, and nonpartisan - so free from bias” (audio - 7m, Video - WSLCB)
    • “I do want to discuss the structure of this Research Unit,” Okey told the group, given Hoffman “started this work group within [the] Policy and Rules team, and then transitioned into the…research program.” She stressed how “the research team are researchers, we're not policy makers. We review research, and we conduct nonpartisan research, and then we'll have” Policy or other division staff “come in and gain areas of expertise.” WSLCB had stood up the Research Unit “to bring more research and scientific knowledge, and empirical evidence” to officials, and Okey considered it important for members to be able to “speak and be transparent about what we do know, as well as what we don't know about the products and services that LCB regulates.”
    • She included her view that “it's important to acknowledge meeting in the middle with policy where we understand that scientific knowledge may not be fleshed out fully, but figuring out how we can use what we do know to help create more empirical recommendations that are grounded in literature.”
    • Okey reported that the Research Unit would be “moreso interested in topics that are deemed important in the…scientific field, and then we'll have regular participation” by other agency staff. The work group would continue meeting every other month to “be an expert panel on different topics.” She imagined members as “the springboard for creating documents that are shared within the community, and within the agency, about current and really prominent scientific knowledge on specific topics.” Okey suggested this would incorporate “how we can use science to embed that within policy and rulemaking,” along with “utiliz[ing] your expertise to jump into what might be longer term research projects and topics.”
      • Ryan McLaughlin, WSU Department of Integrated Physiology and Neuroscience Assistant Professor and Washington State University Center for Cannabis Policy, Research, and Outreach (WSU CCPRO) researcher, said the approach “sounds great.”
      • Comparable efforts at WSLCB would include leveraging industry expertise through the Alcohol or Cannabis Advisory Councils, the latter of which last met in April 2021. Outside the agency, the Washington State Health Care Authority Prevention Research Subcommittee (WA HCA PRSC) played a similar role “to identify and address emerging and evolving substance use disorder prevention and mental health promotion service and research needs.”
    • Okey said she’d “watched past workgroups. I got a sense of what areas of interest were identified,” along with reviewing materials from Hoffman, “and how…the strategic plan in the agency and conversations with board members and management, and other research agendas outside this organization, to kind of guide where we might go from here.”
      • At time of publication, additional cannabis policy research was being undertaken by multiple state institutions, including:
        • A study of cannabis revenue by the Washington State Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC).
        • Mandated evaluation of cannabis legalization by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP).
        • Research into cannabis and health by WSU CCPRO and the University of Washington Addictions, Drug, and Alcohol Institute (UW ADAI).
    • Okey then stated staff had “developed three large research priority areas.”
      • “Medical cannabis”
      • “Increasing education, prevention, harm reduction”
      • “Enhancing communication and collaborations within and outside the agency”
    • The Research Unit wouldn’t look solely at cannabis topics, Okey indicated, but she “put together some specific interests that you have previously discussed, and how they relate to your areas of expertise, and how the Research Unit’s areas of focus kind of dovetail within those topics.” 
  • Okey shared research questions she hoped would be ranked by work group members (audio - 1m, Video - WSLCB):
    • “What types of information about cannabinoids can help people make better decisions about what they consume?”
    • “What do we know and don't know about synthetic cannabinoids?”
    • “How do we define and discuss impairing and intoxicating, and particularly in the context of driving?”
    • “How do we increase consumer safety in the absence of scientific knowledge?”
    • “What are the best practices in product labeling?”
    • “What are the paths forward in structure and function claims as it relates to medically compliant products?”
      • Passed in 2020, SB 5298 authorized inclusion of structure or function claims on certified medical cannabis products.
    • “What are the standard definitions for ‘ingredient,’ ‘processing,’ ‘conversion,’ and ‘synthetic?’”
  • When Okey opened it up to additional topics, Tonani called out the WSLCB-led investigation into legacy pesticide contamination of soil earlier that year. She believed “evaluation of the pesticide/heavy metal research around that…and how that correlates to product safety. I don't think that we have a very good understanding of…what soil is safe to grow in at this point, and that type of guidance…could be really helpful to producers as well as consumers” (audio - 5m, Video - WSLCB).
    • WSLCB Chemist Angela Peck chimed in to say staff were working with Washington State Department of Ecology (DOE) authorities on that type of research, which would involve “uptake studies” by David Gang, WSU CCPRO Director and WSU Institute of Biological Chemistry Professor, cultivating hemp plants on contaminated soil.
      • A December 1st legislative report by DOE, “DDT Soil Remediation Pilot for Cannabis Farms in Okanogan County,” mentioned the plant study would “look at the timing of plant uptake during growth cycles, as well as where the compounds accumulate.”
    • Okey elaborated how “part of our discussions can be creating these…alerts or memos” to show “we need more research on this topic and have this…platform of ‘here's what we know, here's what we don't know, and here's where where we would support more research.’”
  • Three work group members ranked some of the topic areas. Okey named “what types of information about cannabinoids can help people make better decisions about their use, and what is the research around pesticides and heavy metals, and how that correlates with guidance and product safety.” A third topic, “what are paths forward in structure and function claims as it relates to medically compliant cannabis,” received some support as well, she added (audio - 6m, Video - WSLCB).
  • Considering how feasible the identified priority areas might be, Tonani said looking into “impairing and driving” had been done by many organizations at significant cost, “and we as a group probably can report back the latest science, but not really move the ball” on new research of that topic. Whereas she felt “we could actually design and implement experiments here” related to pesticides and heavy metals. Tonani also thought they could study “things around structure function claims and medical, we could probably borrow from” other states to “revamp” medical policies, but were unlikely to lead new research as volunteers “meeting every other month” (audio - 5m, Video - WSLCB).
    • Okey recognized Tonani’s point on their limitations, highlighting that the Research Unit would be leading on longer term projects. But the work group contributing to a “literature review” would be helpful, said Okey, speculating “this is why we're struggling, like what are the specific areas of, of that like friction, or inability to create those definitions…and being very transparent and clear about how that is a really difficult thing.” Help from experts could aid staff in drafting “a document that really explains that in a clear way for LCB” to enhance the work of agency staff, Okey argued.
    • “Other states like California have put significant resources, you know, $20, $30 million in grant money,” observed Tonani, “and we as a state haven't been as…willing to do that.” Using existing studies to outline topics was “realistic” for the two top ranked questions, but less so for the third on medical structure and function claims. Okey understood how “we don't want to recreate the wheel, and we don't want to start where other states have really put substantial amount of funding when we can really look towards that” and apply it to subject areas of importance to Washington regulators.
  • Okey asked “what types of information about cannabinoids…can help people make better decisions” (audio - 9m, Video - WSLCB).
    • McLaughlin advised looking into best practices for labeling might be the best place to help consumers, “that's kind of where they need it most."
    • Tonani pushed for more “basic knowledge" like the “onset” of cannabis based on the mode of ingestion, finding there was “a tendency to have people potentially over consume or under consume, just not consume correctly.”
    • Carter added that there was a lot of research already done on the medical utility of cannabis, but commented immunosuppression was complicated. Depending on the disease, he felt there were differing periods for when a “cannabinoid’s beneficial and when [was] there still a harm window.” Mentioning a couple specific conditions, Carter noted he would be “submitting a paper in a month or two about THC’s ability to block some of these kind of metal ROS [reactive oxygen species] creation in the body, and it's the same concept of that role of cannabinoids and metal is huge, and there's two or three papers this year looking at the role of…the cannabis plant in cadmium uptake, copper, nickel, based on the soil pH and all these factors,” concluding “a lot of this stuff [was] just steam rolling out.”
    • McLaughlin commented that with “more and more” older cannabis consumers there’d been little study of drug-to-drug interactions to help them consider cannabis in relation to prescriptions they might be taking. Tonani added that 2015 legislation merging the medical and adult use cannabis markets had put officials “kind of out on a limb" and  "overly conservative" about what information was given to patients. She pointed to medical cannabis programs in Minnesota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania as having better integrated research institutions to look into cannabis.
      • Following the work group, Tonani attended a medical cannabis town hall in Seattle hosted by the Cannabis Alliance to share ideas for improvements to the medical cannabis program with staff from the Washington State Department of Health (DOH).

• The next steps for work group members would involve individual conversations with WSLCB staff along with additional chances to weigh in on THC regulation before the end of 2023 (audio - 4m, Video - WSLCB).
  • Okey promised to incorporate the feedback from the group and look at how to “use this time valuably” in future meetings. Staff would review their remarks, gather external input, and Okey would schedule time to speak directly with work group members to “get a better sense of kind of what that looks like going forward,” as well as “about kind of what our next topic area will be…for the next meeting” in February 2024. She pointed out that additional members could be added to the work group.
  • Thanking those who attended for a “great and productive meeting,” McLaughlin looked forward to “the future of what we could accomplish.” Okey felt the same, comparing the work ahead for the Research Unit to “climbing up a huge mountain,” and she found "having this WG [was] so incredibly important."
  • Focus groups on SB 5367 were set for December 15th, 19th, and 21st. WSLCB staff anticipated proposing rules in early 2024.