The Cannabis Alliance - Town Hall - DOH Medical Cannabis Program
(December 7, 2023)

Here are some observations from the Thursday December 7th Cannabis Alliance Town Hall with staff from the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) Medical Cannabis Program.

My top 4 takeaways:

• Cannabis Alliance leadership began the meeting by going over some prominent issues and challenges relating to patients and the medical cannabis program run by the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) then introduced panelists from the department and other organizations.
  • Cannabis Alliance Executive Director Caitlein Ryan began by commenting that an illness kept her from being there in person for a “historic” gathering. She said, “since the passage of I-502 [Initiative 502] we really have struggled in the cannabis community and in the patient community to have an open dialogue with the Department of Health.” But changes in department staffing over the summer brought new perspectives and there had been “nothing but connected, lovely, meaningful conversations ever since” (audio - 4m).
    • Ryan indicated the meeting would cover “what it means to be a patient, what it takes to maintain that patient's status, and all of the challenges that go along with that, as well as then we're gonna also start talking about medicine, and then hopefully identify things that we can start working on, too.” She highlighted that HB 1453—legislation to exempt patients from the 37% excise tax on medically compliant cannabis products—would be reintroduced in the 2024 legislative session and could provide greater financial relief for patients than existing exemptions for sales and use taxes. Ryan notified participants that as civil servants, DOH staff “won't be able to comment on that legislation, that's agency policy…but that doesn't mean that we can't talk about it.” She said Alliance members “believe that this is one of the most important pieces of legislation we can see passed to help save the medical cannabis program here in Washington state.” Although the shorter 60-day session made predictions difficult, “we have assurances that it'll be early action in the House and it has already passed the Senate three times with increasing positive votes.”
    • Additionally, Ryan said there was a rulemaking project already open at DOH that “opened up a lot of opportunities for us to to really fine tune this program and make it better for patients as well as for folks who are producing medical grade product.” Her organization was also working with staff at DOH and the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) on “rulemaking at the very beginning stages of looking at the medical consultancy program and, and ways that we can make that a meaningful certification for retailers.”
    • The new program staff at DOH hosted a webinar on medical cannabis rulemaking in September 2023
  • Ryan explained that Cannabis Alliance Government Affairs Liaison Lara Kaminsky and Strategic Advisor Ray Carveth would act as co-moderators. Kaminsky then asked panelists to “quickly introduce themselves” (audio - 5m).
    • Steven Field, patient advocate
      • Besides testifying on medical cannabis bills, Fields was credited as a driving force behind HB 1563, a 2023 law expanding patient arrest protections beyond those registered in a DOH database.
    • Heather Dagley, a “patient, patient advocate, and patient consultant”
      • Dagley previously worked as a budtender and blogger for Tacoma retailer House of Cannabis.
    • Amber Wise, Medicine Creek Analytics Science Director 
    • John Kingsbury, Cannabis Alliance Patient Committee Chair
      • Kingsbury successfully petitioned for a WSLCB rulemaking project regarding requirements and compliance for medically endorsed retail stores, which was opened in October 2023.
    • Shannon Angell, DOH Deputy Director of Drug Systems
    • Annie Kause, DOH Health Services Consultant
    • TJ Johnson, DOH Microbiologist and Cannabis Lab Accreditation Standards Program (CLASP) member
      • Part of the transition of cannabis laboratory accreditation authority, CLASP was led by officials at the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) and included representatives from DOH and WSLCB.
    • Patrick Seifert, veteran activist and Twenty22Many Founder
    • Ryan added that Representative Shelley Kloba, who co-chaired the Washington State House Regulated Substances and Gaming Committee and WSLCB Director of Policy and External Affairs Justin Nordhorn were attending the town hall remotely. Other online panelists also identified themselves:
      • Lorelei Walker, DOH Medical Cannabis Program Manager 
      • Reem Aldaghestani, DOH Health Services Consultant
      • Johnny Wong, DOH Medical Cannabis Program Chemist
      • Juddy Rosellison, Co-Owner of Trail Blazin’, which produced medically compliant products
      • Mattherw Friedlander, Skagit Organics Founder, another medically compliant producer/processor who “just received my medical cannabis consultant license about two weeks ago.”
  • Moderators then used Menti to survey participants about various aspects of the medical cannabis system with a few themes emerging:
    • Asked about the time spent maintaining a medical cannabis patient status, the most common response was one-or-two hours a “quarter,” followed by responses of three-to-five hours. However, one patient objected to the framing of the question, and argued they spent more time each quarter than any of the options offered (audio - 4m).
    • Asked about the impact cannabis had on their medical condition, the vast majority of respondents answered they didn’t know where they’d be without it, and three described cannabis as “somewhat helpful” for their medical needs (audio - 1m).
    • Asked how easy it was to maintain a medical patient status, most responses indicated it was difficult but patients had learned how the DOH program operated (audio - 2m).
    • Asked for descriptors of what it was like being a medical cannabis patient, the top terms that emerged in a word cloud of 67 responses were “functional,” “empowered,” and “expensive” (audio - 3m).

• Moderators offered some context around how the medical program had been set up and changed over the years before stakeholders offered comments around difficulties for patients, endorsed stores, certified consultants, and what DOH staff could do to help.
  • Carveth described how the Cannabis Alliance had formed out of “four organizations all dealing with patients and cannabis and they were getting in each other's way,” arguing the Alliance had “been in the patient mode since before we existed.” Although DOH personnel couldn’t “lobby” for changes to the medical cannabis program, he remarked, “they can certainly look at the regs. They can certainly offer help.” Working with patients, industry members, and advocates, Carveth believed improvements were possible, citing the way businesses and regulators set “universal waste rules” to reduce the materials in the process “that were all going into the garbage.” He hoped attendees would “remember this date. This is the beginning of trying to make [medical cannabis] better in a very serious way” (audio - 3m).
  • Kaminsky recognized that I-502 had been implemented following voter approval in 2012, but “the medical cannabis program [fell] by the wayside.” She felt this neglect by regulators was “really painful stuff,” but they hoped to “honor that pain and those stories here today, but what we really want to do is talk about what's not working.” Kaminsky saw this as a chance for patient advocates and DOH staff to get to know one another, and “communicate about your experience and what's not working, and what you think could make it better” (audio - 1m).
  • Carveth drew parallels between the experience and perspective patients offered to elected officials when lobbying for bills, and the context they could provide DOH panelists, opening the floor to comments from attendees (audio - 2m).
  • Jessica Tonani, Verda Bio CEO, identified as a research licensee and former patient who stopped participating “about three years ago because I couldn't find a store to get me in the database.” She called for easier renewal options that didn’t rely on patients locating an endorsed store where certified consultants on staff could register them (audio - 1m).
    • An attendee who didn’t identify themselves noted they went to “vendor days and stuff like that and some of the stores [were] saying it's challenging for them to do the medical program.” They encouraged finding “a way to make it somewhat easier or…more accessible for us as patients” (audio - 1m).
  • Aaron Varney, Dockside Cannabis Co-Founder, stated it was “not necessarily hard to have consultants on staff,” but financial and scheduling challenges meant owners of medically endorsed stores had to prioritize the non-medical functions of the store. He felt having patient registration in the database managed by doctors or state officials made more sense. “I got my card renewed today and somebody had to spend about 35 minutes going through and doing that,” Varney said, given their “other responsibilities at the retail side of things it's not very realistic” to keep that task with retail consultants (audio - 2m).
  • Christopher King noted he’d worked on cannabis policy as an activist and attorney for several years. He mentioned Michael Schermerhorn, a patient who’d operated a dispensary that was closed after being raided by the Skagit County Drug Task Force. When Carveth interjected to ask what he hoped to see changed, King called for a letter from DOH staff “saying ‘hey, as of this date…we don't have any information that they were operating illegally’” (audio - 5m).
    • In January 2023, Schermerhorn was among those who testified in support of HB 1453.
  • Angell referred to a brochure which outlined various roles and responsibilities different state agencies had relating to medical cannabis and commented that DOH was limited to “establishing standards for medically compliant product….administrating and monitoring the medical cannabis registry database,” which was done by a “vendor who was hosting [the confidential] information that is in there…even confidential from Department of Health staff.” Their staff’s final responsibility was “the licensing and certification of the medical cannabis consultants,” who were currently the only parties authorized to enter patients into the database. Angell was open to hearing all comments, but stressed that staff would be looking at them in relation to their scope of authority. Ryan chimed in to state that arrest protections for patients not in the database had only been approved by legislators earlier in the year and taken effect in July 2023 (audio - 5m).
  • Chuck Olivier, Dimebag Scale Company Owner, mentioned he’d been a certified consultant for years, “although not ever employed as one.” He noted that consultants had continuing education requirements but “there is not enough CE content authorized by the Department of Health to keep me going past another year.” He warned, “I burned through it all so I'm hoping that we can fix that.” Olivier considered it a “cruelty” of merging adult-use and medical systems that access became more difficult as the siting of retail stores was more restricted. In addition to changes in distance requirements for licensed stores, he wanted officials to allow for “a patients’-only specific clinic with an authorization facility…not open to the general public, open to patients only where vetted product could be sold” (audio - 2m).
  • Dale Rogers identified as a peer specialist with “35 years of patient care.” Elaborating on his background, Rogers noted his role in the Seattle AIDS Support Group following working with medical cannabis patients in the San Francisco Bay area. Aside from medical cannabis access, Rogers felt “our number one issue is housing.” Patients could lose access to housing with no recourse, he said, and despite partnering with first responders in the Seattle area, “we're dealing with folks who have triple diagnosis…an AIDS diagnosis, and mental health diagnosis, and a substance abuse diagnosis.” With funding drying up, Rogers wanted there to be money for “another patient-to-peer organization where patients can come in” as part of a “pilot program because we've graduated from medical cannabis” to other health needs. With no system to offer peer support “we have no one who will help us when we get kicked out of our apartments…no patient should ever go homeless because they use medical cannabis.” Rogers called for support services for patients related to things like opioid treatment and suicide prevention (audio - 7m).
    • Carveth questioned whether Rogers’ request was within the scope of DOH authority. Angell remarked that staff were supportive of safe spaces for patients, and while “it might not be something our program has the authority to implement or to take action on, but being in the know about what might be needed and understanding the history helps with things that are in our scope” (audio - 1m).
    • Rogers fine-tuned his request for a peer center, and the majority of attendees supported the move towards something akin to a “recovery cafe” for patients (audio - 2m).
    • If you or someone you know has contemplated suicide, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by calling 988, or find additional suicide prevention tools from DOH.
  • Friedlander said he’d previously raised the difficulty patients had finding stores able to register them into the database with DOH staff and asked for a process whereby the department registered and issued patient cards. He argued this approach meant patients won’t “have to divulge all of their medical information to a budtender on the floor of a store surrounded by the general public and other budtenders, which might be uncomfortable for some patients.” Friedlander encouraged cards to be sent to patients through certified mail, “and then the patient would be able to walk into any store that is available to them, and be able to choose…from hopefully DOH compliant products” (audio - 2m).
  • Jeremy Robbins indicated he was a patient who’d suffered a spinal cord injury 24 years earlier. As he would spend the rest of his life in pain and without the ability to walk, he wondered why the medical cannabis program didn’t permit a continuing patient authorization that didn’t have to be renewed annually. Robbins reported that he had limited medical clinic and endorsed retail access; he hoped the program could change to let him register as a patient online similar to how the Oregon medical cannabis program functioned.  He further wanted curbside service, a temporary allowance during the coronavirus pandemic, to become a permanent allowance to help those with mobility impairments. Carveth acknowledged that DOH officials weren’t empowered to address all those issues but they could engage on the topic with counterparts at other agencies (audio - 4m).

• Following a couple more survey questions, commenters gave further feedback on topics like patient confidence in the program, problems with helping patients in a retail setting, social equity, product standards and safety, along with consultant training concerns.
  • During a Menti survey asking where patients sourced their medical cannabis, retail stores were the most common answer (audio - 2m). A question on average costs per month showed a majority of respondents indicated it was over $100, while many insisted their costs were several times higher (audio - 2m).
  • Patient advocate "Grandma" Cat Jeter, asserted that state agencies establishing a licensing system for adult-use cannabis before one for medical patients left the latter group out of the rulemaking process. “This has created a situation where I believe we have a generational issue of mistrust of regulation of cannabis. The State has rejected the progenitors. We've been laughed out of rooms. We've been shut down in hearings,” she argued. She found many patients “ask their friends and they end up on the phone with me. They don't trust the medicine because they've heard about failure of testing but they trust me and my connections.” Jeter expected it would take years to repair this relationship through sustained stakeholder engagement, and also accused certified consultants of falling behind the times in cannabis science (audio - 4m).
  • Lotta Brathwaite, Bakersmen Collective Founder, complained that endorsed retail stores were a poor setting to help patients, and felt immunocompromised patients deserved their own dedicated area with adequate ventilation. She said Airlift, the vendor hosting the database, required use of patient cards even as other companies like State Farm Insurance allowed records to be accessed via their mobile app. Braithwaite then commented on the lack of medically compliant products, and suggested WSLCB should help identify available products (audio - 2m).
  • Michelle Stoltz, 210 Cannabis Manager, shared that she looked forward to helping patients and was curious how many endorsed stores had dedicated areas for patients. All the attendees who spoke up replied that the endorsed stores they’d seen served patients alongside other retail customers and staff (audio - 1m).
  • Mike Asai, Black Excellence in Cannabis (BEC) Vice President, relayed that he’d formerly run the Emerald City Collective Garden in Seattle before it was “unjustly” closed by local authorities. However, he confirmed that he was one of 42 social equity program applicants advancing in that process, declaring that “Emerald City is coming back.” Asai explained that he didn’t like the database, deeming it a “barrier” for patients, but BEC members were more focused on bringing “more Black and Brown Community into the medical” space as he felt many patients continued “hiding” their status from state agencies. He also promised his re-opened store would be wheelchair accessible and medically endorsed (audio - 7m).
    • Days earlier, Asai had provided his critique of the social equity program to state lawmakers as well as in comments to WSLCB.
  • Rogers noted that he disliked how patients were expected to disclose their authorizing medical status on a registry card: “I'm deeply offended of having my HIV diagnosis on my authorization” (audio - <1m).
  • MacRae turned to the topic of product safety, finding that WSLCB staff should “enforce that stuff and they have fallen dramatically and consistently, and I think quite frankly knowingly, short of any reasonable target of consumer safety for years.” By contrast, he said elected leaders had passed an “absolutely unnecessary” bill in 2023 to stop the sale of alcohol products containing cannabis, something WSLCB staff found was a redundant mandate. MacRae wanted DOH staff to be more engaged with cannabis legislation than WSLCB had been. He further felt that consumer data on product variety indicated that scent was the most important factor, yet packaging restrictions meant cannabis products were rarely able to be smelled by patients or customers prior to purchase. This constraint was doubly troubling because “from what I know about the way labeling and stuff is working in this industry, often what you're getting on the label isn't even what's in the package” (audio - 5m).
  • Patient Allison Bigelow told the group she was a long time medical grower but had never been licensed because in the merging of the medical and adult-use markets “they never allowed producers to join that weren't already in.” She believed there were some compassionate cannabis businesses, but “until the product is good for patients and affordable” she didn’t see how the medical cannabis program would get better. Bigelow suggested tax breaks or incentives to get more licensees to produce medically-compliant products (audio - 3m).
  • Trey Reckling, Academy of Cannabis Science Founder, remarked that his company provided training courses for medical consultants and he viewed his students as contributing to an “imperfect system” where the “needs are real, people are depending on real advice that doesn't also cross the line of practicing [medicine] without a license.” He planned to support HB 1453 and wanted to “ask you how can we collectively work with Department of Health to hold up those stores that go the extra mile…how can we collectively….hold them up for the work that they're doing?” Reckling then emphasized that laws allowing for the donation of cannabis products to patients that would otherwise be disposed of should continue to ensure “those products don't get ground up with sawdust or whatever compost, but instead go” to patients in need “cost free” (audio - 3m).
  • Patient advocate Brian Stone said he’d worked for Trail Blazin’ which made compliant products, but found the “general use compliant” product label to be too vague, urging use of the title “medical grade” instead. He also argued that endorsed stores which didn’t regularly stock compliant products should lose their endorsement. “I would like to see the consultancy program expanded so that consultants can actually address medical concerns rather than just some of the legal and other aspects” stressed in existing consultant training, Stone added. He then said DOH “should make it easier for patients who were wanting to grow” to find licensed producers willing to supply them with cannabis plant clones they could grow themselves, “most people don't know that so if they're willing to go up to Bellingham, they can get medically compliant clones” from the Trail Blazin’ facility (audio - 5m).
  • Rosellison mentioned that logos for compliant products “means nothing to anybody: budtenders, owners, managers, some patients.” He regarded the suggestion of “medical grade” as an important change for “re-education.” Rosellison was aware many of the suggestions participants had were more suited for WSLCB or legislators than for DOH staff, but also found much of the feedback could be summed up as needing more compliance and oversight for the existing rules. Additionally, he wanted compliant product testing to include terpene analysis and for rules governing “sniff jars” for cannabis products to be simplified and less “cumbersome” for retailers and producer/processors (audio - 4m).

• Finally, panelists shared their insights and ambitions for the medical cannabis program based on what they’d heard.
  • Angell started off by asking to get the Menti survey results. She told attendees she’d taken “about five pages of notes” and was grateful to those who’d offered their time and perspectives as her team was “starting to have what we're hoping [will] be a two-way communication street that we can hear, learn, and just grow” the medical cannabis program. Angell had the sense that everyone recognized the limits of what DOH could do, “we have certain statutes that are in law that cannot be changed just by us requesting that overnight change,” and pointed to the DOH rulemaking process as something that meant rule changes took time (audio - 3m).
    • “You probably did” notice staff “nodding quite a bit because there were things that were mentioned that are in our scope, and we might not be able to make the fix tonight, or tomorrow,” stated Angell. But “I can already assure you that one of the roads has already started with compliant product in our rulemaking, and we will be sending out notifications in the near future” about public events “specific to compliant product” and logos, “actually tailoring these discussions to the specific sections. Because Angell had “heard a lot about compliant products” and that effort was already underway, “this is just helping us get further in that process.”
    • Kaminsky clarified when the last time medical cannabis rules had been revised. Angell responded it hadn’t been done since 2016, following the passage of SB 5052 (audio - 1m).
  • Angell relayed “a lot of the notes that I've been hearing is a lot about access,” including online registration and renewal, and “we are currently working through the process of what it would look like to upgrade our medical cannabis database.” She confirmed DOH and medical cannabis program staff were “actively involved in…upgrad[ing] that system to have more features for remote use, mobile use, and reporting functionality.” However, “there are limits to what we're able to do based on statute,” she reiterated, “so the first initial in-person appointment [was in] statute.” She added that staff were seeing, “specific to the medical cannabis program, we need to get more information out there to the producer/processors.” Officials were working to update materials for these licensees and reach out to them, “because a lot of focus is placed on retailers with their endorsement, but we want some more information or resources for the producer/processors that are out there as well, and what patients can access through them,” Angell said (audio - 4m).
  • Kause indicated that some topics were ones they’d heard previously, but “some of those things…are similar because we are working on…a lot of those things mentioned, so that makes me happy.” She also found “a lot of things that I heard today were new and I've taken note of those things,” and looked forward to talking it over with others at DOH. “I just want to let each of you know, this team was curated very meticulously…by Shannon and others and…it's made up of very compassionate and driven people that also have a personal tie to the program….this program is in the hands of people that care.” She thanked people for their “energy” and stories, “I'm just overwhelmed and I just want to thank you all” (audio - 2m).
  • Johnson remarked safe medical products was a theme he’d picked up on. He had a background working with pharmacies at DOH, but “one of the reasons I got out of pharmacy [was] because I felt like I was just doling pills out to everybody every day.” Often this involved medications people needed to counteract side effects of other medications, he said, “it reached a tipping point and I didn't want to be involved with it anymore.” Additionally, his mother had spent decades with a degenerative illness leading him to “see firsthand the sort of side effects that go into it and, and it's not great.” Johnson said his mother had been “a medical cannabis patient before medical cannabis was a thing.” Later in life, he noted she was “hesitant about going into a database and that's, that's fine.” But she wouldn’t have been able to walk up stairs to talk to a certified consultant, Johnson said. He added, “I hear you, we all hear you, we empathize with you and, and yeah, we're very passionate about this work and, and having these familial ties to the community.” He summed up how he looked forward to continued engagement with patients as staff looked at updating medical cannabis rules (audio - 3m).
  • Walker agreed “I get emotional really easily hearing from you all,” and it made me feel like, much more connected to the community in a way that I really was…looking for.” She said the medical cannabis team “talks consistently about ideas” that could “rejuvenate and bring back to life the medical market, and of course where our scope ends.” Walked promised as the conversations continued they would try to “figure out how all of the players in the game can get to a goal that is in the service of patients getting safe, effective products that are accessible” (audio - 2m).
    • Ryan advised people interested in DOH medical cannabis rulemaking to follow the site’s in-progress rules page (audio - 1m).
  • Wong thanked participants, stating, “I look forward to solving some of these problems together, and I hope to be of service” (audio - <1m).
  • Dagley was grateful to attendees, stating she’d heard from others how difficult it was to make stores the point of contact for registering patients and how “stop gaps in the process actually really do impact patients.” She felt “if the state's going to be…smack dab in the middle of this process, then maybe the state could take the onus of the card creation.” Dagley also believed “private counseling in the store setting” was challenging, and wondered if tribal governments had any workarounds: “perhaps they are operating under a slightly different code of laws around this” as she’d heard “some of them have set up some private consulting room.” She called for review of the possibility among other approaches to incentivize retail compliance with medical endorsements (audio - 6m).
    • Dagley attributed patient hesitancy in joining the registry to “medical stigma against cannabis patients and there's also legal stigma and more.” Any database update or redesign should involve “thinking about privacy, thinking about keeping it out of the hands of law enforcement.”
    • “I think that was a really good point that was brought up about what would it look like to make a permanent status on some of these authorizations and cards,” Dagley argued, and felt a “chronic illness” should qualify and save patients the cost and hassle of renewal.
    • “The issue of opioid addiction is near and dear in my heart, I lost my best friend to fentanyl overdose eight years ago and that situation has gotten a lot worse,” Dagley remarked. She hoped to see “holistic care” inclusive of cannabis when beneficial, and if the plant was “easier [to] access we could start saving some more people.”
  • Field seconded others’ comments, but felt passage of HB 1453 was one of the most immediate ways to save patients money: “I don't see why we're paying taxes on…our medicine” (audio - 1m).
  • Wise cautioned that she still had a “naivete that I have yet to get over that putting facts out there, and science out there will just solve the problem.” For this reason she was inclined to have “more science-based information available to the public, not necessarily just medical patients.” Having trained budtenders “in a number of different places over the years,” Wise had found “almost all of their clients that come in the store are looking for some kind of medical” or “wellness” application (audio - 5m).
    • According to Wise, Medicine Creek Analytics would test any cannabis sample in sufficient amount from anyone identifying as a patient without demanding a registry card or other proof because “I appreciate stories but I believe you when you say you're a patient and I don't necessarily need to hear all of the details.”
    • Wise was also supportive of easier access to certificates of analysis (COAs), either through retailers or by the use of package QR codes to allow customers to see testing records. Other improvements to testing or traceability would also foster trust in the medical cannabis program generally, she reasoned. Wise called the Cannabis Central Reporting System (CCRS) at WSLCB “the black hole of traceability…it's a reporting system in the state and no one outside of the LCB has eyes into that system.” Licensees and patients had to trust that end products had been tested for the appropriate criteria, she said, but “there's a lot of incentives to cut corners there and I think having a more transparent reporting/traceability system would be really helpful,” and something DOH staff could help advocate for.
    • In July 2023, WSLCB leaders began looking for third-party vendors to replace CCRS but subsequently indicated plans to deliberate internally at more length first.
  • Kingsbury was satisfied to know department staff were already looking into some topics “and I encourage you to participate.” He considered a lot of the issues raised to be “barriers” specific to patients that reflected an inclination for authorities to view them as criminals, “a remnant of the drug war.” Kingsbury stated that SB 5052 had not only merged the medical and adult-use markets, it detailed procedures “that would normally be left to rulemaking and that's really restricted you.” His wish was that whenever regulators were looking at “a remedy to our access and…working on these access issues, instead of taking it for granted that we need the database there to make sure we're not doing something sketchy, why don't we think of it in terms of…how does this serve patients more humanely and better? How does this improve our access?” (audio - 5m)
  • Seifert noted his work on medical cannabis policy included getting post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) added to the list of qualifying conditions, but believed veterans had been “forgotten” since then. Calling the US Department of Veterans Affairs a “pill mill,” he wanted to see state-level alternatives. “Cannabis is schedule one right next to heroin,” he argued, so there could be consumption sites for cannabis similar to methadone clinics (audio - 6m).
    • Even though rules allowed donation of cannabis products to patients, Seifert had been unable to get retailers to set up a program to advertise as “Twenty22Many support depots” and donate dated products to patients. At the moment, “zero have a program set up …for veterans to get free meds. You guys pay to have those meds destroyed,” he said. Seifert reported giving away cannabis to homeless veterans, “and every single time we do that their face lights up.” He hoped a more standardized program to help veteran cannabis patients would take shape, but felt the excise tax exemption could be a significant incentive for both patients and licensees to produce or sell compliant items.
    • Carveth felt Seifert “represent[ed] veterans very well. I appreciate that, sir. I honor you for that. Please stay involved.”
  • Ryan brought the conversation to a close, finding it “abundantly clear” more events and discussion were needed. She promised the Cannabis Alliance would stay involved in “finding more opportunities to continue to have conversations like this.” She pointed to a video she’d posted with Kingsbury a year before where they discussed “how the medical cannabis program in Washington state was on a respirator and we were worried.” Ryan felt their discussions helped to “be able to crack the code in what looks like a good medical cannabis program for the State of Washington, and that is thanks to your willingness to have kind meaningful, vulnerable conversations” (audio - 2m).
    • Ryan added that the group remained open to feedback on their format for future events and thanked everyone for coming.
    • Carveth promised “this is the first meeting of many. Don't let it go away.”