WA House - Session
(February 9, 2024)

Here are some observations from the Friday February 9th Washington State House of Representatives (WA House) Session.

My top 4 takeaways:

• HB 2320, "Concerning high THC [tetrahydrocannabinol] cannabis products," was revised to focus on optional industry training along with intervention and treatment guidance for health practitioners before reaching the House floor.
  • The legislation was first heard by the Washington State House Regulated Substances and Gaming Committee (WA House RSG) on January 16th. During a January 29th executive session, members recommended passage after approving a proposed substitute which removed a provision increasing the purchase age for products with over 35% THC to 25.
  • Next, the Washington State House Appropriations Committee (WA House APP) gave HB 2320 a fiscal hearing on February 3rd, and in executive session on February 5th voted for a minor revision to add a null and void clause, leading to another substitute version of the bill. Added to the House calendar on February 8th, the Senate Bill Report listed the following effects:
    • Requires the Department of Health [DOH] to develop optional training for retail cannabis staff as well as a notice that cannabis retailers must conspicuously post at the point of sale for consumers, related to possible health risks and impacts of high-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) cannabis and available resources. 
    • Requires the Health Care Authority [WA HCA] to contract to develop and implement guidance and health interventions for health care providers, certain patients, and for other uses, with reports and subject to funding.
  • A revised fiscal note showed DOH staff were uncertain of the fiscal impact. WA HCA analysts understood the bill to require them to “issue a request for proposal (RFP) and contract with an entity to develop, implement, test, and evaluate guidance and health interventions” as well as using the data this party gathered for “reports submitted to the legislature” required in December 2025, July 2027, “and a final report by December 1, 2028.” The costs would include $100,000 from the General Fund-State (GF-S) “annually for data gathering and HCA assumes project management and report writing are included in the scope of work.” Overall costs for each fiscal year (FY) were set at $758,000 for FY 2025 through 2028, and $367,000 in FY 2029.

• Remarks from the bill sponsor and others condemned legislative inaction for “growing a schizophrenia epidemic" through availability of cannabis concentrates that would “destroy families” without action.
  • Sponsoring Representative Lauren Davis pointed out after several years of championing legislation to reform cannabis concentrates, HB 2320 was the first of those bills to be passed by policy and fiscal committees to reach a floor vote. Similar to her hearing testimony, she felt that the general public had voted to legalize “cannabis the plant that grows in the ground,” and she hadn’t been aware of concentrated products prior to the commercial market. Davis said the policy covered “an entire supply chain, investors, science, industry profit motivation, we legalized all of it, and the result: the cannabis products available today bear little resemblance to cannabis the plant,” specifically those like "dabs, hash oil, shatter" having “up to 99% THC” (audio - 3m, video).
    • Deeming “high potency products” to constitute an “entirely different drug,” Davis argued “a different drug produces entirely different health impacts.” She referred to cannabis use disorder (CUD) as “relatively rare with low potency, and incredibly common with high potency cannabis,” along with cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, a “cyclic vomiting disorder,” even though “low potency cannabis [was] actually antiemetic, it suppresses vomiting at low potency doses.”
      • While having a history of use to reduce nausea, research into the antiemetic properties of cannabis based on different product types has been sparse. A 2022 study, The Effectiveness of Common Cannabis Products for Treatment of Nausea, noted that “[a]mong product characteristics, flower and concentrates yielded the strongest, yet similar results.”
    • Of greatest concern for Davis were mental health implications, remarking that there was an “incredible volume of research” on high potency products. She asserted that:
      • “Utilization of cannabis use disorder health codes increased 50% over the last four years.”
        • The study, which Davis had cited in previous testimony on the bill indicated among the limitations on their analysis, “we did not study a causal relationship between cannabis use and mental health…a complex relationship exists here, and we only studied time trends related to diagnosis codes. Additionally, we did not distinguish between people using cannabis medically or for recreational use.”
      • “Up to a third of cases of schizophrenia could be averted if…high THC potency were not available.”
        • A debate between viewing cannabis consumption as a causal factor for schizophrenia, or a type of predictive behavior among those genetically predisposed to developing schizophrenia has continued for years. While some have claimed there’s conclusive proof cannabis use leads to schizophrenia diagnoses, many researchers have asserted “that genetic risk for schizophrenia predicts cannabis” use, or use of other substances. One 2008 study found: “Cannabis Use During Adolescence Significantly Increased the Risk of Developing a Schizophreniform Disorder at Age 26 y but Only in Those Individuals Who Carried 1 or 2 COMT Val158Met Val Alleles.”  
      • “Of the individuals who are presenting to our emergency departments with first episode THC-induced psychotic disorder, half of them will receive a schizophrenia diagnosis within eight years.”
    • Davis reminded the chamber of the US opioid epidemic, and claimed “legislative bodies at the time failed to act” in the 1990s and 2000s before the situation became an epidemic. “We are currently, because of high potency products, growing a schizophrenia epidemic among generation Z in this state,” she insisted, “and the bill before us takes very modest initial steps toward addressing these public health harms.”
  • Representative Tom Dent praised Davis for the "great scientific overview,” and said his was a “pragmatic view,” as he’d “watched it destroy families, destroy kids. I've watched bright futures just evaporate.” He was heartbroken to see “young people engage in this behavior and not realizing how much damage [they]'re doing to themselves, and to those around them.” He regretted that HB 2320 “was watered down,” but argued the measure was “still worthwhile…if for nothing else than for our future generations” (audio - 1m, video).
  • Representative Mary Dye, was also thankful for Davis’ leadership, referencing the book Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness and Violence, she believed there’d been “a journal review across the global scientific community.” She suggested the book “documents data, and Washington state is one of them, and it talks about the increase of paranoia amongst people that use high potency THC just because of the way it embeds in in the fatty tissues of the body and then releases and people that use high potency marijuana tend to get more paranoid because they have a hard time distinguishing when they're high and when they're sober and that causes a lot of complicated mental health issues and we're seeing the result of that.” Dye was confident there was enough evidence to “say that this is really good policy, to let people know that the use of these products could impact their mental health and their physical health” (audio - 2m, video).
    • A 2009 study of rats indicated THC stored in body fat could return to the bloodstream when the animals experienced stress or starvation, but this wasn’t specific to cannabis with higher THC concentrations. 2014 research with human subjects concluded factors like “exercise and/or food deprivation [were] unlikely to cause sufficient cannabinoid concentration changes.”
    • Among the critiques leveled against Tell Your Children, was a claim that the murder rate in Washington had increased around the time cannabis was legalized. A 2019 story quoted Yasmin Hurd, director of the Addiction Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, as saying: "There is nothing to support that marijuana legalization has increased murder rates...schizophrenic people are not the ones committing murders.”

• Two legislators explained that they still had questions about whether research justified further regulations, but believed the bill to be a sensible change in how cannabis products were presented to the public.
  • Minority Caucus Vice Chair Kelly Chambers planned to vote in favor of the move, but expected to see a mixed vote from her party. As the Ranking Minority Member on WA House RSG, she’d thought HB 2320 “really changed quite a bit since it was heard before our committee.” She noted the required signage on concentrates and optional training for retail staff before pointing out “we've heard some concerns that the issue of high potency cannabis isn't settled science…there are some studies that are cited…and there's questions surrounding that because cannabis is not legal federally and has only been legalized in Washington State just 10 years.” Chambers preferred more studies on the subject be conducted before taking greater action, given “the question of whether the risks…claimed to be associated with high potency cannabis are causation, or correlation” (audio - 1m, video).
  • Representative Sharon Wylie, the WA House RSG Co-Chair and author of the substitute bill recommended by the committee which oversaw “substances that are harmful to some people and not to others,” felt HB 2320 was “not an easy bill to work on.” She supported more education and research, since “it isn't totally settled science, but there's enough that's concerning that…our obligation as legislators is to warn people,” adding that “there's other problems that we have to address, but this is an important one…I'm very happy to vote for” (audio - 1m, video).

• A supermajority of House members voted in favor of the legislation, sending it over to the Washington State Senate (audio - 1m, video)
  • The vote on HB 2320 resulted in 95 yeas, five nays, and one member excused. Five Republican members opposed the bill:
    • Assistant Minority Whip Greg Cheney
    • Representative Joel McEntire
    • Minority Caucus Vice Chair Eric Robertson, also Assistant Ranking Minority Member on WA House RSG
    • Representative Jim Walsh
    • Representative Alex Ybarra
  • The bill was referred to the Washington State Senate Labor and Commerce Committee (WA Senate LC) following House passage and scheduled for an executive session—but not a public hearing—on February 19th.
    • Although the committee previously heard and approved the companion bill, SB 6220, changes in each chamber made the bills substantially different. Members might forgo public input altogether, or even refer HB 2320 to another committee ahead of a February 21st legislative cutoff deadline in order to keep advancing.