WA House COG - Committee Meeting
(February 12, 2021)

Here are some observations from the Friday February 15th Washington State House Commerce and Gaming Committee (WA House COG) meeting.

My top 4 takeaways:

• In 2020, legislation to limit production of cannabis concentrates to 10% tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) was introduced by Representative Lauren Davis but wasn’t advanced beyond a policy committee hearing.
  • In 2019, WSLCB organized a Potency Tax Work Group to meet a legislative mandate to “determine the feasibility of and make recommendations for varying the marijuana excise tax rate based on product potency.” A final report was produced by the agency after contracting a feasibility study from BOTEC Analysis. The final report stated that “transitioning to a potency-based tax for cannabis was not feasible at this time in Washington State. Some work group members from the public health community were in favor of a tax structure that would discourage consumption of high potency cannabis, but did not have confidence that this tax would guarantee those outcomes.”
    • At time of publication, Illinois was the only state gauging their cannabis excise tax in relation to THC concentration:
      • 20% tax for all cannabis infused products
      • 10% tax for other cannabis products with THC content of 35% or less
      • 25% tax for other cannabis products with THC content over 35%
    • 2020 legislation in Vermont legalized cannabis sales with a proposed maximum of 60% THC for concentrates. Vermont’s governor allowed the bill to take effect without his signature, though the state wasn’t expected to start issuing licenses until 2022.
  • In 2020, Davis sponsored HB 2546, which would have restricted production and sales of concentrates “greater than 10 percent, except for retailers with a medical endorsement” which could continue to sell products to medical cannabis patients registered with the Washington State Department of Health (DOH). The bill stated“the use of high-potency marijuana has more harmful mental health effects than use of less potent marijuana.” The fiscal note reported that WSLCB anticipated only $21,764 per year in enforcement staffing costs pertaining to investigations and “licensee support and education” and made no projections about potential loss of revenue to the State.
    • Davis is the Strategic Director of the Washington Recovery Alliance (WRA) and a long time advocate of substance abuse treatment by the State. Her legislative biography says she “championed HB 1713, named “Ricky’s Law,” which was signed by Governor [Jay] Inslee in 2016. The legislation created an involuntary crisis commitment system for youth and adults with life-threatening addiction. Ricky’s Law represents one of the largest single investments in addiction treatment in Washington state history.”
      • Read a December 2020 preliminary report on the law by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP), which stated that “qualitative evaluation” began in January 2021.
  • Davis introduced HB 2546 at a public hearing in the Washington State House Commerce and Gaming Committee (WA House COG) by reviewing research that demonstrated cannabis lowered people’s “threshold for developing a psychotic disorder.” She said average potency of “black market cannabis” in the 1970s was “2% and in 1995 it was 4% and the time voters approved initiative 502 it was 12%.” Following legalization “with the aid of private investment,” Davis believed the cannabis industry “created concentrates with a potency of between 70 and 100%,” products “that most people were not aware existed when the initiative passed.”
    • Davis’ testimony included claims Cannabis Observer was unable to verify and others that were broadly misleading, such as an alleged four-fold increase in emergency room admissions of adolescents testing positive for cannabis on a drug screen or “with a cannabis related diagnostic code” at Children’s Hospital Colorado from 2005 to 2015. She failed to mention the study indicated that most of the increase pre-dated legal cannabis access in that state, with retail stores only open the final year of the study. 
    • A 2019 VICE News article explored problems with widely-cited historical cannabis potency data, including around “samples seized by law enforcement, which introduces variables that make accurate comparison over time—particularly in the early years—difficult...For one, the researchers only had access to about 150-200 samples per year in the early 1970s. With so few samples, the data could be based on unrepresentative ditchweed—not what most people were actually smoking.” Mahmoud ElSohly, professor of pharmaceutics at the University of Mississippi and director of the school's Marijuana Project—which oversees the Potency Monitoring Program—noted another problem “before he took charge in 1981, the [U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration] (DEA) often didn’t provide samples...until after the cases were disposed of legally, ElSohly explained, meaning they were often a few years old...Since potency decays by roughly 10 percent per year, according to ElSohly, this means that those samples didn't really represent the real strength of the drug at the time that people actually bought and consumed it.”
    • The 2007 book Lies, Damned Lies, and Drug War Statistics: A Critical Analysis of Claims Made by the Office of National Drug Control Policy covered more problems in tracking cannabis concentration, evaluating sometimes shifting federal statements on cannabis strength and possible impacts on consumers.
    • Cannabis concentrates were commonplace enough that lawmakers limited the personal possession amount to one quarter of the permitted weight of cannabis flower in a 2014 law passed before retail stores opened. WSLCB restricted the size of concentrate packaging to a single gram within months of stores opening, a limit which remained in effect at publication time.
  • Davis told fellow lawmakers the legislation would “address a significant problem” though she was open to “debate what the cap on THC products should be, or if there should be one at all.” She concluded that current law and regulation amounted to “conducting a scientific experiment on the brains of an entire generation” and that no matter what, this was the “beginning, not the end” of a dialogue on the issue. Davis was unable to stay for public testimony in which three speakers supported, and 32 opposed, the bill.
  • In September 2020, WA House COG members convened for a work session devoted to concentrated cannabinoid products, with presentations from the Washington State University (WSU) Collaboration on Cannabis Policy, Research, and Outreach (CCPRO); the University of Washington Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute (UW ADAI); legislative staff; WSLCB leadership; and representatives from the Washington CannaBusiness Association (WACA) and Washington SunGrowers Industry Association (WSIA).
  • In December, a cannabis potency workgroup briefed prevention advocates on a “consensus statement” developed to describe health risks related to cannabis dosage that concluded “THC content of cannabis products contributes to adverse health effects in a dose-response manner. This increased risk imposed from using higher potency cannabis products is particularly concerning for young users and those with certain pre-existing mental health conditions.”
    • The event facilitator, UW Professor of Prevention Kevin Haggerty, Director of the Social Development Research Group (SDRG) at UW and  Co-Director of the Northwest Prevention Technology Transfer Center (NW PTTC), explained that the authors were “really indebted to” WSLCB Public Health Education Liaison Sara Cooley Broschart and Washington State Health Care Authority (WA HCA) Substance Use Disorder Prevention and Mental Health Promotion Section Manager Sarah Mariani.
    • In the meeting, researchers discussed the cannabis industry “pushing back” on their research during the September WA House COG work session and expressed concern cannabis interests were willing “to dismiss science when it goes against profit.” Presenters were unhappy trade group representatives brought “their own scientists and identified them as scientists” and asserted the groups’ lobbying practices resembled other industries such as corporate tobacco and pharmaceuticals (audio - 4m).
    • When Haggerty was asked “if we’re seeing increases in THC across the board, are we seeing higher rates of psychosis?” he responded there was “no way to know yet.”
  • At a January 6th meeting of the Cannabis Advisory Council (CAC) organized by the WSLCB, members asked about agency staff relationships with prevention advocates and why Prevention Roundtables were closed to the public and other stakeholders.
    • According to the Washington Association for Substance Abuse and Violence Prevention (WASAVP), another roundtable has been scheduled by the WSLCB for June 8th.

• Representative Davis’ revised bill for 2021, HB 1463, would limit concentrates to 30% THC while raising the purchase age to 25; her introductory testimony reiterated several claims verbatim and was accusatory towards the cannabis industry.
  • Committee Counsel Peter Clodfelter reviewed the particulars of HB 1463 - “Addressing serious mental health consequences of high-potency cannabis products by regulating the sale of cannabis concentrates” (audio - 2m, video).
    • The legislation’s intent section states, “Prior to Washington legalizing marijuana sales, many of these extremely high-potency products did not exist or were not widely available. By 2019, sales of high-potency marijuana concentrates had grown to nearly 40 percent of total sales of marijuana products.” It then cites the consensus statement claim that “Use of cannabis with high THC concentration increases the chances of developing cannabis use disorder or addiction to cannabis, particularly among adolescents. High-potency cannabis use can have lifelong mental health consequences, which often manifest in adolescence or early adulthood.”
    • The intent section carries over a mistake from the previous bill by claiming “marijuana-infused edible products [are] limited to 10 percent by state law.” In fact, rules state “a single serving of a marijuana-infused product must not exceed ten milligrams active” THC, rather than 10% of the total product weight.
    • Clodfelter explained the bill would “generally prohibit cannabis retailers from selling marijuana concentrates with a THC content greater than 30 percent” and retailers would be “prohibited from selling marijuana concentrates to any purchasers who are under age 25.”
    • The exception to these limitations would be retailers with medical cannabis endorsements who could continue to sell concentrates above 30% to medical cannabis patients and designated providers who “opted in” to the Medical Marijuana Authorization Database operated by the DOH, he advised committee members.
    • The bill would “not impact usable marijuana, which is the dried marijuana flower, or the product category of marijuana infused edible products,” Clodfelter added.
    • The fiscal note from WSLCB staff determined there would be no impacts on revenue or expenditures and no need for further rulemaking to implement the bill.
      • Beyond differing from their assessment of HB 2546 which similarly made no attempt to project impacts on revenue to the State from fundamental revision of a major product category, WSLCB staff had nevertheless warned about revenue changes on other bills during the 2021 legislative session.
      • HB 1019, legislation to legalize adult home growing of cannabis, originally received a $0 fiscal note from WSLCB but a subsequent revision warned “every one-tenth of a percent reduction in sales would result in a loss of revenue of $46,920 per year.” However, agency staff had to issue another fiscal note to correct their math as the agency collected “$469.2 million in marijuana excise tax in FY20,” 0.001 of which would be “$469,200 per year.” By way of contrast, a WSU researcher examined the 2020 Contributions of the Washington Cannabis Sector, and estimated the State could anticipate continued growth in excise tax collections towards $520 to $585 million in FY21, or between 11% and 25% “higher than what was collected” in 2020 if home growing of cannabis was legalized.
      • SB 5004, which proposed exempting registered medical cannabis patients from paying the state’s 37% excise tax on cannabis, originally received a fiscal note in which WSLCB staff projected a reduction in dedicated marijuana account revenue between $7.5 and $10 million per biennium. However, WSLCB staff admitted that the true revenue impact was ‘indeterminate’ because the agency didn’t know which tax exempt sales qualified. After receiving better information from advocates, the agency issued a revised fiscal note which anticipated biennial revenue reductions closer to $500K. A third fiscal note anticipated revenue reductions would amount to less than $10K.
  • Davis introduced her bill, saying that “in 2012, when Washington voters approved legal cannabis, the black market was dominated by dried cannabis flower with a potency of around ten percent” and voters chose to approve the measure “based on that with which they were familiar, low-potency dried flower cannabis.” She said cannabis was “biologically limited to about 30% potency and initiative 502 capped the potency of edibles at ten percent, however there was no potency limit established for cannabis concentrates” (audio - 6m, video).
    • In 2008, the Northwest High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (NW HIDTA) Drug Market Analysis identified Washington state cannabis as “common” and designated the state ‘M7,’ a top marijuana producer with involvement from domestic and international drug trafficking organizations. The wide cultivation and availability of cannabis in the state’s illicit market was reiterated in a 2010 HIDTA report to Congress. 
    • The average cannabinoid concentration in the state’s pre-502 market is likely never to be exactly known according to a RAND Corporation report, Before the Grand Opening: Measuring Washington State's Marijuana Market in the Last Year Before Legalized Commercial Sales. Their assessment of average concentrations found “the available information suggests that lower-potency forms account for only a modest share of the Washington market and probably a smaller share than they do nationwide.” One study found a national average cannabinoid concentration of approximately 12% THC at the time retail stores opened in 2014.
    • A 2016 NW HIDTA report compared ‘Hash oil’ concentrations on a national level to the state’s then-new legal market, finding “average THC percentage for useable marijuana based on national samples was 55.45%, as compared to the Seattle store’s average of 72.76%” which included concentrates with “peak levels between 84.6% and 90.8%.” Moreover, that report identified a trend of increasing cannabis potency that predated the legal cannabis businesses by decades, according to Marijuana Research Findings 1980, which noted cannabis was “often in much higher potency than it was 10 or even 5 years ago.”
  • Davis continued, “Enter science, industry, and business investors and concentrates with 99% potency are readily available” in retail stores. She cited a researcher who had called the products “as close to the cannabis plant as strawberries are to frosted strawberry Pop Tarts.” Furthermore, “concentrate sales have soared” she told members.
    • While concentrates like kief or hash have existed for centuries, many of the types of concentrates targeted by the bill were common enough by the time retail stores opened in Washington that local law enforcement and federal agencies partnered to produce a brochure on the products.
    • Analysis of 2012 data from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) System to Retrieve Information from Drug Evidence (STRIDE) database showed hash oil concentrates contained “80 percent to 90 percent” THC before states legalized production.
  • Davis said she’d “spent my career working in the field of mental health and substance use disorder treatment and recovery. I began to hear reports of youth with cannabis induced psychosis filling emergency departments and psychiatric wards, and high school students having psychotic episodes after dabbing. I started to delve into the research, the literature is both definitive and damning."
    • She put negative consequences in “three buckets”: physical health impairments such as cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS), increased risk of cannabis use disorder, and mental health impacts. “High potency cannabis increases the risk of developing a psychotic disorder, like schizophrenia, even when accounting for family history,” Davis said.
      • Other research on cannabis and psychosis includes:
        • The Intergenerational Transmission of Cannabis Use: Associations between Parental History of Cannabis Use and Cannabis Use Disorder, Low Positive Parenting, and Offspring Cannabis Use
        • Cannabis and psychosis: Neurobiology
  • Turning to the consensus statement released at the end of 2020, she explained that the unusual academic production "in no uncertain terms" established that “high potency cannabis increases the risk for serious health consequences...especially in young people.”
    • Davis shared a letter “from a young woman in our state named Nicole” who saw “significant changes in her 34 year old sister who was using dabs.” Davis said Nicole’s sister’s “life spiraled out of control” in 2020 as she was repeatedly arrested “for assault, hit and run while driving under the influence of cannabis...and hearing voices.” Recently, after “dabbing all day,” Nicole wrote that her sister had hallucinations and began “wandering the neighborhood barefoot, knocking on her neighbors doors looking for her children” before being placed in “in-patient psychiatric treatment” by law enforcement. Davis asserted that her story was representative of “tragedies playing out across our state every day."
  • After the failure of HB 2546, Davis described how she’d “initiated numerous meetings with the cannabis industry and none of them were aware of the psychosis link.” Although industry “disagreed with the potency cap as the solution,” Davis went ahead with her legislation as she had been under the impression that “industry leaders were emphatic in their commitment to coming to the table as thoughtful partners.”
    • Instead, Davis expressed her “surprise when, instead of proposing more palatable policy solutions as promised, cannabis industry representatives testified” that “the volumes of research implicating cannabis in psychotic disorders is unfounded.” Quoting her opinion piece in the Everett Herald, Davis said cannabis businesses were “borrowing from the well-worn playbooks of their forefathers, Big Tobacco and opioid manufacturers” by attempting to “poke holes in the science and offer alternative explanations.” She offered a citation from Clarence Cook Little, former head of the National Cancer Institute---today the American Cancer Society---who was a “tobacco industry director” in 1957 when he denied the link between cancer and cigarettes. Davis claimed cannabis industry representatives struck a similar posture during the September work session.
    • While she’d expected the businesses wouldn’t “enthusiastically agree to a low potency limit,” she considered their behavior a failure “to make good on their word; to show up as earnest partners in addressing their product’s role in one of the largest emerging health crises of our time.” Davis indicated the industry “preaches about its commitment to public safety and public health” and should be behind her efforts, or at the very least “propose solution-oriented approaches to tackling the dangers of their products.” She hoped to avoid “another round of rejecting the consensus of our state’s leading cannabis researchers,” feeling the industry only backed “science” until doing so “interferes with their profits.” She claimed cannabis concentrates were “a new substance, but the story is the same, the physical and behavioral health of an entire generation of young people is at stake.”
  • Cannabis Observer has not identified any member of the cannabis industry who participated in drafting HB 1463, nor public outreach on the topic by Davis. Her first press release on concentrated cannabinoid products announced HB 1463 on February 10th. It reported that “prominent” researchers had been “warning about the consequences of high-potency cannabis products, but the state has not listened” while “the cannabis industry has continued to deny the science.”
    • Moreover, Davis’ call for intellectual honesty from cannabis representatives while comparing their behavior to tobacco and opioid manufacturers invites consideration of the history of the prohibition of cannabis as a means of advancing public health and safety goals. The criminalization of cannabis in the United States was often advocated for because officials were similarly concerned that “the physical and behavioral health of an entire generation of young people is at stake.”
    • On January 22nd, WA House COG members convened a policy hearing on HB 1210, ”Replacing the term ‘marijuana’ with the term ‘cannabis’ throughout the Revised Code of Washington,” to divorce the State from the racist rhetoric of government experts pushing criminalization of cannabis as a means of targeting certain races and social groups in the early 20th century.
    • The infamous 1936 film Reefer Madness was produced as an educational presentation originally titled Tell Your Children.
    • Legitimate research justifying decriminalization was disregarded in favor of questionably conducted “hard evidence” that cannabis “killed brain cells.”
  • In 2021, Davis also sponsored HB 1499, which would legalize possession of personal amounts of all controlled substances while funding prevention and treatment programs. That bill was heard by the Washington State House Public Safety Committee (WA House PS) on Friday February 12th then amended and recommended out of committee on Monday February 15th. The bill  demonstrated Davis’ interest in harm reduction reforms for wider drug policy, but it’s unclear if she appreciates why skepticism about her intentions may endure. Millenia of fluctuating cannabis health claims and nearly a century of cannabis criminalization have left most people unclear and uninformed about the value of cannabis. Davis is no more culpable for the outlandish claims of earlier prohibitionists than cannabis licensees are for the actions of other people, in other industries, at other times. However, acknowledgement of a troubled legacy signifies maturity. It’s past time to move past the divisiveness common to past cannabis lawmaking by understanding the sources of skepticism to new prohibitions of cannabis products.

• Testimony from researchers, doctors, and a grieving parent centered the bill’s support on potential impacts for youth and young adults; in all 18 people spoke or signed in support of the bill.
  • Beatriz Carlini, UW School of Public Health Affiliate Associate Professor, UW ADAI Senior Researcher, and potency work group lead (audio - 2m, video, written testimony).
    • Carlini made clear that she was speaking as a citizen rather than representing any organization or the potency work group she led which produced the consensus statement. “Psychotic disorders like schizophrenia affect less than one percent of Americans,” she testified, “but these disorders have no cure, are profoundly disabling, and cause an enormous amount of suffering to those afflicted by it, their families, and communities.”
    • While the condition was without a “single cause," Carlini described how there was an "interplay of genetics with life events" and research “overwhelmingly” showed that “one of these events is cannabis, particularly those with high THC content.” She then said “frequent use of high-potency cannabis increases the risk of developing psychotic disorders several orders of magnitude” beyond baseline odds “about 5-10 years later." She believed society could “regulate the environment we all live in” by restricting access of concentrates beyond 30% THC to safeguard “youth from developing psychosis later in life.”
    • Carlini called the bill a "moral obligation backed by science" in part because cannabis concentrates had proven to be "more prevalent among historically marginalized groups...such as [ethnic] and racial minorities, low income, uninsured, and those reporting poor mental health.”
      • See the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Fact Sheet: First Episode Psychosis.
      • Carlini briefed members in September 2020 on concentrated cannabis products.
      • See her 2017 research:
        • Beyond joints and brownies: Marijuana concentrates in the legal landscape of Washington State
        • Consumers’ Perspectives on the Function of Marijuana in Their Lives
  • Kevin Haggerty, UW Professor of Prevention, UW SDRG Director, and NW PTTC Co-Director (audio - 2m, video).
    • Haggery emphasized he was not testifying about cannabis flower but rather "high potency, manufactured cannabis concentrates...oils, budders, products for dabbing" which contained THC concentrations between “60-99%.” He said “manufactured products” were 35% of the state's retail market, having risen from 9% during the first months of retail operation in 2014. Haggerty rhetorically wondered "but is it safe?" before noting the risks outlined in the consensus statement he’d helped author, highlighting that “young people are particularly vulnerable” to substance abuse and, and “younger adults, low income, ethnic minorities, and those reporting poor mental health” had an increased probability of choosing “high potency cannabis products.” His third conclusion was that daily concentrate use “can have lifelong mental health consequences” and with "the greater the potency" "the greater the likelihood of adverse effects."
      • Haggerty spoke about a draft of the consensus statement during the WA HCA Prevention Summit in November 2020 before presenting with Carlini the following month.
    • Representative Melanie Morgan asked whether their research evaluated “high potency in alcohol” and whether those products “also bring on psychosis.” Haggerty answered that their work “was focused on cannabis” and alcohol impacts was “something we may need to take a look at as well” (audio - 1m, video).
      • Relevant research on alcohol use includes:
        • Likelihood of developing an alcohol and cannabis use disorder during youth: Association with recent use and age
        • Longitudinal influence of alcohol and marijuana use on academic performance in college students
        • Carlini co-authored Alcohol policies in developing societies: perspectives from a project
  • Avanti Bergquist, Washington State Psychiatric Association (WSPA) member and WA HCA Children and Youth Behavioral Health Work Group (CYBHWG) member (audio - 2m, video).
    • Bergquist explained that she had expertise in “adult psychiatry, and child and adolescent psychiatry” and that WSPA supported HB 1463. She expressed concerns about “reports from the cannabis industry that they think high-potency cannabis does not contribute to development of psychiatric disorders.” Bergquist said the consensus statement reflected the “volumes of research on this topic” and was written by "top cannabis experts." She labeled schizophrenia a "lifelong deteriorating condition" including symptoms like “voices telling them terrible things,” saying she’d treated “children on the psychiatric unit who have used cannabis, were previously healthy, and then developed psychosis.” The public didn’t want “our young people experiencing these voices,” Bergquist observed.
    • Representative Kelly Chambers asked about the availability of tests for people to “to understand their genetic markers or predisposition to schizophrenia.” Bergquist replied that no genetic marker for the condition had been “clearly” identified (audio - 1m, video).
    • Morgan sought clarification on whether cannabis concentrates could “lead to schizophrenia” or whether it “exacerbates” underlying conditions in a person, “cause what it sounded like you said is that high-potency cannabis causes schizophrenia” (audio - 3m, video).
      • Carlini first went back to genetic markers, saying that even with testing for hereditary schizophrenia “in terms of policy it’s not realistic to say you just can enter store to buy cannabis if you have a genetic test beforehand” because then the State would be mandating “a medical procedure.”
      • With regard to cannabis concentrates “causing” psychological conditions themselves, she said those conditions were “multi-causal” and because the government couldn’t base rights on genetics they should “control what will trigger” such conditions, including “high-potency cannabis.” Bergquist added that people’s “threshold” for development of psychiatric conditions varied but “high-potency cannabis tends to throw people over that threshold more so than other environmental factors.” She estimated that “half of young people with cannabis induced psychosis” would be diagnosed with schizophrenia “in the next 8 years” because it was “more correlated” than other factors.
        • Cannabis use disorder was estimated to occur in 9% of all consumers which is “significantly less than that of heroin, cocaine, alcohol, and prescribed anxiolytics, but slightly higher than that for psilocybin, mescaline, or LSD.”
  • Beth Ebel, UW Professor of Pediatrics and Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (WCAAP) Co-Chair (audio - 3m, video).
    • Ebel said the bill was “a high priority for our chapter” and echoed earlier comments, saying passage of the legislation was about "supporting reasonable guardrails" for legal cannabis because the “health consequences are significant.” She said that while working “at the trauma center at Harborview [Medical Center]” she saw “a lot of serious problems,” including a “third of kids 12 and up that I take care of on the trauma center have marijuana involved in their injury.” Ebel did not feel HB 1463 was “the only solution” to the issue of youth mental health but said “we have to address it.”
      • The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a study in November 2020, Trends in Adolescent Treatment Admissions for Marijuana in the United States, 2008–2017, which showed fewer teens overall had sought treatment for cannabis use disorder, including in legal cannabis states.
    • She said some patients were “admitted for concerns of traumatic brain injury (TBI)” after cannabis intoxication and behaved “completely out of, out of their minds.” Ebel remarked that one young man had consumed “a concentrated product” that resulted in him being “so altered and consumed with guilt that he leapt from a third story balcony." She had “taken care of [him] until he died.”
  • Don Danielson testified on behalf of his son, Brandon Danielson, who died in September 2019 “due directly to the potency of marijuana as he used highly concentrated oils and shatter” (audio - 3m, video).
    • Danielson described how his son had “struggled with mysterious bouts” of symptoms and was “finally diagnosed with cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS)” though some “doctors [weren’t] even confident with the diagnosis.”
    • At 27 years old, Danielson said that Brandon had been on “a longer than usual bout when he suffered a seizure as he slept” which the medical examiner “determined was directly related” to CHS even though he’d abstained from use long enough to have no THC in his system. He added that his son’s future with his wife and family was "gone, because of marijuana."
    • He claimed there were “thousands, if not tens of thousands of people on social media groups right now talking about how they are suffering the exact same symptoms as Brandon.” Danielson wanted his story known “so that other families don’t have to suffer as we have” and “the unending increase in...concentration levels needs to stop.” He supported limitations on products and warning labels, saying his son had been an adult and “this isn’t about kids to us,” but rather “concentrated use.” Chair Shelly Kloba extended to Danielson “our deepest sympathies for the terrible pain you are going through.”
      • Brandon Danielson’s legacy is preserved in his personal webpage as well as his graphic design and web page work such as Morgan’s Espresso.
      • The most readily found social media focusing on CHS were two groups on Facebook.
  • Persons signed in to testify in support but who didn’t get the opportunity to speak due to time constraints (11):
    • Todd Crooks
    • Laura Crooks
    • Don Danielson
    • Erika Danielson
    • Seth Dawson, Washington Association for Substance Abuse and Violence Prevention (WASAVP) Lobbyist
    • Veronica Munro
    • Mike Walter
  • Persons signing in support of the bill (7):
    • Jo Arlow, UW Forefront Suicide Prevention
    • Julia Fox
    • Mike Graham-Squire, WASAVP Co-Vice President
    • Mickey Johnson
    • Katie Kolan, Contract Lobbyist for the Washington State Medical Association (WSMA) and Washington State Hospital Association (WSHA)
    • Ramona Leber, WASAVP Treasurer
    • Alex Wehinger, WSMA Associate Director, Legislative and Political Affairs

• Industry and consumer advocates found the legislation to be poor policy and a potential boon to illicit sellers targeting underage users; more than one hundred people indicated opposition to the bill.
  • Lukas Hunter, Harmony Farms Director of Compliance and Government Affairs (audio - 3m, video, written testimony).
    • In opposing HB 1463, Hunter said he understood the “intent of public health, safety, and youth prevention...I don’t see this bill as a means of addressing a core issue of youth access and further see it causing health issues from the use of filling agents in concentrates.” He foresaw increased youth access through an “illicit market for high potency product” following passage of the bill. Hunter noted that retail sales of cannabis to minors during compliance checks were 5.8% compared to 20.5% for alcohol vendors and concluded that underage cannabis use was largely due to access “from outside the regulated market.”
    • He believed concentrate usage could be addressed via “education and outreach” but hadn’t seen campaigns “that have utilized cannabis excise tax” in funding. Hunter asked that before lawmakers enacted “a new prohibition” they first direct “time, energy, and a portion of the tax dollars into education and prevention.”
      • DOH maintains several websites focusing on cannabis prevention information for adolescents, mainly You Can WA and Learn About Marijuana, the latter of which features an educational page on vapor and dabbing.
    • Hunter conveyed that his business had “concerns about how we would safely limit THC concentrations,” noting the Vaping Associated Lung Injury (VALI) outbreak in Washington in 2019 had been traced to unregulated products “containing vitamin E acetate as a filler.” He explained that this resulted in an illness that was “not problematic before the era of illicit vape cartridges and is not an issue now that those cartridges are out of circulation.” 
    • “Purity is paramount,” Hunter commented, and consumers seeing low-potency concentrates would rightly ask “what am I consuming that isn’t cannabis?” The industry would adapt if the bill was passed by including “cutting agents, filling agents, stabilizers, and so on” which the industry didn’t presently use, he said, suggesting that processor ingredient disclosure forms held by WSLCB could verify this. He said a primary reason the majority of concentrates didn’t include filler substances was because cannabis producers were “not aware of the long-term health effects” from doing so.
  • Ramsey Doudar, Patients and Users for Reasonable Policy Founder (audio - 2m, video).
    • Doudar challenged the bill’s claim that high-potency concentrates were new to cannabis culture or not widely available: “respectfully, one’s own ignorance to the black market doesn’t make their assertions about it correct.” He said that concentrates had been “popular in the black and gray markets well before legalization was voted on or implemented.” Doudar attested that the pre-legal market items were “not nearly as safe or high quality as the regulated products we have today.”
    • Doudar called out the consensus statement’s repeated focus on “risks for adolescents aged 14 to 18” who weren’t allowed to purchase or possess cannabis anyway. He said the bill would “essentially ban concentrates, which is antithetical to the very premise of I-502, that prohibition doesn’t work.” HB 1463 was likely to “fuel a resurgence of black market extraction labs, and I can guarantee you that dealers will not” verify age before selling, Doudar remarked. He viewed the bill as overregulation of cannabis from a state allowing “people under the age of 21 to help manufacture alcohol.” Doudar summed up the bill as “overly reactionary, nonsensical, and frankly irresponsible as it would upend Washington’s cannabis industry and reinvigorate illegal extractors.”
      • Earlier in the committee meeting, members advanced HB 1483, “Concerning workforce development in the beverage alcohol industry,” which proposed to allow “18- to 21-year-old employees of certain liquor licensees to engage in the manufacture and production of liquor.”
  • Vicki Christophersen, WACA Executive Director (audio - 2m, video).
    • Christophersen started off by noting that legal cannabis was less than a decade old and offered WACA members’ “unequivocal” view that "no minor should have access to or ingest products created in the regulated marketplace." In reminding committee members of the cannabis sector’s strong compliance in barring sales to minors, she called attention to the fact that “the illicit market for cannabis concentrates was ‘alive and well’” before I-502. “It’s inaccurate to state that the illicit market was only flower,” Christophersen commented, mentioning stories of "garages exploding" from illicit extraction, and noting their unregulated products were “dangerous for youth in particular, and for anybody.” Leaving concentrates to the illicit market “actually creates a far more unsafe system.”
    • She concurred with Hunter’s statements on VALI being due to products in unregulated markets which she considered “proof that we really need to keep the regulated marketplace safe and continue to ensure that it keeps products out of the hands of kids.”
  • Caitlein Ryan, The Cannabis AllianceBoard President and Interim Executive Director (audio - 3m, video).
    • Ryan began by establishing that she was a mother of four children ranging from ages eight to 17 and wanted to offer an “alternative, safer, and more effective approach to the concern this bill is trying to address.” 
    • She said that cannabis stakeholders had been restricted from broad collaboration with the prevention community, even being “barred from community meetings by LCB officials.” Ryan spoke to “critical misconceptions” on the topic, the first being that THC “is not analogous to alcohol” and “not well understood due to limitations on research.” She said THC was a single cannabinoid among many plant constituents and the research statement failed to look at the effect from other cannabinoids, building a conclusion “on a flawed foundational assumption.”
    • Ryan was also skeptical of the statement’s assumption that “higher potency products lead to higher THC intake” as cannabis effects were “driven by dosage, not potency.” “Most drinkers don’t drink a beer’s worth of scotch or a coffee cup’s worth of espresso,” she said, “and yet, the same is true for cannabis.” Ryan added that the bill risked “rapidly emaciating options” for medical cannabis patients “who are already struggling to find medicine.” Her last observation was that “when an allowed activity becomes illicit that activity does not stop, it simply becomes illicit” and in this case would fail to “really solve the problem presented.”
    • Ryan advocated for a “robust education program and stiff financial penalties for adults selling to minors.” She observed that with other recreational drugs “youth and community education is historically the most successful approach to prevention.” Ryan wrapped up by saying “while we opposed this bill, we are not opposed to addressing the concerns at the heart of this bill” because “we do not want youth to have access to regulated cannabis products, except where medically directed.” She added that her organization would “welcome any partnership or collaboration” resulting from the bill.
  • Persons signed in to testify against the bill but who didn’t get the opportunity to speak due to time constraints (14):
    • Shannon Compton, Mountain Hi, a tier 1 producer and processor
    • Drew Davis, Mountain Hi
    • Ezra Eickmeyer, Producers NW Lobbyist
    • Thomas Fallihee, PRCBD Founder
    • Allison Fine
    • Zinavia Ivanoff
    • Beau Jackson
    • Benjamin London, Mountain Hi
    • Joanna Monroe, Craft Cannabis Coalition (CCC) Executive Director
    • Crystal Oliver, WSIA Executive Director (written testimony)
  • Persons signing in opposition to the bill (86):
    • Molly Allen
    • Matthew Allen
    • Oleg Arefiev
    • Neil Beaver, Contract Lobbyist for the Washington Defenders Association and the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys (WACDL)
    • Tyrel Bifano
    • Jonathan Blanks
    • Daniel Block
    • Kevin Boehm
    • Dillon Bouher, Free Rain Farms
    • Chris Bowen
    • James Britt, High-5 Cannabis
    • Daniel Brown, Saltese LLC
    • Stacie Brown
    • Burl Bryson, Smokey Point Productions
    • Michelle Burns, iCannAmerica
    • Edward Caban
    • Nicholas Cihlar, SubX
    • Laura Clark, SVIN Garden
    • Shiana Colon, SVIN Garden
    • Jose Cuevas
    • Kim Ducote
    • Russell Erickson, SVIN Garden
    • Bruce Fairbanks
    • Eric Filarski
    • Bryce Fournier
    • Levi Garrett
    • Jorge Garrido
    • Duane Garvin
    • Hamzah Griffin
    • Justin Gross
    • Patrick Gunn
    • Terra Hadley
    • Roderick Henry
    • Jeffrey Hill
    • Lacrecia Hill
    • William Holden, Smokey Point Productions
    • Richard Hollenbaugh
    • Keith Holton, Fire Line Cannabis
    • Michael Hoseney
    • Simon Howard, SVIN Garden
    • Jason Hwang, Smokey Point Productions, Inc.
    • Steven Hyder
    • "Grandma Cat" Jeter
    • Bryson Keating, Premier Recreational Cannabis - Edmonds
    • Joseph Kremer
    • Anthony Krupa
    • Stefanie Lawrence
    • Jesse Lazenby
    • Martin Liese
    • Rhachael Lopez
    • Cody Luce, SVIN Garden
    • Lana McDaniel
    • Debra McElveny
    • Mickael McElveny, Snowcrest
    • Troy McElveny
    • Lani McGeachy, SVIN Garden
    • Jason McRae, From The Soil Farms
    • Juan Mendez
    • Yoko Miyashita, Leafly CEO
    • Nick Moomaw
    • Michael Myers
    • Brandon Naslund
    • Andrew Otwell
    • Debra Padilla
    • Aubrey Prahl
    • Caitlyn Price, Smokey Point Productions
    • Ryan Quebec
    • Chad Ritter, Clear Choice Cannabis
    • Joel Salyer
    • Daniel Sandvig
    • Nicholas Schortzmann
    • Kylee Scott
    • Kayla Serbus
    • Scott Serles, PRC
    • Curtis Sienkiewich, SVIN Garden
    • Kurt Sperry
    • Holly Stanfield, SVIN Garden
    • Ashley Szekely, Golden Leaf Holdings
    • Katherine Townsend
    • Cynthia Vasey
    • Kevin Walder
    • Effie Warren
    • Michael West
    • Den Mark Wichar
    • Benjamin Williams, Smokey Point Productions
    • Matthew Zettley

Here are some observations from the Friday February 12th Washington State House Commerce and Gaming Committee (WA House COG) meeting.

My top 3 takeaways:

• A substitute version of HB 1443, legislation to modify and expand aspects of the Washington State Legislative Task Force on Social Equity in Cannabis (WA SECTF), was granted an executive session by its house of origin policy committee.
  • At the WA SECTF January 25th meeting, members adopted two motions.
    • The first covered social equity applicant criteria.
    • A second recommended that lawmakers modify the criteria for the technical assistance grant program to allow otherwise eligible current licensees to apply for funds allocated by the state but unable to be disbursed before the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) received guidance on the equity applicant process from WA SECTF.
  • WA House COG Research Analyst Kyle Raymond briefed the committee on HB 1443, which the group first heard on February 5th (audio - 3m, video).
    • Raymond said the original bill “expands the purpose” of WA SECTF in addition to altering “some of the task force requirements,” particularly “recommended topics as well as extending the final report due date to January 2st, 2022.” Furthermore, the legislation “expands the eligible applicants under the technical assistance grant program,” he reported, and would “include all cannabis licenses rather than just retailers.” Finally, HB 1443 “establishes a pilot program administered through the [Washington State] Department of Commerce for technical assistance that would be established this year.”
    • Raymond next discussed the proposed substitute version of the bill, H-0907.2, from sponsoring Representative Melanie Morgan, revealing that the substitute would expect those receiving grants “to demonstrate completion of the project within 12 months of receiving the grant” though the licensee and Commerce officials had the ability to agree to “additional time to complete the project.”
      • Morgan is a WA SECTF Co-Chair.
    • The substitute also delayed “the start date of the pilot program to October 2nd, 2021” instead of August, he explained, and let pilot program grant recipients “request additional time beyond...the twelve month project completion requirement in the underlying bill” subject to approval by Commerce officials, matching the requirement with eventual assistance grant recipients. Raymond said the substitute clarified “assistance navigating the licensure process is an eligible grant activity for all licensees” by removing a reference that had specified retail licensees.
    • Raymond told committee members that the substitute edited social equity applicant criteria, “specifically one criterion: the time under which an applicant must have lived in a disproportionately impacted area to be considered a social equity applicant” from “at least five years during 1975 through 2015” in the original bill to having WSLCB “adopt a time under which applicants must live in a disproportionately impacted area, this must be established by rule and only after consultation with the [Washington State] Commission on African American Affairs and other commissions, agencies, and advocates.”
      • CAAA Commissioner Paula Sardinas, who is a WA SECTF Co-Chair and heads consulting firm FMS Global Strategies, testified in support of HB 1443.
    • The last change under the substitute was removal of a “requirement that the task force expenses must be jointly paid by the House and Senate.”

• When the bill came up for a vote, the two House appointees to WA SECTF differed on the merits of the proposed substitute as well as the veracity of their pledges to work together.
  • Morgan provided her view that the substitute bill would “expand the scope of the task force” which had been restricted to retail licensing to “also include processors, manufacturers, etcetera, in the industry” (audio - 2m, video).
    • She reviewed other changes around the later reporting deadline and removal of “the legislature from staffing the task force” as the Governor's Interagency Council on Health Disparities had been providing staff for the task force before responsibility could be transferred to the Washington State Office of Equity which was still being established.
      • On February 18th, Governor Jay Inslee announced Karen Johnson would be the first director of the newly created office, transferring over from her current position as Equity and Inclusion Administrator for the Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC). She was also a member of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council at the Washington State Office of Financial Management. Johnson’s prior experience included working for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and as “director for Tri-Love Ministries in Seattle.”
    • Morgan said the start date change had been “requested by the Department of Commerce” as their staff would “be distributing those grants, so they are hiring a new person to manage that program” and therefore needed “a little bit of extra time” to hire and prepare processes.
  • Representative Kelly Chambers, WA SECTF appointee for House Republicans, spoke up to say she was appreciative of Morgan’s work but her party members intended to oppose the bill. “While we agree with the need to address the social equity concerns” in the legal cannabis market, she said, “we have some concerns about some sections of the bill like the competitive grant program.” Chambers suggested working with the majority towards drafting revisions “that are more in line with the way some other departments work and some more standard business practices” (audio - 1m, video).
  • Morgan was grateful to Chambers “for at least considering the bill” but noted for the record she had “reached out to Representative Chambers before our last task force meeting to find out what her ideas [were] and I have not heard anything back.” Saying she was “put out a little bit” by the no votes, Morgan remarked that she had “asked in advance [of] us coming today to exec[utive session] it out, for any of your suggestions...but I am willing to work with you in the future” (audio - 1m, video).

• A party-line vote divided committee members but it was enough to move the bill out of committee with a do pass recommendation.
  • Chair Shelley Kloba had staff call the vote, and all five majority caucus members supported passage, while the four minority caucus members voted against passage of the substitute bill (audio - 2m, video).
  • After recommendation by WA House COG, the bill was passed to the Washington State House Appropriations Committee (WA House APP) which scheduled the bill for a hearing on February 19th and an executive session on February 22nd.