USA - Washington

The agency’s top lobbyist reviewed legislative activity, diving deeper into a new cannabinoid regulation bill and work to salvage components of unsuccessful social equity legislation.

Committee members heard positive testimony on a bill to increase penalties for cannabis retail robberies, and asked questions about the frequency of incidents and other solutions.

As the timeline for legislation became more compressed, committees crammed bills for action - while the WSLCB cannabinoid regulation bill was granted a second chance to NTIB.

An update on the cannabis compliance reporting transition outlined plans for a second phase of development and prompted discussion about the eventual need for enforcement.

While cannabis retail would remain cash heavy if SB 5927 were enacted, senators unanimously voted for a one year sentencing enhancement for first and second degree robberies.

Director of Legislative Relations Chris Thompson described the status of cannabis-related bills, and the potential that cannabinoid request legislation would fail in part due to “misinformation.”

After the failure of several minority caucus amendments on the social equity bill, some members raised doubts about increasing cannabis licensure leading to narrow passage out of committee.

By Tuesday evening, most bills would need to be voted out of their house of origin to continue, but three important—and contentious—cannabis-related bills remained unmoved.

A bill to grant all medical cannabis patients protection from arrest received almost entirely positive testimony, along with complaints about homegrowing and cannabis scheduling policy.

A definition of ‘impairing’ was added to legislation on cannabinoid regulation along with legislative oversight of WSLCB rulemaking before members recommended the bill be advanced.