WSLCB - Public Health Roundtable
(June 11, 2025) - Summary

At the first Public Health Roundtable, concerns over separate and unequal WSLCB-hosted dialogues for cannabis and prevention interests were top-of-mind along with hospitality policies.

Here are some observations from the Wednesday June 11th Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) Public Health Roundtable.

My top 5 takeaways:

• Public Health Education Liaison Kristen Haley led introductions and a review of why agency leaders choose to stand up the informal group, along with her goals for collaborative discussions intended to identify policy solutions across previously separated communities.
  • Haley welcomed attendees to the first public health roundtable for the cannabis community, and announced the event was being co-hosted by Board Member Ollie Garrett (audio - 1m).
    • Haley previously led focus groups on high THC cannabis products in 2024 with public health, prevention, and cannabis sector representatives. Building on that experience, she coordinated with Board Chair Jim Vollendroff and Director William Lukela in early 2025 to devise a new series of Public Health Roundtables for cannabis sector participants intended to culminate in a combined meeting with public health officials and prevention advocates.
    • At the still-closed Public Health and Prevention Roundtable on March 24th, attendees received an update from Haley, a briefing by Director of Legislative Relations Marc Webster including discussion about the 2026 legislative session, as well as remarks from Vollendroff on long-term strategic planning at WSLCB.
  • Haley explained that the Public Health Roundtable for cannabis sector representatives was a completely new type of roundtable as they had not previously held a public health-focused event for cannabis community participants. Her aim was for an informal setting, encouraging participants to feel "more comfortable and more…prone to banter and discussion; and the ability to push back on ideas" (audio - 5m).
    • She stated that prior "public health round tables" had been "exclusive to the public health community." Haley considered it a "missed opportunity," finding that the cannabis community had "a ton of nuanced issues around cannabis and public health," and "important policy solutions.” The vision for these roundtables included "two of these roundtables with just the cannabis community this year, two roundtables with just the public health community, and then one roundtable in November, where it's a shared space,” she explained. But she cautioned, noting uncertainty around the combined November meeting, "I have no idea how it's gonna go, so we'll find out.”
    • For their initial meeting, Haley and Garrett decided against a pre-set agenda and opted for a "shared, structured agenda setting activity at the very start.” This process involved generating, then voting, to winnow "down to two topics to talk about today based on what the people…are most interested in talking about,” she said. Haley expressed her desire for attendees to "get what you want out of today.”
    • Haley hoped for "full participation today" from all attendees, even WSLCB staff, so that it would "not be a 90 minute session of Kristen talking at you,” although she joked that she was “fully prepared to do that.” She also explained that she wanted attendees to "get what you want out of today.”

• Haley took participants through an agenda setting activity, where they proposed and then voted on discussing subjects related to cannabis policy, public health, and industry operations, ultimately agreeing to address separation of cannabis and public health voices as well as cannabis hospitality policies (audio - 14m).
  • Starting off the agenda setting portion of the meeting, the first topic came from Cannabis Alliance Executive Director Caitlein Ryan who called for talking through “things like cannabis hospitality and home grow, and…a few other things where we're often on the opposite sides of the table, and just curious if there is room for compromise, or if…we're just forever, permanently pitted against one another.”
    • Canna Luz Founder and Cannabis Alliance Vice President Jessica Pichardo, seconded the focus on cannabis hospitality, broadening its definition to "any legal place to consume and take part in cannabis.”  She subsequently suggested that public nuisance concerns from the prevention community could be interpreted as “stigma.”
    • Policies for cannabis hospitality, sometimes called social consumption, were first proposed in legislation in 2019, and had previously been researched and discussed by WSLCB leaders. Licensing for cannabis lounges and was presented to, and recommended by, the Washington State Legislative Task Force on Social Equity in Cannabis in 2022. At time of publication, the most recent bill on cannabis hospitality was HB 1932, which received a public hearing on February 21st.
  • Cannabis Alliance Patient Committee Chair John Kingsbury had initially asked, "how come we never see the other half of the table,” referring to public health representatives besides Haley. He made clear the separation of the prevention community from the cannabis community frustrated him (audio - 2m).
    • Harmony Farms Director of Compliance Lukas Hunter chimed in to agree, saying the “segregation” felt “ominous,” because even if they disagreed on policy, “we're all pretty civil, especially [after] this many years into it, where we're all pretty level headed.”
  • Hunter also said he wanted a discussion on cannabis packaging and labeling (PAL). In particular, he was hoping for a conversation “around individually flow wrapped candies and the redundancy of packaging, especially if you have child resistant packaging as an outer, I think that should be a group conversation, hopefully to mitigate waste in packaging, and costly machinery.”
    • WSLCB board members accepted a staff recommendation to deny a rulemaking petition from Ryan related to cannabis PAL on April 23rd.
    • Hunter also brought up the issue of unregulated hemp-derived cannabinoids he claimed were "still available in gas stations" and "shipped directly to consumers doors" outside of the regulated market.
  • Medical cannabis patient and Cannabis Alliance member Steven Field asked if their discussion would include "the patient's perspective," and mentioned "the ID card problem" as a topic he would like the group to consider.
  • Raven Co-Owner Micah Sherman highlighted "therapeutic use and the benefits of social consumption for therapeutic cannabis." He advocated for public health conversations to include "the benefits of cannabis use as it relates to pressing, critical, systemic issues in our society.”
  • Cannabis Observer Founder Gregory Foster asked in the chat “how do changes at the federal level, institutional restructuring or allocation of grant funding, impact public health and prevention priorities…in cannabis in Washington State?” Haley insisted she’d done a “90 minute presentation about this very topic the other day.” She decided not to “bore you all with that whole presentation, but I could talk about that for a long time” and subsequently indicated she might suggest that as a topic for a board caucus.
  • Other matters were raised, including Ryan stating there was "mismatch in…our approach to cannabis as it relates to…everything else.” Kingsbury also raised concerns about 100mg tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) products, noting he’d "personally seen people run into trouble with these because they don't appreciate the dose.”
  • As participants prepared to vote, Haley instructed agency staff not to vote, and each other participant to vote twice, picking their top two issues (audio - 5m).
    • Six hands were raised for "why keep things separated from prevention and public health.”
    • Six also voted for "cannabis hospitality" as an issue to discuss.
    • Four hands were raised for the topic of "home grow” and PAL.
    • The number of votes for patient IDs, benefits of cannabis use and legalization, hemp-derived THC, and federal spending impacts on health and prevention priorities did not rise to the level of consideration.
  • Haley announced the top three topics based on the vote were the separation of public health and prevention from cannabis interests, hospitality policies, and packaging and labeling. She stated that participants could either discuss all three, or staff would save PAL for the next roundtable.

• A dialogue on why public health and prevention advocates met with WSLCB in closed meetings while cannabis sector members only attended public groups made clear the dynamic hindered collaborative policymaking and fostered misconceptions and conflicting narratives between them (audio - 12m, audio - 12m).
  • Haley acknowledged the sentiment of the issue, noting how past "public health roundtables" had been "exclusive to the public health community," which she considered a "missed opportunity" for solutions.
  • Ryan said she’d come away from prior meetings with “a feeling that when we're talking about prevention, it's a capital ‘P’, monolithic block of folks that are anti-cannabis that we don't often know even who it is. There are lots of times when there are meetings that are otherwise public, but once it's discovered that I'm there…as a cannabis industry person, I'm disallowed from being a part of the meeting.” These separate conversations weren’t equal, she alleged, and the result “plays out in opposition during testimony in front of the legislature, where everybody's using their strongest rhetoric.”
    • Ryan echoed Sherman’s comment on cannabis benefits, saying she’d spoken to “therapists all the time who talk about how important cannabis is to some of their clients in a therapeutic mental health health capacity.” She concluded that when public health representatives treated harms like cannabis use disorder as the only relevant health message, “that feels really frustrating because it's also not representative.”
  • Pichardo argued that prevention interest groups took an approach which "caused harm to patients and slowed meaningful progress," due to a "striking lack of curiosity" about medical cannabis patients' real experiences, which disproportionately affects "Black and Brown and Indigenous and queer and other marginalized communities."
  • Washington Bud Company Co-Owner Shawn DeNae Wagenseller added that medical cannabis use continued to be "pushed back all the time from the prevention community, saying that cannabis is bad," which put a stigma on “those of us that use cannabis for our health,” or were “self-medicating.”
  • Research Manager Sarah Okey indicated she understood Ryan's desire for "conversations with people…not that blanket ideology," recognizing that extreme voices polarize discussions. Hunter reiterated the need for "a dialectic" to achieve "a higher understanding" between camps, and to put “faces to names" between the communities.
  • Haley felt that previous limited-participation work groups were successful due to a "smaller group that were sort of tapped intentionally because they were, either by their position or just by their character, more willing and able to be…better participants.” Still, she emphasized her vision for broader, combined public health and cannabis community roundtables.
  • Participants, including Hunter and Pichardo, stressed the importance of having these talks early to foster "intelligent conversation that leads to better rules and better policies for everyone" before legislative sessions or rulemaking processes. Wagenseller emphasized the need for both sides to come to the table with an open mind and clear expectations, moving past the "prohibition, War on Drugs, kind of mentality.”
  • Garrett wanted to know about previous attempts to convene joint "listen and learn sessions" that included both prevention representatives and cannabis interest groups, curious about the history and efficacy of combined gatherings (audio - 9m).
    • Garrett told the group her impression was “that we were having listen and learn sessions where we were bringing in both prevention and cannabis,” remembering these meetings occurring under former Policy and Rules Manager Kathy Hoffman.
    • Ryan confirmed that they had "one" such meeting, but described it as "a little contentious.” She stated that during this meeting, some prevention participants expressed a belief that "the [legalization] experiment was over, and if they could have it their way, everything would be taken off the shelves, and cannabis would go back to being illegal.”
    • Garrett expressed surprise there had only been one meeting, and felt "it always should be both groups together, because I think things a lot of times, people don't understand what they don't know that they don't know that they don't know.”
    • Haley clarified that while there had been a more contentious meeting in the past, the more recent combined sessions, like the high THC work group she led, were more amicable. However, she claimed that recording these meetings or having media present would have prevented some public health partners from participating. 
    • Hunter agreed the high THC conversations were "fantastic," and "a great opportunity to see a willingness from…both ends of the spectrum, to come meet somewhere in the middle." He hoped for future combined meetings, stating, "if we can get through that, we can get through…talking about packaging and labeling and other concerns.”
  • Cannabis Observer Founder Gregory Foster questioned the lack of transparency in previous discussions that allowed the public health and prevention community to engage in private meetings with agency leadership while other industry conversations were not afforded the same level of privacy. He suggested transparency in government was "near and dear to my heart" and felt the public should be able to "see each other" and "hear the conversations that are being had” (audio - 7m).
    • Foster brought up the decision not to include Cannabis Observer in the high THC work group conversations, reflecting how “everybody that I've talked to echoe[d] what you've heard today: that those conversations were helpful,” indicating they could have been more helpful if recorded to make “all of that available for people to listen to in its entirety.” Foster called the intentional stakeholder separation by WSLCB staff a "persistent double standard,” wherein the public health and prevention advocates received "a private context for years now, to engage directly with the Director, directly with the Chair of the board" in unrecorded conversations. He believed that while "there's not necessarily anything wrong with that," dialogue "occluded from view" raised questions about "what is being discussed.” Foster acknowledged he could "request records, we can see the presentations, we can see the notes, we can see the agendas, but you don't see what's in between those lines unless you have a continuous recording, unless you're in the room.”
    • Haley asserted certain public health partners had to contend with agency policies that restricted their participation in recorded or publicly transcribed meetings, describing how she’d had to “get special permission from” some state agency leaders for their staff to “even be at the same table as cannabis industry folks, and I had to do quite a lot of work with them to navigate the politics and do some diplomatic work behind the scenes to assure them that, like, everything would be fine.” She argued, “quite literally, we would not have been able to have the high THC work group conversations last year if we recorded them, if we posted transcriptions or detailed notes publicly, or if the Cannabis Observer was present, or any other media was present in those conversations.” Haley lamented “that stigma goes deep. It goes far back into history, and I think there's a lot of politics at play. There's a lot of hesitancy at play. There's actual policies that are barriers to being able to be as transparent as I think you're asking us to be.”
      • An email exchange pertaining to a closed training session featuring Haley obtained by Cannabis Observer was illustrative of her position.
        • The Washington State Department of Health Youth Cannabis and Commercial Tobacco Prevention Program (DOH YCCTPP) contracts with the Rede Group to organize curricula and host closed training and technical assistance sessions for its staff, contractors, subcontractors, and partners. The organizations have a stated policy that their webinars "are not for anyone from the Cannabis industry" despite the subject matter often focusing directly or indirectly on cannabis policy in Washington state.
        • In November 2024, the Rede Group organized a training session titled, “A Deeper Dive into Legislative Systems and Policy Analysis” featuring Haley, her former collaborator at the Washington State Health Care Authority (WA HCA), and the Executive Director of Prevention Voices. Haley invited hundreds of contacts in the public health and prevention fields including staffers at DOH YCCTPP.
        • The email obtained via public records request showed an exchange between DOH YCCTPP staffers with differing perspectives on the appropriateness of participation in the webinar.
          • DOH YCCTPP Policy, Systems, and Environmental Change Coordinator Hailee Cornett had been asked to participate but declined as she "had some concerns about how the webinar's topic would be brought forward in front of attendees." She had "shied away from agreeing to be involved, as I am awaiting guidance from the policy team as to what is/is not permissible with YCCTPP funding."  She noted a concern "if there were to be opinions/thoughts shared that do not align with how the policy team would like us to interact with external folks or the perception of said interactions; especially, webinars that may be recorded."  She concluded, "I am nervous about attending and participating in today's session, as there is mention of "educate... decision makers" and "advocating for specific changes" in the training's registration blurb. The waters have been muddied as of recent and I think it is best that I keep a distance between myself, as program staff, and things that could be interpreted as "crossing the line" by the policy team."
          • DOH YCCTPP Community Grants Coordinator Liz Wilhelm followed up to express "some mixed feeling about some of your remarks" but noted---rather unusually---"Considering that the Cannabis Observer is tracking this particular webinar, proceeding with caution is understandable."
    • Haley clarified that the WSLCB also held unrecorded meetings with cannabis and alcohol industry members to discuss policy and rules issues, indicating that "recording every meeting that we have just isn't part of our process.”
  • At the conclusion of the discussion, Wagenseller briefly brought up ways to improve emergency room (ER) intake questions around cannabis (audio - 1m).

• The discussion on cannabis hospitality explored moving beyond consumption lounges to be inclusive of various legal public consumption spaces, regulating existing behaviors rather than merely expanding the market, and public health concerns related to potential co-use of alcohol (audio - 9m).
  • Ryan proposed the subject as a "specific policy issue" for discussion, calling it an area where cannabis and prevention communities are "often on the opposite sides of the table.” She clarified that "hospitality" was a broader term than just "consumption lounges," encompassing cannabis activities such as "pop ups or yoga or…health wellness classes." Pichardo shared her surprise in speaking to “so many neighbors who just don't even realize that it's not legal to smoke outside.” She claimed: “52%...of the state really don't have a safe place to be in community with cannabis, and others.”
  • Sherman distinguished between establishing a "regulated commercial ecosystem for cannabis consumption in commercial spaces," and allowing people to "consume cannabis personally, outside of their home.” He regarded personal consumption rights as "significantly more important” since the possibility for citation or arrest related to public cannabis use promoted "disproportionate and subjective interpretation and application of the law," as well as creating a "dangerous position to be in for both citizens and visitors” to Washington. He hoped the wider country could move away from this perspective, adding, “I really think this conversation should be about personal rights and personal freedoms, and should not be a commercial conversation until we get the personal consumption part of it more clear in the law.”
  • Wagenseller affirmed Sherman's distinction, adding that from a business perspective, consumption lounges solely for smoking often fail, and commercial viability comes from joining cannabis with activities, “whether it's pinball machines and pool tables…or yoga classes…or painting classes.” Ryan echoed this, and believed that unlike bars, "nobody goes to lounges just to smoke," meaning commercial viability had to “be connected with something else.”
  • Okey raised a key public health concern about the potential for poly-drug use if hospitality venues were established, specifically questioning how industry representatives would address simultaneous alcohol use and impaired driving risks (audio - 9m).
    • Okey directly inquired about the "increase in co-use" that might arise from cannabis consumer rights, illustrating a scenario where "people go to a consumption lounge, and then they might walk to a bar,” emphasizing a concern around "impaired driving with cannabis and alcohol.”
    • Washington CannaBusiness Association (WACA) Deputy Director Brooke Davies advised that a starting point could be restricting private event licenses: "if you're hosting a private event and you're seeking a special event license to allow for cannabis consumption, then you can't also have one for alcohol.” Davies noted that among the industry, co-use wasn’t particularly concerning, anecdotally finding "folks choosing to replace alcohol use and would prefer using cannabis instead.”
      • The agenda for WACA’s 2025 spring meeting included a Wine & Weed Pairing Happy Hour on June 2nd.
    • Wagenseller directly addressed Okey's concern by stating that people "bopping back and forth between a bar and…a cannabis hospitality place" is "no different than what happens now.” Wagenseller emphasized that a goal of cannabis hospitality was better "regulating what's going on already,” rather than expanding consumption. Sherman built on this point by suggesting that telling those mixing the substances “you're going to die" was often dismissed because "people know that's not true.” He called for a civic effort to "figure out what's a safe way to consume cannabis in public with alcohol" in order to develop effective public communication.
    • Ryan agreed that "poly-use is happening all the time.” She drew an analogy to teaching children how to safely navigate stairs, implying that society "can't keep those [baby] gates up all the time.” She concluded that acknowledging this reality would allow for better messaging and teaching ways to "make healthier decisions.”
    • Kingsbury also commented on poly-drug use, noting that in his experience, people often "either do cannabis or they tend to do alcohol", and that he knows "a lot" of people who are "Cali sober.” He thought that "cannabis tends to replace alcohol,” but he was aware "poly-drug use is an issue.”

• Haley brought the meeting to a close by outlining next steps for future discussions on cannabis hospitality as well as packaging/labeling, while affirming a long-term goal of fostering more combined meetings between the public health and cannabis sectors (audio - 2m).
  • Confirming that the next roundtable for cannabis sector participants was already scheduled for October 22nd, Haley remarked that it would be co-hosted by Board Member Pete Holmes. She said that PAL would be one of the topics up for discussion, as well as “continuing to unpack this hospitality piece.”
  • Haley also gauged interest in the formation of a separate workgroup for packaging and labeling, inviting participants to engage in "listening sessions…outside of these roundtables" before the October meeting. She noted "some interest on this call around that," and promised to send out an invitation to those interested.
    • According to the chat log, Haley recruited attendees of the closed roundtable for public health and prevention representatives for a PAL work group on March 24th.
  • Besides a second separate meeting, Haley expected a "joint one in November" bringing together both the public health and cannabis communities. She also expressed a longer-term goal that, "maybe by next year, we can be having more combined meetings between public health and prevention and all of you. I heard you loud and clear today, and that is a goal, to start getting us all on the same page together.”