The Week Ahead
(January 4, 2021)

Cannabis Face Mask

The WSLCB Cannabis Advisory Council planned to convene for the first time in over a year, while prevention advocates prepared for the start of the 2021 legislative session.

Here’s a look at cannabis-related policymaking events on the calendar in the week ahead.

2021 Legislative Session

  • HB 1019 - “Allowing residential marijuana agriculture.”
    • Sponsors: Kloba, MacEwen
  • SB 5004 - “Providing a tax exemption for medical marijuana patients.”
    • Sponsors: Keiser, Warnick
  • SB 5035 - “Concerning offender scoring of drug offenses.”
    • Sponsors: Dhingra, Nguyen

Monday January 4th

No cannabis-related policymaking events.

Tuesday January 5th

On Tuesday at 10am PT, the weekly Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) Board Caucus was scheduled to recur.

On Tuesday at 1pm PT, the Washington State Legislative Information Center (WA LIC) planned to host a virtual class at the request of Prevention Voices in preparation for the 2021 virtual legislative session which begins on Monday January 11th.

  • [ Event Details ]
  • The WA LIC is a non-partisan service of the Washington Legislature which offers citizens, legislators, and their staff information about the Legislature and its processes. In addition to the wealth of information organized on the WA LIC website, staffers are available by email and phone.
  • The WA LIC also “offers free classes [and video tutorials] to the public and to state agencies on understanding the legislative process and navigating the legislative website.” While in-person classes have been suspended due to the pandemic, the WA LIC has begun experimenting with virtual classes “via web conferencing. Please contact us at 360-786-7573 or email us at support@leg.wa.gov if you are interested in participating in classes offered remotely.”
  • In this circumstance, Prevention Voices requested a WA LIC virtual class and publicized the event on the Washington State Health Care Authority (WA HCA) Athena forum. While the WA LIC is willing to work with requesters to cater the material covered to their audience and even develop custom classes, the subject matter is likely to be useful to any advocates or citizens interested in participating in the first virtual legislative session in Washington state history.
  • Prevention Voices is a relatively new entity that is largely unknown to Cannabis Observer and does not appear to be a registered business or charity in the State of Washington. The first public mention of the organization we observed occurred during an August WSLCB board meeting where it was described during public comment as an informal coalition of “prevention leaders and advocates across the state” concerned about “loosening of the regulations” in response to the pandemic.
  • The informal coalition was next mentioned by WSLCB Public Health Education Liaison Sara Cooley Broschart at the last WSLCB Executive Management Team meeting on December 9th, where she was invited to present public health and prevention advocate perspectives to agency leadership. Broschart described Prevention Voices as “a new, statewide advocacy group” and proceeded to introduce agency leadership to their policy positions by reviewing a document created by the group.

Wednesday January 6th

On Wednesday at 10am PT, the bi-weekly WSLCB Board Meeting was scheduled to recur.

  • [ Event Details ]
  • On December 23rd, WSLCB Policy and Rules Analyst Casey Schaufler indicated he intended to ask the Board to approve re-filing emergency rules prohibiting usage of vitamin E acetate at the January 6th board meeting.
  • Also on December 23rd, Schaufler indicated he intended to ask the Board to adopt final rules to close out the location compliance certificates rulemaking project at the January 6th board meeting.

On Wednesday at 1:30pm PT, the three-member Board and agency leadership were scheduled to convene their weekly WSLCB Executive Management Team (EMT) meeting.

  • [ Event Details ]
  • At the December 9th EMT, Board Chair Jane Rushford said the agency intended to try “to schedule an EMT at least once a month in 2021” after cancelling over 90% of the weekly EMT meetings in 2020. This meeting will almost certainly be cancelled due to a conflict with the first Cannabis Advisory Council meeting in over a year.

On Wednesday at 1:30pm PT, the WSLCB Cannabis Advisory Council (CAC) was scheduled to convene.

  • [ Event Details ]
  • The WSLCB CAC was formed in March 2017 to engage with cannabis stakeholders in a public setting to discuss the agency’s cannabis policies and issues of concern. Chaired by Board Member Ollie Garrett, the CAC membership has been primarily composed of representatives from licensee trade groups, but has included members representing tribal, consumer, minority, and medical patient perspectives. While a meeting was considered for September 2020, the CAC last convened in December 2019.
  • Cannabis Observer obtained a draft agenda for the CAC meeting which indicates the agency intends to provide several briefings in advance of an open discussion with the Council members.
    • Broschart planned to present on “Health and Prevention” for ten minutes after Member Garrett’s introduction.
    • Prior to a rulemaking update, Policy and Rules Manager Kathy Hoffman planned to discuss “Policy and Interpretive Statement Development.” This is a new program developed by Hoffman and her team following the recommendation in the Hillard Heintze report to centralize policymaking and interpretation to one location within the WSLCB. It’s Cannabis Observer’s understanding that Hoffman’s team has been developing a framework to declare formal interpretive and/or policy statements to publicly establish agency positions with the Office of the Code Reviser. Hoffman hinted at this new program while training an audience of public health and prevention practitioners in November where she revealed the subject matter of a prototype interpretive statement was a significant revision of the agency’s position on delta-8-tetrahydrocannabinol (delta-8-THC).
    • Agency leadership also planned to present updates on enforcement and education; licensing; the Washington State Legislative Task Force on Social Equity in Cannabis; traceability; the 2021 legislative session; and a general agency update from Director Rick Garza.
  • In the draft agenda, fifty minutes was reserved for “Other Council Member Priorities and Updates.” As occurred during the Alcohol Advisory Council meeting in early December, agency leadership is likely eager to hear whether members intend to pursue legislative action during the upcoming session. Cannabis Observer reached out to all CAC members we had contact information for to ask about their goals for the meeting.
    • Lukas Barfield, CAC Patient Representative
      • I'll be asking the LCB to follow through with their promise and fix medical cannabis. They can do this by dropping the 37% excise tax, passing homegrows and thereby fix growing for patients, 4 plants is not enough, fix the criminal code around cannabis in the RCW's  and fix the co-op system. This will come after some other remarks about what has come out about 5052 in the SE Task force meetings and who in the WA Gov is actually working for patients.
    • Bailey Hirschburg, CAC Consumer Representative, affiliated with Washington NORML
      • I intend to discuss improving consumer and patient health resources from WSLCB and call for CAC's presence at future agency-hosted roundtables with prevention community stakeholders.

Thursday January 7th

On Thursday at 11am PT, the Prevention Voices Pre-Session Summit was scheduled to occur.

  • [ Event Details ]
  • Publicly announced via the WA HCA Athena forum, the informal Prevention Voices coalition planned to convene virtually to “support statewide prevention advocates to engage in legislative session and effectively address emerging issues for youth substance use prevention.” Participants would learn “What is at stake this year,” share “Legislator and Governor’s Office meeting success stories,” and be informed of “What to track this session.”
  • The emergence of Prevention Voices prompted Cannabis Observer to clarify the scope of our observation practice to include entities which accept public funding. With public funding comes public accountability. We apply this rubric when observing the activities of the Washington Poison Center (WAPC) which receives substantial funding from the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) and other local public health organizations.
  • While Prevention Voices is an informal coalition, it’s our current assumption that its largely unknown member organizations are entities which seek and accept public funding. For example, the Greater Spokane Substance Abuse Council (GSSAC), whose Executive Director testified to WSLCB in August while self-identifying as a member of the coalition, is a 501(c)3 charitable organization which self-identified as a “publicly supported organization” on its Internal Revenue Service Form 990 in 2018 as measured by the “33 ⅓% support test” on public grants, tax revenues levied, and government services provided. GSSAC reported 98.370% public support in 2018 by the IRS definition.

Friday January 8th

No cannabis-related policymaking events.