WA House COG - Committee Meeting
(January 15, 2021) - Summary

Homegrow Installation
[ Event Details ]

Members heard concerns from three police and prevention advocates on new legislation to allow adults to grow up to six cannabis plants in their residence, and positive remarks from all other speakers.

  • Home growing of cannabis for adults was reintroduced in the legislature with slight modifications and heard by a policy committee with new membership.
    • Adult cannabis cultivation legislation had been introduced in prior years:
    • WA House COG had notably differing membership from the 2019-2020 session: 
      • Chair Shelley Kloba
        • Former Chair Strom Peterson was assigned to lead the Housing, Human Services, and Veterans Committee in 2021.
      • Vice Chair Emily Wicks (new to committee)
      • Ranking Minority Member Drew MacEwen
      • Assistant Ranking Minority Member Eric Robertson (new to committee)
      • Representative Kelly Chambers
      • Representative Steve Kirby
      • Representative Melanie Morgan
      • Representative Brandon Vick
      • Representative Sharon Wylie (new to committee)
    • Kloba reviewed process changes for remote testimony to the legislature (audio - 3m, video).
    • Committee Counsel Peter Clodfelter provided a staff briefing on the bill which would allow Washingtonians 21 and older to produce up to six cannabis plants per adult “subject to production and possession limits and other restrictions” like a cap of 15 plants per housing unit (audio - 5m, video).
      • He indicated that the legislation would require “clear marking” of both plants and containers with more than “one ounce of usable cannabis” to include information “such as the person’s name, their date of birth, their address, as well as the planting date and harvest date of the marijuana.”
      • HB 1019 “expressly retains the right of property owners to prohibit the cultivation of cannabis by a renter,” Clodfelter explained, commenting that the new bill was similar to HB 1131 and SB 5155 in this regard. 
      • Clodfelter said a new provision in the bill was a restriction against cannabis cultivation “in a housing unit that’s used to provide early childhood education and early learning services by a family daycare provider or a foster family home.”
      • Additionally, class III civil infractions were created for cannabis gardens reported as “readily smelled from a public place or the private property of another housing unit” or for plants “visible in the ordinary public view.” He added that the definition of public view didn’t include “any elevating devices, visual aides, or manned or unmanned aircraft.”
      • Clodfelter said another new feature of the proposed law would prohibit the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) “from investigating or enforcing compliance with the new home grow authorization requirements” which meant “there’d be no enforcement by the Liquor and Cannabis Board.”
      • Clodfelter explained that the legislation would limit “seizure and forfeiture of real property” as well as when such property could be seized.
      • The legislation would add a “new definition of the term ‘commercial activity’” to Washington’s Controlled Substance Act, he reported.
      • Vick asked how the law would compare to home brewing of alcohol (audio - 1m, video).
    • Kloba introduced the bill as its primary sponsor, thanking MacEwen and the bill’s bipartisan co-sponsors. She remarked that she’d “seen the momentum for this idea build." She acknowledged that I-502 had intended “a very strong regulatory framework” that included disrupting the illicit market, decreasing youth access, “and to start to undo the harms that were borne disproportionately by our communities of color as a result of the failed war on drugs.” Kloba argued that “at the time perhaps the ability to grow cannabis at home was outside the comfort zone” of most voters while “in the years since, we have seen 35 other states follow our lead and take some steps to legalize cannabis, or at least decriminalize it.” Pointing out that “growing cannabis at home is now allowed in ten different states and the District of Columbia” she reported that “it has become a fairly standard part of policies that states enact with regard to their cannabis legalization efforts.” After almost a decade to “mature this industry,” Kloba said the public had “experienced legalized cannabis in practice” and many concerns around the plant “have not materialized” leaving the criminalization of small gardens an “antiquated policy.” She noted that citizens could cultivate “your own hops and barley, and brew your own beer” or grow grapes “and make wine out of them.” Kloba believed the time had come for adults interested in growing cannabis be “allowed to do so in reasonable quantities with common sense safeguards in place” (audio - 4m, video).
  • Opponents recognized that changes to the legislation limiting cannabis from view, addressing odors, and prohibiting growth in homes with child-focused businesses had increased the proposal’s viability compared to past years - but remained concerned.
    • James McMahan, Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC) Policy Director (audio - 3m, video). McMahan said he was “unfortunately here to testify opposed to this bill.” Though he recognized “the arguments, and the statements, and the positions, and experiences” of supporters, he said “our members, candidly, are not comfortable with the public safety aspects” arising from the legislation. McMahan said that law enforcement had seen “very dangerous and violent” home invasions around cannabis plants “even while home grows of marijuana are not lawful in this state.” He also conveyed “significant concerns over diversion of home grown marijuana into the illicit market.” McMahan added his organization was also worried that "exposure to children" was too great though he conceded equivalent exposure “occurs daily, frankly, in many households, relating to alcohol.” He asserted that HB 1019 was “inconsistent and contrary to the reasons why we understand the voters enacted initiative 502.” Lastly, to set “expectations [about] our ability to do this,” McMahan said there’d be no “realistic and proactive enforcement by our officers relating to the limitations and provisions of this act” absent being invited into a residence or getting “a warrant under probable cause standards which we think is going to be fairly rare.”
      • Morgan stated that police were expected “to respond to robberies of TVs, of anything inside my house” and that potential theft of plants would be “part of your purview anyway,” which McMahan agreed with. As for child exposure to cannabis, “we allow drinking in the home, we allow smoking in the home, we allow home brewing” and other risky hobbies, she observed. “What I hear you say to me,” Morgan commented, “is that only people who can afford a license” can participate “in this industry.” She asked that law enforcement work with policy makers to find “ways that people, lay people” can participate in cannabis agriculture without becoming a licensee (audio - 2m, video).
      • Chambers asked about “the value of a plant.” Though McMahan was uncertain, Wicks contributed that she’d seen research suggesting “five plants would cost about” $1,000 (audio - 1m, video).
        • Morgan asked for “clarification on Representative Chamber’s question” and whether it was the value of an unharvested plant, or the “street value after you get all the plants and stuff ready to go.” Chambers said she was asking about the value of plants “ready to be harvested.” Morgan suggested the plant value was higher due to constraints on cultivation (audio - 1m, video).
      • Wicks asked if civil infractions for visibility of cannabis gardens could impact the chance of robbery. McMahan thanked Kloba and HB 1019 cosponsors for including the infractions, even though “it doesn’t get us to the position of being comfortable with this notion, it certainly makes it better” and could help "reducing and mitigating some of those fears" (audio - 1m, video).
      • Compare McMahan’s testimony in 2019 and 2020.
    • Jesse Jimenez, Prevent Coalition Coordinator (audio - 3m, video). Jimenez said that he worked for Educational Service District 112 (ESD 112) and the coalition he helped coordinate covered several legislative districts and rural communities. He was “gravely concerned about the unintended consequences” of the legislation, and his group was particularly critical of the “lack of ability for local law enforcement and other entities to actually enforce what’s being proposed.” Jimenez believed that with no registration or licensing, adults would have no “training or other safeguards” compared to commercial licensees. Additionally, he argued that police ability to address “the risk of youth substance use” would be diminished by WSLCB having “no authority or responsibility to investigate.” In effect, Jimenez found, the bill “language actually removes the ability for the experts at the Liquor and Cannabis Board to protect public health.” He said the coalition didn’t want an “environment where adults are freely growing, producing, and processing marijuana at home without any training or standardization.” Jimenez reported that the current regulations around cannabis made it available to adults “without increasing youth marijuana use because” of WSLCB regulation. He concluded that HB 1019 would “put our youth at risk.”
    • Seth Dawson, Washington Association for Substance Abuse and Violence Prevention (WASAVP) Lobbyist (audio - 4m, video). Dawson began by saying he was “reluctantly in opposition to this bill” and had submitted detailed written comments to the committee. He allowed that the policy discussion for home grows had focused on adults “and our view, of course, focuses more on youth.” Dawson was thankful for “the provisions regarding child protection” but remained concerned about increased youth access to cannabis. WASAVP members had “particular heartburn” over any proposals “that expand marijuana access or promotion” or decrease “perception of harm.” He called attention to a 2020 survey by Canadian health officials which he said showed “a number of different health impacts that are negative that are associated with home grows.” Dawson believed I-502 was passed by voters “because it was advocated in terms of a very tightly regulated commercial market” and worried about a lack of enforcement measures “especially when we get to issues such as potency.” The initiative had included funding for substance abuse prevention research which Dawson said was "swept away" by lawmakers as part of a 2015 bipartisan budget deal, leaving WASAVP concerned “with efforts to expand the initiative at the same time we’ve taken away” some prevention dollars. Dawson said it was possible for WASAVP to be “less oppositional” to HB 1019 if “we could couple this with restoring at least some of the prevention funding that was promised.”
      • Morgan spoke up to thank Dawson for “balancing us out.” As a mother of four children, she “always want[ed] to protect them as well, but the reality is that we have only legislated that firearms should be locked up” and not legal intoxicants like alcohol or tobacco. Morgan stated, “we have to provide safety for adolescents in everything in our homes” and those decisions were up to “the parents in that home” (audio - 2m, video).
      • See Dawson’s testimony on adult home cultivation from February 2020 and read WASAVP’s written opposition to the predecessor bill.
  • A wide range of stakeholders spoke to the bill’s merits, including a former prosecuting attorney from Colorado and an economist from Washington State University (WSU).
    • John Kingsbury, Homegrow Washington Co-Founder (audio - 4m, video). Kingsbury began by thanking the committee and stating that he would be “addressing the concerns that we’ve heard over the years in regard to this topic.”
      • He asked committee members to actively question “does this concern describe actual activity that would be legalized by this bill, or is it describing something else.” He said there’d been “conflation” of “legalizing six plant, non-commercial home gardens” with public safety concerns from large-scale illicit grows. Kingsbury believed objections often centered on “what bad activity could it lead to” yet legal home growing in “thirteen other states and Washington D.C.” meant problems should already be demonstrable. “Crime hasn’t exploded in states that allow home growing,” he said, “and tax revenues have not suffered.”
      • Kingsbury explained that with “reasonable suspicion of illegal activity” law enforcement could secure a warrant since “that system appears to be working well.” He commented that odor control and mitigation was easily done with six plants whereas it was “nearly impossible” for gardens of a hundred plants.
      • Kingsbury said as a patient, growing a few plants cost him “$3 per gram plus a whole lot of work” while his neighbor could find a better selection in the state’s retail stores. In the end, he was only likely to consume the harvest himself, or give some to his neighbor “to brag about what a good job I’ve done.” Confident few people would forego cannabis shops, Kingsbury summarized his interest in cultivation as being “challenging and rewarding, and when I grow it for myself I know what went into producing it. And that is a right I would like to have.”
      • Check out Kingsbury’s testimony on home grow legislation in 2019 and 2020.
    • Lara Kaminsky, The Cannabis Alliance Government Affairs Liaison (audio - 3m, video). Kaminsky said her organization was in favor of the bill as “the time has come for Washington state to catch up with other states.”
      • She reported that of “15 fully legal states only two do not have legal recreational home grow,” Washington and Illinois. Kaminsky described the bill as bringing Washington “into harmony with other legal states” as opposed to being “in front of this issue.”
      • The Cannabis Alliance members supported the bill in the hopes it would help “mature” consumers and the industry. She compared potential outcomes to “what occurred in the beer industry” where market consolidation had resulted in “limited variety.” That trend was reversed by “the growth of home brewers and microbrewers” which increased demand for variety and “attracted new, more educated consumers into the market.” Kaminsky told the committee that she believed a similar trend was possible for cannabis consumers who wanted to “become more interested in the plant, its cultivation, and its quality” on a path towards becoming “more discerning.”
    • Timothy Nadreau, WSU Research Faculty (audio - 3m, video). Nadreau said that he worked for the university's “economic IMPACT Center” and was formally “indifferent to the passage of this bill, but that being said, the economics of this piece of legislation have been fascinating to study.”
      • Nadreau told lawmakers he’d looked at what “portion of the state’s 2020 gross state product (GSP) could rightly be attributed to the cannabis sector” as well as “the range of marijuana excise taxes likely to be collected if HB 1019 were in effect during 2021.” His findings were that “the cannabis sector was responsible for $1.8 billion of Washington’s” 2020 GSP with “direct cannabis excise tax collections” for the year being $468.5 million. After counting other areas like property and corporate taxes, or taxes paid by employees, Nadreau determined the cannabis industry provided approximately “$883 million of the state’s total tax collection” in 2020.
      • “Excise tax collection from the cannabis sector are rising faster than any other selective sales tax line item,” Nadreau reported, “and there’s every reason to believe that that trend will continue in 2021.”
      • If home cultivation of cannabis were allowed in 2021, “excise taxes would still be projected to grow” to around $520 million, he stated. Even with “conservative assumptions,” Nadreau estimated cannabis sector growth would be “11% higher than what was collected last year.” The more “optimistic” projections he found were for $585 million in revenue for a growth of “about 25% higher than what was collected last year” he said. In all, Nadreau testified that there was “minimal downside risk from legalization of home production, and large potential economic returns.”
      • "Network externalities" were an economic phenomenon that Nadreau said could “increase the size of the market overall” similar to Kaminsky’s comparison to the beer industry. He added that his entire research on 2020 Contributions of the Washington Cannabis Sector was available online.
    • Stanley Garnett, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck Partner (audio - 5m, video). Garnett called HB 1019 “very prudent and thoughtful” and supported its passage as a former elected district attorney in Boulder County, serving from 2009 to 2018 and past president of the Colorado District Attorneys' Council (CDAC).
      • He said there were “urban legends” about Colorado's 2000 medical cannabis law which permitted “a fair amount of home grow” to supply patients before an “explosion” in medical dispensaries starting in 2008.
      • Though he had opposed legalization for medical and recreational use, Garnett reported that his “firm conviction...is that Colorado’s experiment is working. We made some mistakes early that we’ve corrected” and he wanted to share the view of “most thoughtful law enforcement people in Colorado...that legalization and regulation had made Colorado safer” and was “working overall.”
      • He said that an earlier 99 plant limit for patients “did become a problem" but lawmakers had “since scaled that back dramatically” and contemporary medical cannabis laws allowed patients to grow six plants. Garnett considered HB 1019 to have “thoughtful and careful limitation” which would make it “very easy for law enforcement and regulatory agencies to monitor and enforce this.”
      • Garnett said that dealing with cannabis odor was a common concern of Colorado communities and that the bill’s language was smart “and very appropriate.” 
      • Garnett was also supportive of landlords retaining “the choice of whether to permit their tenants to grow marijuana in their properties.” When municipal governments were given “enough local control over how to manage this,” Garnett said, Colorado officials found “we could make it work long term.”
      • Vick asked how state law enforcement viewed adult cultivation as compared to home brewing and asked about Garnett’s experience prosecuting those offenses. Garnett said Boulder had a large student population leading to a variety of cannabis, alcohol, and other substance offenses. He didn’t believe that “blanket prohibitions" worked and that it was preferable to “permit a certain amount and then you have to have regulations that can be enforced.” He said home brewing had not been a noticeable problem for his office while cannabis garden complaints “about the smell, about other issues” were reported to law enforcement and treated as “a manageable issue” (audio - 2m, video).
      • Morgan asked about equity in cannabis home grow enforcement and whether there were demographic data on violations. She was also interested in whether cultivation regulation had impacted housing policy, as giving landlords control over tenants' gardens was “starting to be inequitable that not everybody will have the ability to participate.” Garnett conceded that Colorado officials “did not get out ahead” of social justice issues and voters passed constitutional amendments for cannabis without any “framework for regulation, and control, and for enforcement” resulting in “rigidity” that made changing the law difficult. While he didn’t have statistics on enforcement, he promised to check with the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division and noted he’d discussed home cultivation with Director Jim Burack who told him “the statistics do not show a disproportionate enforcement in different communities” (audio - 3m, video).
      • Chambers wanted to know about complaint driven enforcement. Garnett answered that “in the early days a lot of it was law enforcement initiated” particularly when Colorado was “the one state that had any level of legalization.” Over time, law enforcement had moved away from scrutinizing plant counts, he explained, in favor of policing harder drugs and letting cannabis investigations be complaint driven. It was treated similarly to “having neighbors whose dogs bark all the time” as a “zoning or planning department concern,” Garnett said (audio - 2m, video).
    • Danica Noble, NORML Women of Washington Director (audio - 4m, video, written comments). Noble lent her support to the bill drawing on her experience as the Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) Antitrust, Consumer Protection, and Unfair Business Practices Section Chair and Cannabis Law Section Co-Founder.
      • Noble noted home growing led to greater access as some counties and cities banned licensed cannabis businesses. The bill was less about rights as consumers, Noble reasoned, and more about “rights as citizens.”
      • The failed drug war remained the key driver for her group’s support, she said. The policy failed to “achieve its ends,” was conceived under “racist stereotypes,” and had been incredibly costly in Noble’s estimation - especially for communities of color which suffered disproportionate policing of drug laws. Maintaining prohibition of small scale cultivation meant continued unequal enforcement, she argued, as evidenced by continuing disparities in cannabis arrests in Washington. “As long as we keep home grow illegal it will be disproportionately borne by communities that have already borne this failed policy,” Noble said. She added that while Illinois didn’t legalize adult cultivation, it was a civil infraction there, while in Washington “it remains a felony.”
      • Check out Noble’s remarks from the 2019 and 2020 hearings on home grow legislation.
    • Lukas Hunter, Harmony Farms Director of Compliance (audio - 3m, video, written comments). Hunter told lawmakers he was in favor of the legislation and that Harmony Farms viewed it as “a great way to normalize the rights of Washingtonians.” He was concerned about adults’ access to “seeds, clones, or plants” and asked that the bill include provisions for the cannabis industry to sell these items equivalent to what was allowed for medical cannabis patients already. He called this “a clean way” for patients and medical cooperatives to get cannabis plants, suggesting that including this with home growing would remove “any form of illicit market that could be formed.” He noted that for Chamber’s question about the value of plants, cannabis clone and “pre-flowering” plants sold for between $15 and $70.
    • Don Skakie, Washington Homegrow Co-Founder (audio - 5m, video). Skakie said his group was made up of “private citizens who just want to grow a few plants of something that we sell like beer.”
      • He told Vick that he’d heard from WSLCB Chief of Enforcement and Education Justin Nordhorn that officers fielded calls "a couple of times a year" about home brewing, mostly finding it was “within limit.”
      • As for the value of mature cannabis, he said that “this bill does not provide for any sales” and encouraged committee members to watch a video from Homegrow Washington for an example of a “typical home grow.” Skakie said that most new growers would be “inexperienced” horticulturalists who could expect “maybe two or three ounces a plant” while continuing to shop in retail stores “because of variety.” He added that there was “a very narrow window at harvest time” where the plants were mature enough to be harvested and valuable, but “you can’t just take it off the plant and smoke it.” Moreover, allowing adults to grow cannabis would lead to a general public “less likely” to view cannabis plants as targets for robbery, he remarked.
      • He explained that he was “a landlord that would allow this” and found that “if you give people a good law to follow, that’s easy to enforce and easy to understand” then compliance with the rules would be higher. Skakie acknowledged there would be complaints, but neighbors may be more apt to mediate disagreements. For complaints, “this is part of law enforcement now,” Skakie indicated, and that while he supported legal sales of seed or cannabis clones, it was “a separate part of law” from adults’ right to grow.
      • Check out Skakie’s 2019 and 2020 testimony on home grow legislation.
    • Bailey Hirschburg, Washington chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (WA NORML, audio - 5m, video, written comments). Hirschburg said that before his role with WA NORML and Cannabis Observer he was a volunteer organizer with I-502 which was “a new approach, not a final answer to cannabis policymaking.”
      • During the campaign, “we heard many more complaints that [home cultivation] was not included” as opposed to “people saying that they liked the initiative” because home growing was left out.
      • He suggested that parents were already “expected to maintain any number of dangerous items” in a residence, calling cactuses one example of a potentially dangerous plant grown in homes which did not entail training or state licensure. “I don’t see why that has to be expected for cannabis,” Hirschburg commented, except that “there’s been the presumption that cannabis consuming adults won’t behave responsibly.” He said this had been “implied in the past” and that aside from being “pretty insulting” to consumers he wasn’t aware of evidence justifying it.
      • Hirschburg added that by passing HB 1019, “we’re expecting law enforcement to focus on large, criminally-connected grows, and those are more difficult cases than simply being able to say ‘we saw a plant, it’s in a home, it must be a crime.’” He said police in Washington already exercised discretion around cannabis cultivation investigations, shying away from investigating small gardens. “We should formalize this informal practice,” he said, as it would “lead to more significant arrests” even if there were fewer cases “overall.”
      • Hirschubrg also didn’t appreciate “groups that were opposed to the initiative,” like WASAVP and WASPC, “trying to tell us what the intent of voters was. I don’t think they have that great an idea.”
      • Additionally, there was a “constitutional issue” relating to a “clear privacy clause” in Article 1, Section 7 of the Washington State Constitution, Hirschburg alleged, leaving him doubtful that policing this behavior was “warranted, or necessary, or really constitutional.”
      • Hirschburg spoke to equity concerns briefly, saying that the subject wasn’t emphasized “enough” in the original campaign. He was concerned that cultivation, even “at this small scale” was still being “disproportionately enforced against communities of color.” Hirschburg closed by saying that “one of the only ways to address” inequitable policing was through “better policies that lead to rational enforcement.”
      • Read Hirschburg’s 2019 and 2020 testimony on home grow legislation.
    • Before Kloba adjourned the meeting, Wicks identified people who had signed up to testify “but we did not see them in the attendee list” (audio - 2m, video): 

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