WA Senate LCTA - Committee Meeting
(March 18, 2021) - HB 1210 - Public Hearing

Thoughtful public testimony and an amendment tying in ‘hemp’ encouraged senators to take a closer look at a bill to change state law mentions of ‘marijuana’ to ‘cannabis’.

Here are some observations from the Thursday March 18th Washington State Senate Labor, Commerce, and Tribal Affairs Committee (WA Senate LCTA) meeting.

My top 3 takeaways:

• Committee members heard legislation which would replace the term ‘marijuana’ in statute and rule, an act which the prime sponsor intended to remove a “stigma for communities of color and the plant called cannabis.”
  • On January 22nd, HB 1210 received a public hearing in the Washington State House Commerce and Gaming Committee (WA House COG). Prime sponsor Representative Melanie Morgan testified that use of the term marijuana in government policy had been “historically associated with racism” as a way of stigmatizing cannabis use, “a reminder of the history of racism and persecution.” On January 29th, that committee subsequently amended the bill to require expedited change of impacted rules in the Washington Administrative Code (WAC) by the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB). On March 6th, HB 1210 was included in an order of consideration in the Washington State House of Representative and the substitute bill was passed 77-21.
    • Morgan is the Co-Chair of the Washington State Legislative Task Force on Social Equity in Cannabis (WA SECTF).
  • WA Senate LCTA Session Counsel Matt Shepard-Koningsor provided a briefing on the legislation, saying it was “an act relating to replacing the term ‘marijuana’ with the term ‘cannabis’ throughout the Revised Code of Washington (RCW)” (incomplete audio - 1m , video).
    • He stated that the “bill makes technical changes throughout the RCW by replacing” the term marijuana with ‘cannabis’. He noted, “the bill also specifies that the term marijuana as used under federal law generally refers to the term cannabis used throughout the RCW.”
    • HB 1210 would also mandate that WSLCB “use expedited rulemaking to replace the terminology throughout its rule,” Shepard-Koningsor said.
    • Sharing the most recent fiscal note from February 15th, Shepard-Koningsor explained that agency implementation costs would be mostly taken out of the dedicated marijuana account, though $7,000 would come from the general fund. The projected expenses for the current biennium were:
      • WSLCB: $20,442
      • Washington State Department of Health (DOH): $48,000
  • Morgan presented her bill, saying “cannabis refers to a group of plants with psychoactive properties known as Cannabis sativa and Cannabis indica” and HB 1210 would codify use of “the scientific name” for the plant in State law (audio - 4m, video).
    • Morgan reviewed some of the history of the use of cannabis prior to the plant’s prohibition during the 20th century. “Cannabis was not unfamiliar to Americans as it was frequently used in medicinal products and textiles,” she commented. However, the word marijuana “is pejorative and racist,” Morgan said, relaying a common view that federal officials in the 1930s picked the term ‘marihuana’ “over the more scientific ‘cannabis’ when crafting drug laws” to associate cannabis use with Mexican immigrants before it was subsequently “attributed to Black African Americans, jazz musicians, prostitutes, and lower class Whites.”
      • A 2016 U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) research brief on Maintaining Marijuana in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) includes a footnote that “‘marihuana’ is the spelling used in the CSA. This document uses the spelling that is more common in current usage, ‘marijuana.’”
      • Learn about prejudiced enforcement in cannabis criminalization from the December 2020 WA SECTF presentation History of Racism in Cannabis Policy and Enforcement and discussion during the group’s January 25th meeting.
    • “Anti-marijuana propaganda fueled the hysteria around the use of cannabis in communities of color,” Morgan remarked, “to highlight the danger around those who used it.” She highlighted the legacy of Harry Anslinger, the first commissioner of the defunct U.S. Treasury Department Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who made numerous bigoted and wild claims which “intentionally connected marijuana use to communities of color and fictitious side effects.” Morgan indicated passage of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 further criminalized cannabis, and throughout “the Reefer Madness of the 1930s, and the War on Drugs of the 1980s, to the medical marijuana dispensaries of today, the word marijuana is a reminder of the history of racism and persecution.” She said the repercussions of this history were “still being felt,” pointing to Brookings Institute research showing nationwide cannabis use rates by Black Americans were close to their White counterparts but Black Americans were arrested at a rate of “nearly four to one.”
    • Since Washingtonians passed Initiative 502 (I-502) in 2012, Morgan said “Black and Brown people have not been able to fairly and equitably participate in the industry of legalized cannabis.” She believed that passage of HB 1210 would help remove a “racist stigma for communities of color and the plant called cannabis.”
      • Find out more about the policy background for drug prohibition as a method of social control starting with the criminalization of smoked opium targeting Asian immigrants.
    • Chair Karen Keiser asked Morgan about an amendment by Senator Derek Stanford regarding inclusion of hemp within the revised definition of cannabis. Morgan responded that she’d discussed the amendment with Stanford and “we’re all on the same page” (audio - 1m, video).

• Testimony came from two people who signed up as ‘other’ on the legislation which elicited two questions and a comment from senators.
  • Jessica Tonani, VerdaBio CEO (audio - 2m, video) 
    • Tonani testified that her company was the first licensed cannabis research facility in the state and while she supported the intent of HB 1210, “I think it’s important to recognize that the term cannabis has scientific and legal definitions. The word cannabis represents a genus of plants that through legal definitions has been sub-typed into two classes” based on the concentration of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). She commented that “high THC cannabis plants are defined in both state and federal [law] as marijuana. And those that produce less than 0.3% THC...are defined as hemp.”
    • In contrast, Tonani said the 2018 U.S. Farm Bill and the federal Controlled Substances Act “use the term cannabis to define low and high THC plants.” She asked that a “qualifier [be] added before the word cannabis, for example using the term ‘high THC cannabis’” because changing phrasing from marijuana to cannabis is “analogous to changing the term ‘commercial vehicle’ to simply ‘vehicle’ in legislation. That would have unintended consequences for non-commercial vehicles.”
    • While supportive of the “concept of the bill,” Tonani concluded, “I’m hoping this bill proceeds with a qualifier to differentiate high THC plants from low THC cannabis plants.” Keiser remarked that she “had not heard that there was federal law involved with this.”
    • Ranking Member Curtis King sought clarification from Tonani around the implications of defining “‘low THC’ as below 0.3% THC as hemp...does that resolve her issue with having to say ‘high THC’ or can we just call it cannabis?” Tonani emphasized that she was “a scientist not a lawyer” and said the word cannabis “is essentially the name of the plant so I [would] really say, from my perspective, you should differentiate the plant types that you’re talking about to prevent any confusion.” She added that the CSA says “cannabis sativa plants with greater than 0.3% THC” but that the Farm Bill read “cannabis sativa plants with less than 0.3% THC.” Tonani advised that “the easiest thing, I think, is to add a qualifier and just maybe say ‘high THC cannabis plants’ or something like that” (audio - 1m, video).
  • Kelly McLain, Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) Policy Advisor to the Director (audio - 1m, video) 
    • McLain reported that “WSDA currently has regulatory authority over many areas of the recreational cannabis industry” and a “unique nexus with the specific term cannabis as we are the regulatory authority over the commercial production of hemp.” She commented that WSDA had “no concerns” with changing references from ‘marijuana’ to ‘cannabis’ in law but “we would like to request that the committee consider Senator Stanford’s amendment” to include a statutory definition of hemp as part of references to cannabis impacted by the bill.
    • Though the amendment was “still in process with committee staff,” she reported, it would state “low THC cannabis that falls under 0.3% THC is defined in the statute as hemp.” McLain said the change would “alleviate any regulatory or statutory concerns for us as an agency.”
    • Keiser invited Stanford to offer any remarks he had on the topic, who replied that he shared the concerns of WSDA and hoped his amendment would bring needed clarity to HB 1210. Stanford said, “It is a little confusing because we’re using the word cannabis to mean sort of a subset of the cannabis plants” and lawmakers would work to clearly define “what’s hemp, what’s cannabis, and make sure everything is dealt with accordingly” (audio - 1m, video).
  • Vice Chair Steve Conway wondered about the original wording of I-502 and whether cannabis was “the language we used in the initiative.” Shepard-Koningsor assured Conway and the committee that he’d review the initiative and ventured “I believe the term was marijuana at that point” (audio - 1m, video).
    • The initiative text amended or created more than a dozen RCW statutes which already referred to ‘marijuana.’

• The committee acknowledged three individuals signed in support of the bill, which was scheduled for an executive session the following week.
  • Prior to concluding the hearing, Keiser mentioned there had been three sign ins, all ‘pro,’ on HB 1210 (audio - <1m, video):
    • Herb Krohn, SMART Transportation Division/United Transportation Union
    • Albert Sardinas, Washington Build Back Black Alliance (WBBBA)
    • Chris Thompson, WSLCB Director of Legislative Relations
  • HB 1210 was added to the March 22nd WA Senate LCTA meeting for an executive session to consider amendments on, and recommendation of, the bill. 

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