WA House COG - Committee Meeting
(January 13, 2022) - HB 1668 - Public Hearing

HB 1668 - Legislative Intent
[ Event Details ]

Some licensees, WSLCB staff, and prevention advocates encouraged lawmakers to pass request legislation on cannabinoid regulation, while other licensees preferred a competing bill.

Here are some observations from the Thursday January 13th Washington State House Commerce and Gaming Committee (WA House COG) Committee Meeting.

My top 4 takeaways:

  • WA House COG Counsel Peter Clodfelter offered a staff report for HB 1668, Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) request legislation "Expanding regulatory authority over cannabinoids that may be impairing and providing for enhanced product safety and consumer information disclosure about marijuana products" (audio - 7m, video).
    • The issue of cannabinoid content in legal cannabis products beyond delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) came to the fore in April 2021. Agency staff received reports that CBD distillate, which was legislated as an additive for cannabis items in March 2018, was being chemically converted by licensed processors into the isomers delta-8-THC, delta-9-THC, and other cannabinoids. Some producers emphasized how synthesized cannabinoids undercut the value of cannabis plants, were potentially harmful, and arguably unlawful. Licensees engaging in cannabinoid synthesis also spoke up to defend the practice as a federally legal and safe ‘innovation’ that shouldn’t be limited to unregulated markets or other legal cannabis states.
    • By the summer of 2021, Board Member Russ Hauge led an at times tense review of law and rule pertaining to use of CBD in this way, resulting in: 
    • In the hearing, Clodfelter went over the bill analysis, which described how the bill:
      • “Adds new definitions to, and amends existing definitions in, the Uniform Controlled Substances Act related to cannabis and cannabinoids. 
        • There were “11 new definitions” added as well as eight amended definitions, including "marijuana" which would include “all varieties of THC” beyond delta-9-THC and would encompass “all types of natural THCs as well as artificially-derived THCs and synthetically-derived THCs.”
        • There would be new definitions including “cannabinoid,” "artificial cannabinoids" (which would be banned), and "synthetically-derived cannabinoids" which could be permitted if they were “a natural cannabinoid derived from the cannabis plant that…goes through a process to become another cannabinoid” which also exists in the plant.
      • Prohibits persons other than cannabis licensees from selling products for human consumption exceeding 0.3 percent tetrahydrocannabinol that contain more than 0.5 milligrams per serving or 2 milligrams total in the package of a cannabinoid that may be impairing.”
        • These restrictions “were not currently expressly regulated under state law” and the bill would limit sales of such items to licensed retailers.
      • The bill would give WSLCB “regulatory and rulemaking authority over cannabinoids that may be impairing or that are marketed as having impairing effects.
      • Specifies that cannabinoid products that may be impairing may not be sold to persons under age 21, with an exception for qualifying patients.
      • Authorizes cannabis producers and processors to use non-impairing cannabinoids as additives in cannabis products subject to requirements including testing and disclosures. 
        • This provision would amend RCW 69.50.326 which allowed “a process for CBD to come from a potentially unlicensed source outside” the legal cannabis system “if it goes through testing.” The law would be “expanded in this bill to allow businesses in the cannabis industry to source other non-impairing cannabinoids from unlicensed sources if they go through…passing additional pesticide and heavy metal testing” and not “passing those thresholds of 0.3% THC or more than half a milligram of an impairing cannabinoid.”
      • Prohibits the manufacture and sale of artificial cannabinoids including as additives in cannabis products, and requires disclosure on cannabis packaging and labeling of any synthetically derived cannabinoids.”
    • Clodfelter said that WSLCB would “be empowered to adopt rules regulating synthetically-derived cannabinoids” and any future sales would “be subject to complying with rules the LCB would adopt after consulting with the Department of Health and Department of Agriculture.” He indicated that if a licensed producer/processor were “authorized to sell synthetically-derived cannabinoids” they wouldn’t be allowed to market them “as a natural substance.”
    • The fiscal note for HB 1668 prepared by WSLCB staff expected that the legislation would cost $278,370 annually in order to pay for two full time employees (FTEs): one for handling “significant additional ongoing rulemaking,” and the other for an Enforcement Officer 2 (LEO2).
  • 34 people indicated their support for the bill, including nine people who testified about how it could eventually lead to the agency approving products containing synthetically-derived cannabinoids.
    • Chair Shelley Kloba, the primary sponsor, discussed her motives behind backing the agency request bill, saying that "we have to have safe products" with "transparency and accountability" and at the same time "restricting youth access." She considered the proposal to be a way to “diminish the illicit market,” keep consumers informed, and stop sales to those under 21, particularly online (audio - 5m, video).
      • “The need” for state definitions to be less “delta-9-THC-centric” was clear to Kloba, who called the existing definitions “too narrow to be able to do what we need to do” to have a “regulated market.” She anticipated other impairing cannabinoids would become prominent, so the definitions would increase “clarity” and knowledge about "the source of some of these newer impairing substances." 
      • As legal cannabis in the state was “a closed system," Kloba sought “to be very thoughtful about creating, in effect, an unlimited and unregulated supply” of cannabinoids. She told her colleagues she was amenable to “discussions with you” about concerns, or “ways that you might think it could be improved.”
    • Rick Garza, WSLCB Director (audio - 5m, video)
      • Garza stated that in 2021 "problems posed by hemp-derived products” were raised by “concerned citizens, public health, and the prevention community, along with legislators…and industry members.” Reports of “delta-8 gummies with impairing amounts of THC” for sale at “gas stations and convenience stores” were the result of the 2018 Farm Bill, he said. Federal law legalized hemp cultivation and “a rush to produce CBD” resulted in a "glut" of distillate, Garza argued, which was "synthetically converted" into delta-8-THC and others for "pennies on the dollar,” according to reporting by the Spokesman Review. He stressed that WSLCB did not have authority over these products, believing that “to ensure public health and safety the licensed cannabis regulatory system we oversee requires safeguards” like lab testing.
      • Garza warned that such products had allegedly “landed hundreds of people" in hospital nationwide, “adults and children alike.” The problems with synthesized cannabinoid products were “multifold,” he said, as compounds were “impairing,” available “without age restrictions,” carried health risks, were untested, and "undermined the regulated market." Garza asserted that the bill would help in all these areas, assisting consumers, regulators, and licensed businesses by requiring items with cannabinoids that may be impairing to only be sold in licensed retailers.
      • Garza told lawmakers that “in late 2021, the LCB seized 1900 pounds” (~862K grams) of synthetic delta-9-THC “from one licensed processor.” Offering the analogy of “creating apple juice without the apples," he framed HB 1668 as helping consumers while keeping the products away from kids. Allowing hemp-derived CBD “as more than just an additive” in the market could end up meaning “there will never be a need to purchase" from licensed producers, Garza cautioned, “severely harm[ing] the existing regulated market.” He concluded that "this so-called innovation will do nothing but harm the industry we regulate."
    • Gillian Schauer, Cannabis Regulators Association (CANNRA) Executive Director (audio - 4m, video).
      • Schauer described herself as having worked “at the nexus of cannabis policy and public health and consumer safety for the past decade.” Mentioning that several states have taken action against “cannabinoids that are being derived chemically from hemp and from CBD,” she acknowledged that federal authorities hadn’t “moved to address the current safety issues, nor have they signalled any forthcoming regulatory action.”
      • Describing state action on the matter as “urgently needed” for the safety and youth access reasons mentioned by Garza, Schauer also believed it would benefit the legal cannabis sector. She remarked on the difference between hemp and cannabis regulations under Washington law, such as warnings on packaging and labeling that a product may be impairing.
      • Pointing to “two well-documented cases" of children ingesting delta-8-THC gummies and being admitted to an intensive care unit “with respiratory failure,” Schauer said that 39% of 660 cases nationwide were for patients “less than 18 years of age” according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She further noted that without product testing, chemical synthesis of cannabinoids could result in “unknown by-products, with unknown safety profiles,” similar to a wave of vaping associated lung injuries (VALI) in 2019 traced to “unregulated and untested THC products.” These items were “far easier” for those under 21 to source “than cannabis products from the adult-use marketplace” which had ID restrictions, Schauer added.
      • Schauer concluded that nothing short of the “health of the [Initiative-]502 market is at stake" as allowing delta-8-THC and other cannabinoid products in a less regulated "parallel marketplace" will continue to weaken the licensed sector and threaten consumers and youth.
    • Justin Nordhorn, WSLCB Director of Policy and External Affairs (audio - 4m, video)
      • Nordhorn saw the "key concepts of the bill" as bringing cannabinoid products into a market that was “regulated and controlled” with oversight to benefit consumers and safeguard against youth access. Under HB 1668, he described how WSLCB staff could “assess end products’” total cannabinoid content, ensure “products are produced from an actual plant and not artificially created through chemical construction in a lab,” and exercise oversight of production facilities and processing methods. 
      • Requiring that impairing cannabinoids must be produced by a cannabis licensee, Nordhorn relayed that the bill “expands the opportunity for licensees to utilize other non-impairing cannabinoid additives in line with current law for CBD.” Moreover, “cannabinoids brought into the 502 market as a[n] additive…may not be converted further into cannabinoids after entry, [but] only to be used as additives.” 
      • Nordhorn said the bill attempts to differentiate cannabinoids sourced “from a natural plant” from those that were “strictly synthetic or artificial cannabinoids by using the term ‘synthetically derived.’” He commented that it allowed the opportunity for “licensees to produce these cannabinoids within the I-502 regulated system so long as they’re sourced from…marijuana, and not from hemp” after the agency set up “regulations for the product in consultation with our partners” at DOH and the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA). In all, the legislation’s approach would increase product and consumer safety, “address consumer demand, and mitigate any illicit market activity,” stated Nordhorn.
      • Representative Brandon Vick found Garza’s remark on “making apple juice without apples” incorrect because “hemp is cannabis,” but more broadly wondered “what if we just regulated it through the LCB?” (audio - 5m, video).
        • Nordhorn distinguished artificial cannabinoids as “creating something from nothing,” but a “synthetically-derived product” was converted from compounds sourced from a cannabis plant. He called it “challenging” for agency officials to know where material came from unless it was produced by a licensee. As imported CBD could “come from anywhere around the world,” Nordhorn explained “when we’re doing testing there’s a whole bunch of products and by-products that can be tested for” and unless regulators “know what [they’re] looking for, you’re probably not testing for it.”
        • Garza noted that he “grew up in the Yakima valley" and knew the apple industry was global, whereas cannabis grown in the state had to be sold here. He said that an apple farmer in Washington wouldn’t “be harmed” by a store or business importing apples, but “in the cannabis industry, you cannot source that anywhere but in the state.” So if importing CBD to “turn it into THC, delta-9,” there would be “no need” for licensed producers. He believed that once “national prohibition is lifted” on cannabis (in "three, four, five, or ten years") importation might be allowable. But he was hearing from licensees that the practice was “damaging to the marketplace” as hemp farmers had “no production limits,” unlike cannabis production canopy constraints.
      • Representative Melanie Morgan inquired as to whether there was “something in the middle” between artificial, synthetic, and natural cannabinoids (audio - 3m, video).
        • Nordhorn responded that an existing statutory definition of ‘synthetic cannabinoid’ (which “includes any chemical compound identified in RCW 69.50.204(c)(30) or by the pharmacy quality assurance commission under RCW 69.50.201”) meant that what was “really defined right now is ‘artificial,’ totally chemically created.” He mentioned broad stakeholder agreement that these compounds had “no place in the marketplace.” He suggested that synthetically-derived cannabinoids might be a “middle ground…but we don’t know enough about it yet.”
        • Schauer spoke to the potential “unknown byproducts,” stating that even chemically converting CBD resulted “in most cases…with constituents that are part of that that we can't identify.” She suggested that oversight was warranted so that products sold were “rigorously looked at, and tested” after being made with “sound methods.”
        • Morgan also chairs the Washington State Legislative Task Force on Social Equity in Cannabis (WA SECTF).
    • John Kingsbury, Patients United (audio - 3m, video)
      • Kingsbury said he was a medical cannabis patient and thought that “competing concerns [of businesses] may make your job seem complicated, but in truth your job is simple” as their highest priority should be the public’s welfare. He urged committee members to “set aside those other concerns at first” and focus on HB 1668, which he suggested wasn’t designed “to make or break markets, but rather to set some basic rules of the road so that things can move forward.”
      • Kingsbury argued that regulating “impairing substances” was what WSLCB was set up to do “and this bill recognizes that.” He said labeling for synthesized cannabinoids was about "transparency and letting informed consumers choose" was best. Kingsbury also found the definitions in the bill "make good sense" and that while new rules and processes would be added, “establishing the categories of these compounds in the law, based upon science, sensible regulatory frameworks, and public safety must come first.”
      • “I’ve been asked if I trust LCB to conduct rulemaking around these issues,” Kingsbury commented, “the answer is ‘of course not’” as in his experience agency officials “usually overlook patient needs.” He encouraged legislators to "build speed bumps between these compounds" and what was “considered medical cannabis.” Not impressed with the “innovation” of synthetic cannabinoids as offering a "cheaper way to get high," Kingsbury perceived the I-502 sector as “already flooded with cheap intoxicants.” Noting “LCB’s consistent attitude that whatever a store sells to a patient is medical product,” and that synthetic cannabinoids “seem to contain disturbingly high percentages of unknown byproducts, it is essential that some speed bumps be built into this legislation that require that safety be proved first before they can be considered to be medical product.”
    • Amy Brackenbury, Washington State Public Health Association (WSPHA) Lobbyist (audio - 2m, video)
      • Saying she represented “the Public Health Roundtable” along with WSPHA, Brackenbury said public health officials were "concerned about the rise in accidental poisonings in kids from the delta-8-THC” items. She said that “current law isn’t clear enough to keep these products out of the hands of children.” She welcomed WSLCB regulation, particularly around labeling, along with stopping “sales of impairing levels of cannabis products…in non-LCB licensed stores to people of all ages.”
    • Adán Espino, Craft Cannabis Council (CCC) Executive Director (audio - 2m, video)
      • Espino, representing the retailer-focused CCC, called the bill one of the group’s “top priorities to ensure that there is a well-regulated and safe cannabis industry.” A successful state market could be “upended” if cannabis items remained available “beyond the scope and basic framework of our system,” he said.
    • Ezra Eickmeyer, Producers NW Political Director (audio - 3m, video)
      • Eickmeyer testified that over the previous year there’d been an “almost hostile takeover of the controlled marketplace by uncontrolled operators.” He agreed with the sentiments of Garza and Kingsbury as to why the bill was worth supporting. Eickmeyer mentioned the distinction between artificial cannabinoids and synthetic ones, remarking that he wasn’t concerned about “a CBD compound becoming toxic because it was turned into a THC compound, but I am worried about the implications in the controlled marketplace.”
      • Even if a synthetic cannabinoid was “proven to be completely safe, that’s only a part of the point,” Eickmeyer observed, “the bigger point here is that we have a controlled industry…providing billions of dollars to our state” under a closely controlled system. HB 1668 was part of how the state could “maintain the…balance within that controlled industry,” he said, unless lawmakers were prepared to have a fully deregulated cannabis sector. Eickmeyer was clear that his organization was “100%, entirely against any door being opened to bringing outside cannabinoids in, and then being able to alter them into THC” regardless of whether it could be done safely.
    • Bob Cooper, Washington Association for Substance Abuse and Violence Prevention (WASAVP) Lobbyist (audio - 2m, video)
    • Lukas Hunter, Harmony Farms Director of Compliance (audio - 2m, video).
      • Supporting Garza’s sentiments, Hunter liked the idea of WSLCB staff “taking the term ‘impaining,’ and working it through.” Stating that stakeholders could better collaborate through a rulemaking process to “evolve” the term, he felt that approach was preferable to a definition “bound in statute.”
      • He agreed with others that importing CBD only to convert it into another cannabinoid impacted “the cost of flower.” Hunter estimated that for cannabis biomass to “be competitive with the cost of CBD conversion technology we would be looking at buying cannabis for five cents per gram that we once would have paid 75 cents a gram for, so it really devalues” cannabis grown in the state.
      • Hunter said his company had already seen more challenges selling their “product as a result of…converted CBD product[s] in the market” and supported the solution proposed by the bill.
    • Signed in but not testifying (25):
  • Fifteen people spoke or signed in against the bill, with several testifying that they preferred a future marketplace as envisioned in legislation drafted by the Washington CannaBusiness Association (WACA).
    • Vicki Christophersen, WACA Executive Director and Lobbyist (audio - 3m, video).
      • Christophersen said there was consensus that “urgent state action is needed to stop the unregulated, unsafe products” from being available online and in “convenience stores and vape stores.” She suggested the other relevant question was “how does the state regulate cannabinoids broadly,” given what they’d learned about regulating THC products since passage of I-502.
      • Christophersen reported that WACA members spent “significant time” debating the issue, concluding that cannabis could be “grown for hemp, it can be grown for high-THC adult use” safely and should therefore be “allowed within the regulated market” following testing and transparency. “The ambiguity in current law” as well as an “unpredictable regulatory approach by the LCB has helped spur the proliferation of these products outside the regulated market,” she said, saying her organization preferred having all impairing cannabinoid items in regulated stores and “out of the hands of kids.”
      • Christophersen’s issues with HB 1668 were that it “prohibits the use of a potentially large number of cannabinoids that could be used safely” and mentions “impairing cannabinoids, over 20 times," without defining it. She said that WACA leaders worked with “scientists and industry professionals to draft a better approach to this issue,” SB 5767, which she urged the committee to study as it envisioned “the safe derivation of cannabinoids within the regulated market” and would “prohibit the really unsafe, unregulated market.”
    • Dylan Summers, Lazarus Naturals (audio - 1m, video).
    • Wendy Hull, Fairwinds CEO (audio - 5m, vidoe)
      • Also concerned that “impairing” wasn’t defined by the bill, Hull commented that was causing “a lot of angst between industry members and the LCB." She explained that months earlier her company had submitted products for approval to the agency with Cannabinol (CBN) and Cannabigerol (CBG) that were “approved, no problem.” However, “very similar products” were later denied, she noted, as agency staff were “questioning whether or not these cannabinoids were considered impairing.” This inconsistency “caused a lot of issues” even after she met with officials to offer “scientific documentation, white papers, even some of the most basic websites” listing CBG and CBN as non-impairing cannabinoids, since “the LCB disagrees.”
      • Hull also took issue with how the bill would mandate that cannabinoids being converted “have to be grown in-house.” Though not grown by her company, she insisted the cannabinoids added to her products were for “wellness and health benefits” as the items were often used “as medicine” for people wanting to “function without feeling high.” Hull asked for consistency and clarity from the legislation, starting by defining ‘impairing.’
    • Joseph DuPuis, Doc and Yeti Urban Farms CEO and WACA Board Member (audio - 3m, video).
      • DuPuis echoed the desire to not have impairing cannabis products outside of I-502 stores but didn’t think “prohibiting regulated license holders from selling impairing cannabinoids” available elsewhere increased public health and safety. “Other states have allowed for innovation to meet consumer demand and to compete with the illicit and gray markets,” he argued.
      • As someone who attended “the industry’s largest conferences across the country,” DuPuis said he feared HB 1668 would create “artificial barriers” for licensees other states didn’t have. “This world is getting much more competitive for us,” he reported, “but you can help us maintain our market position.” He was confident that market demand for cannabis flower would continue as consumers valued “the high-quality products that we have been known for.”
      • DuPuis believed the goal for WSLCB leaders should be “to create [an] equitable industry and be sure that products are safe” in order to let businesses flourish in “a domestic and global marketplace.” He didn’t think HB 1668 reflected the state’s past leadership on cannabis as businesses would be able to "innovate, evolve, and compete."
      • Vice Chair Emily Wicks asked if DuPuis’ company grew hemp or engaged in cannabinoid synthesis. He said Doc and Yeti Urban Farms didn’t grow hemp and was “a high quality" producer (audio - 1m, video)
    • Greg Haynes, cannabis licensee (audio - 3m, video).
    • Andy Brassington, Evergreen Herbal Owner and WACA Board of Trustees Vice President (audio - 4m, video).
      • Brassington testified that his company had 34 FTEs and sent products to “80% of the retailers” in Washington, asserting that the legislation would “cause more industry chaos and further set Washington back" in the cannabis sector. He said SB 5767 was preferable as HB 1668 wasn’t written to “keep up with rapidly evolving innovation…it’s a regressive bill” that was flawed because "it lacks science." The WACA legislation was “well thought out and [had] been worked on behind the scenes,” Brassington commented, as “cannabinoids can be safely derived from the plant."
      • The distinction between cannabinoids from hemp plants and cannabis plants was “a head scratcher” for Brassington, as was the lack of a definition for impairment even as the word appeared 23 times in the bill. As someone involved in “national and regional hearings and committees and work,” he believed the state was “losing its leadership" on cannabis, a situation the bill would “exacerbate.”
    • Jessica Tonani, Verda Bio CEO (audio - 3m, video).
      • Noting evolution in the space, Tonani felt stakeholders in hemp and cannabis “understand that legislative updates are needed” to take the sector “beyond delta-9-THC and CBD.” She noted “there's over 100 other cannabinoids that are manufactured in the plant” and that many weren’t impairing. She praised some aspects of the bill, particularly definitions for "artificial" and "synthetic cannabinoids," but agreed that without defining impairing the legislation would lead to "subjective enforcement" of some impairing substances over others.
      • Tonani said she’d participated in WSLCB deliberative dialogue sessions on cannabis plant chemistry in June and July of 2021. Subsequently, a “small, informal working group" set out to define “impairing cannabinoid.” She reported that they’d found impairing cannabinoids were “strongly binding” to cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CB1), and she encouraged a regulatory standard based on “structure and function” over a vague definition of impairment. This would also define what was non-impairing, Tonani added, before asking lawmakers to pursue SB 5767 instead.
    • Chris Masse, Miller Nash Partner (audio - 3m, video).
      • Masse said her firm regularly dealt with cannabis licensees receiving administrative violation notices (AVNs) from WSLCB and wanted to offer some “technical concerns” with the legislation, chief among them the need to define ‘impairing.’ She stressed that licensees “want predictability and uniformity in application of the rules.”
      • Pointing to section (5)(3) of the measure, Masse expressed concern that the statute would be retroactive. She believed licensees who previously engaged in conversion “had a good faith belief" that using synthesized cannabinoids to “supplement their cannabis products” for sale on the legal market “was going to be legal.” In making that section of the bill retroactive, she felt regulators had “put their finger on the scale of that fight over what we do with what happened before.” She suggested adjudication between the state and licensees who had engaged in cannabinoid synthesis was the appropriate way to decide if such actions had been legal, but also felt that HB 1668, as written, introduced “litigation risk” for the state. To limit the odds of the latter, Masse advised removing the language "prior to the manufacturing and sale to other licensees." 
      • Wicks asked Masse to clarify what she meant about licensees "supplementing” their products, and Masse reiterated she didn’t want licensees previously engaged in cannabinoid conversion to be considered “criminals” (audio - 2m, video).
      • Morgan expressed her appreciation for Masse’s testimony “in this real piece of the actual license holders” as it reminded her of the work of WA SECTF in “trying to make it whole.” She didn’t want “to exasperate some of the issues that were already there in terms of the LCB and the control that was there” which she thought could impact “Black and Brown people who are already in the industry or are coming in” (audio - 1m, video).
    • Several speakers signed up to testify against HB 1668 but weren’t available when called upon:
    • Signed in but not testifying (4):
      • Braden Adams-Lewandowski
      • Rebecca Burghardi, Northwest Cannabis Solutions Assistant Director for Research and Development and WACA Board of Trustees President 
      • Troy Peterson, Apex Cannabis Co-Owner and WACA Board of Trustees Member
      • Russell Rosendal, Salal Credit Union CEO and WACA Associate Member Representative
  • Four people testified or signed in ‘other,’ including representatives of two cannabis trade groups supportive of the concept but remaining neutral on the specifics of the measure.
    • Micah Sherman, Raven Co-Owner and Washington Sun and Craft Growers Association (WSCA) Board Member (audio - 3m, video)
      • Sherman reported being mostly in agreement with Garza with a “slight divergence" around the “distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘synthetic’ cannabinoids.” He argued that HB 1668 wasn’t about “whether something is from hemp or marijaua,” something he called “a legal and regulatory distinction and not a biological distinction,” but rather to have a “clear line between naturally-derived and synthetically-derived.” Sherman said that as CBD from hemp was “isolated into a single molecule and through chemical process it’s converted into another molecule” that was a synthesis process resulting in new products which shouldn’t be represented as “hemp-derived.”
      • He saw opponents to the bill claim “because the molecule is isolated from hemp that it is somehow different from an isolated molecule that was made from, say, yeast, which can also produce cannabinoids.” Sherman asserted that SB 5767 would move the legal cannabis sector in Washington even more towards synthetic cannabinoids. Distinguishing between synthetic and natural was the “important distinction,” for him, and he promised to submit written comments on how to “accommodate that distinction largely within the framework that the LCB has provided.”
      • Sherman posited that the state didn’t “need these molecules to come into the regulated cannabis market. It’s a process of drug development, and it belongs in the drug development process that’s approved by” the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
    • Caitlein Ryan, The Cannabis Alliance Interim Executive Director (audio - 2m, video)
      • Ryan was complimentary of the WSLCB staff who developed the legislation, stating that conversations on the matter were “robust and responsive.” She offered “full throated support in this bill’s efforts to bring all impairing cannabinoids firmly under the regulatory authority” of WSLCB. However, Ryan said her organization had reservations about “any additional allowances for rulemaking regarding synthetic or artificial cannabinoids.” Even as HB 1668 didn’t allow for “the presence of synthetically-derived cannabinoids, we are concerned that a shift from the current status quo” would be premature to “understanding the public safety impact of any new rule and subsequent enforcement.”
      • Cannabinoids from outside the I-502 system undermined “the intent of a well-regulated system and further hurts already suffering producers by bypassing them altogether,” Ryan remarked. She found that the definitions in the bill presented “challenges” for how they would interact with “hemp industry standards and already existing laws.” Ryan believed there would be “a path forward with further refinement and we look forward to contributing.”
    • Joshua Estes and Sean O’Sullivan, both Pacific Northwest Regional Strategies LLC Managing Partners, signed in as ‘other’ on behalf of retailers Kushman's and The Kushery, respectively. 

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