The Board hosts a public hearing on the Vapor Products rulemaking project and technical minds planned to recommend a different approach to generation of traceability identifiers.
Here’s a look at cannabis-related policymaking events on Cannabis Observer’s calendars in the week ahead.
Tuesday November 26
On Tuesday at 10am PT @ WSLCB, a Special Board Meeting has been scheduled [ agenda ].
- This week’s board meeting was shifted earlier in the week to accommodate the holidays.
- In addition to a cannabis rulemaking update, the Board planned to host a public hearing to gather feedback on the Vapor Products rulemaking project (WSR 19-21-102). On November 19th, WSLCB Policy and Rules Coordinator Kathy Hoffman prepared the Board for the hearing where she emphasized the Vapor Products rulemaking project preceded and was not directly related to the State’s emergency bans on flavored vapor products and vitamin E acetate. See the CR-102 issue paper and small business economic impact statement (SBEIS) for more information.
- As usual, the Special Board Meeting includes time for General Public Comment where citizens are granted four minutes to directly address the Board on any subject. High level agency staff have also been attending board meetings consistently the past several months.
On Tuesday, the weekly WSLCB Board Caucus has been canceled.
Wednesday November 27
On Wednesday at 10am PT via webinar, the WSLCB Traceability 2.0 Work Group’s unofficial Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) Subcommittee convenes for its first and likely only meeting.
- The locus of discussion about the future of cannabis traceability and supply chain transparency has shifted to the relatively new Traceability 2.0 external work group. This work group has met twice, on September 24th and November 4th. The work group is moving slowly to help the State consider revising and scaling back requirements for supply chain awareness and reporting.
- One of the subjects of discussion at the November 4th meeting was the generation of GUIDs to reliably identify objects in the cannabis supply chain. While the format of those identifiers has been at issue, a more fundamental concern is defining who is responsible for provisioning identifiers: licensees or the State (or the State’s vendor). Conversation revealed mixed sentiments within WSLCB which could not be resolved within the context of the meeting.
- I volunteered to organize an informal subcommittee to identify and address the State's concerns which motivate consideration of centrally provisioned GUIDs, and rank recommended GUID algorithms. Participants will include representatives of third-party software providers recruited from the Traceability 2.0 work group and the Integrator Work Sessions as well as technical representatives from WSLCB. Our goal is to provide written recommendations for the Traceability 2.0 work group’s consideration prior to its next meeting on December 9th.
On Wednesday, the bi-weekly WSLCB Board Meeting and the weekly WSLCB Executive Management Team (EMT) meeting have both been canceled.