The Week Ahead
(April 17, 2023)

Keep Calm and Sine Die - Te Ka - Sleeping Giant

Legislators greeted the final week of the 2023 regular session as WSLCB staff cleaned up a policy mess nearly made near the sleeping giant of environmental pesticide contamination.

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

Monday April 17th

WA Senate - Session

On Monday at 10am PT, the Washington State Senate (WA Senate) planned to convene in session.

  • [ Event Details ]
  • Senators would convene on Monday to continue their work during the last week of the 2023 regular session.
  • On Friday April 14th, the WA Senate took action on two cannabis bills:
    • SB 5123 - “Concerning the employment of individuals who lawfully consume cannabis.”
      • Taking up the pre-employment screening bill among their first legislation for the day, senators voted to dispute changes made by the Washington State House of Representatives (WA House) and asked their peers to recede from their amendments.
        • During the second and third reading of the bill on the House floor on March 29th, representatives adopted two changes which had been rejected in the House policy committee.
      • The bill would be returned to the House to prompt a vote to withdraw the changes or continue the dispute, leading to appointment of a bicameral conference committee on the legislation.
        • See page 27 of the WA Legislature “Guide to Lawmaking” for a description of the concurrence/dispute process.
    • SB 5069 - “Allowing interstate cannabis agreements.”
      • Senators voted to concur with a minor technical change to the interstate commerce trigger bill as amended by the House. Following supportive remarks by Prime Sponsor Ann Rivers and Senator Karen Keiser, a majority of their peers voted to pass the legislation, 38-8-0-3.
        • Republicans Matt Boehnke, Phil Fortunato, Brad Hawkins, Jim McCune, and Mike Padden were joined by Democrats Bob Hasegawa, Emily Randall, and Yasmin Trudeau in voting against the legislation.
      • Following signatures by the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House, the legislation would be delivered to the Washington State Office of the Governor (WA Governor) for consideration.
    • On Monday, one cannabis bill was available to senators for concurrence with House changes:
      • SB 5367 - “Concerning the regulation of products containing THC.”

WA House - Session

On Monday at 10:30am PT, the Washington State House of Representatives (WA House) planned to convene in session.

  • [ Event Details ]
  • At the conclusion of their work on Friday April 14th, Representatives cancelled their session planned for Saturday April 15th.
  • On Monday, one cannabis bill was available to representatives on the joint concurrence calendar, a request from senators to recede from changes representatives made to their bill.
    • SB 5123 - “Concerning the employment of individuals who lawfully consume cannabis.”
  • At publication time, SB 5367 and SB 5123 were the only two cannabis bills still clearly active in the legislature. Barring any last minute chicanery, five cannabis bills had been passed and were on their way to the Governor’s desk:
    • HB 1066 - “Making technical corrections and removing obsolete language from the Revised Code of Washington pursuant to RCW 1.08.025.”
    • HB 1563 - “Concerning arrest protections for the medical use of cannabis.”
    • HB 1772 - “Prohibiting products that combine alcohol and tetrahydrocannabinol.”
    • SB 5069 - “Allowing interstate cannabis agreements.”
    • SB 5080 - “Expanding and improving the social equity in cannabis program.”
  • Legislation can be declared "necessary to implement budgets" (NTIB), an informal procedure leadership can exercise around any bill with a fiscal impact. The criteria for NTIB status and the decision making around the designation hadn’t been set in law or rule, allowing for a bypass of the cutoff calendar which is agreed to by both chambers through the legislative process.

Tuesday April 18th

WA Senate - Session

On Tuesday at 10am PT, the Washington State Senate (WA Senate) planned to convene in session.

WSLCB - Board Caucus

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

  • [ Event Details ]
  • Assuming board members do not cancel their weekly caucus, Tuesday would be the first public meeting of the board following an unusual couple of weeks at the agency provoked by an Enforcement and Education investigation into the prevalence of legacy environmental pesticides in the cannabis supply chain.
  • The public—and 18 singled out licenses—first learned about the situation from an announcement broadcast from Enforcement and Education Director Chandra Wax on Thursday April 6th. Random pesticide testing conducted under contract by the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) was alleged to “have identified a pattern of pesticide testing failures that point to product contamination in a specific region” of eastern Washington. Some of the tests conducted indicated DDE, a legacy environmental contaminant and degradation product of DDT, above 0.1 parts per million (100 parts per billion) - the default action level for all pesticides which do not have action levels explicitly set.
    • A December 2015 Oregon Health Authority technical report on their “Process to Determine Which Types of Contaminants to Test for in Cannabis Products, and Levels for Action” specified that the Oregon Department of Agriculture and “analytical laboratory representatives recommended not including any organochlorine insecticides on the list. For the most part, these compounds have been banned for decades. Any organochlorine contamination would be at low levels due to historical uses in the area from decades ago as opposed to direct, recent application to cannabis.” DDT is a type of organochlorine.
    • It is Cannabis Observer’s understanding that the limited list of pesticides selected for explicit definition of action levels in the Washington Administrative Code (WAC) by WSLCB were originally more inspired by guidance from the State of Oregon over input from the WSDA and the Washington State Department of Health (DOH).
  • The surprising announcement indicated agency staff planned to file emergency rules“to require a result of 50% of the actionable level of DDE for any plants grown in the soil from this geographical region.” Board members usually receive thorough briefings on any upcoming rulemaking during their board caucus meetings. But on Tuesday April 11th, Policy and Rules Manager Kathy Hoffman was not particularly forthcoming on the content of the emergency rules she planned to present at the following day’s board meeting even though she acknowledged they were ready to go.
  • On Wednesday April 12th during the board meeting the following day, board members unanimously agreed to pause the emergency rulemaking effort but that didn’t preclude the voicing of 24 public comments largely critical of the approach taken by agency staff to the overall situation. Board Chair David Postman indicated that agency staff, from Director Rick Garza’s level on down, agreed on the need to slow down.
  • Agency staff arranged four private meetings with stakeholder groups on Friday April 14th. Cannabis Observer was not invited to observe any of the meetings, but gleaned some details from participants.
    • Private Testing Labs (1-1:30pm). Wax and Hoffman provided a brief update and fielded questions from lab representatives first. Rather than pausing the emergency rulemaking effort, WSLCB staff were unequivocal that they would no longer pursue the creation of emergency rules. Furthermore, staff seemed to indicate that it was questionable whether any additional regular rulemaking would be pursued at all - that existing law and rule were sufficient for managing what had earlier been framed as a public health emergency.
    • Affected Licensees (2pm). In addition to aborting rulemaking, WSLCB staff noted they had obtained pesticide test results for six samples of unspecified cannabis oil extract from some of the targeted licensees. Those results had turned up hot for DDE, with measures between 0.2 and 0.29ppm, and voluntary recalls had been implemented.
    • Trade Associations (3pm). Representatives of the Cannabis Alliance, the Washington Sun and Craft Growers Association (WSCA), the Craft Cannabis Coalition (CCC), Producers Northwest, and the Washington CannaBusiness Association (WACA) met with agency staff on Friday as well. Some representatives advocated for funding to support impacted licensees as well as to help expedite technical support for private labs to be able to reliably test for the presence of DDx compounds in cannabis products, even if not required to do so by rule. As it stands, no accredited private testing lab in Washington state can test cannabis products for the presence of DDx compounds - and the WSDA lab which is equipped to do so does not accept samples directly from licensed businesses.
    • Legislators (4pm). At publication time, we had no insight into what WSLCB staff told legislators or their staff. In an email, WSLCB Director of Legislative Relations Marc Webster indicated all legislators had been invited to the meeting and “a few dozen” expressed interest including members of the House cannabis policy committee, Representative Roger Goodman, Representative Gerry Pollet, and “then of course the members from the 7th, who represent the area in question.”
  • After hours on Friday evening, WSLCB Communications staff broadcast a follow up “Update on Pesticide Contamination” publicly declaring many of the things shared privately with stakeholder groups earlier in the day. Somewhat unusually, the email claimed “Prior to this week’s Board meeting, LCB staff concluded that existing rules suffice to address products containing unapproved pesticides. Emergency rules are not necessary at this time.”
  • The late announcement concluded, “As test results return from the WSDA lab over the coming weeks, the LCB will take the appropriate actions to ensure the contaminated products are recalled from the marketplace. Licensees will be asked to institute a recall of contaminated products.” As some have called eastern Washington the “breadbasket” of cannabis in the state, the likely widespread presence of legacy environmental contaminants and the suspected proclivity of the cannabis plant to take up those chemicals remains a valid concern. But it may not be a concern sufficiently different from the omnipresent and generally unacknowledged concern about environmental pollution and active pesticide use in all of our food, beverage, and dietary supplement supply chains. That sleeping giant was not awakened.

WA House - Session

On Tuesday at 10:30am PT, the Washington State House of Representatives (WA House) planned to convene in session.

Wednesday April 19th

WA Senate - Session

On Wednesday at 10am PT, the Washington State Senate (WA Senate) planned to convene in session.

WA House - Session

On Wednesday at 10:30am PT, the Washington State House of Representatives (WA House) planned to convene in session.

Thursday April 20th

WTSC - Commission Meeting

On Thursday at 10am PT, the Washington Traffic Safety Commission (WTSC) planned to convene their quarterly meeting.

  • [ Event Details ]
  • On Thursday April 13th, the Washington Impaired Driving Advisory Council (WIDAC) hosted a quarterly meeting which included a "Data Update" from Research Director Staci Hoff and a presentation by WTSC Research Associate Max Roberts on "Re-Evaluating the Prevalence of Poly-Drug Positive Driving in Washington." Also, the members of a closed WIDAC Executive Committee were announced which included WSLCB Public Health Education Liaison Mary Segawa.

WA Senate - Session

On Thursday at 10am PT, the Washington State Senate (WA Senate) planned to convene in session.

WA House - Session

On Thursday at 10:30am PT, the Washington State House of Representatives (WA House) planned to convene in session.

UW ADAI - Webinar - Addressing the Risks of High THC Cannabis - The Public Health and Legislative Saga

On Thursday at 12pm PT, the University of Washington Addictions, Drugs, and Alcohol Institute (UW ADAI) planned to host a webinar on “Addressing the Risks of High THC Cannabis: The Public Health and Legislative Saga.”

  • [ Event Details ]
  • While two bills explicitly tied to a research agenda at UW ADAI by Representative Lauren Davis were granted public hearings by the House cannabis policy committee, members were still not sufficiently convinced of the merits of the proposed policy solutions to grant the legislation executive sessions.
  • The webinar event announcement invited attendees to “Join ADAI Cannabis Education & Research Program team members Dr. Bia Carlini, Sharon Garrett, and Lexi Nims as they address the impact of new legal cannabis products containing highly-concentrated THC, which research suggests contribute to adverse health effects. They will also share public health efforts to address this risk with a focus on the interface of public health and legislative action.”
  • At publication time, the latest version of the biennium operating budget included a provision (section 606, subsection 60) granting UW ADAI another $0.5M “solely for the addictions, drug and alcohol institute to continue cannabis and public health impact research. Funding may be used to develop resources regarding the connection between first episode psychosis and cannabis use.”

Friday April 21st

WA Senate - Session

On Friday at 10am PT, the Washington State Senate (WA Senate) planned to convene in session.

WA House - Session

On Friday at 10:30am PT, the Washington State House of Representatives (WA House) planned to convene in session.

WA Pharmacy Commission Legislative Committee - Public Meeting

On Friday at 12pm PT, the Washington State Pharmacy Quality Assurance Commission Legislative Committee (WA Pharmacy Commission Legislative Committee) was scheduled to convene their weekly public meeting.

Saturday April 22nd

WA House - Session

On Saturday at 9am PT, the Washington State House of Representatives (WA House) planned to convene in session.

WA Senate - Session

On Saturday at 10am PT, the Washington State Senate (WA Senate) planned to convene in session.

Sunday April 23rd

WA House - Session

On Sunday at 9am PT, the Washington State House of Representatives (WA House) planned to convene in session.

WA Senate - Session

On Sunday at 1pm PT, the Washington State Senate (WA Senate) planned to convene in session.

WA Legislature - Sine Die

On Sunday, the Washington State Legislature (WA Legislature) would mark sine die, the end of the 2023 regular session.

  • The cutoff calendar describes sine die as the “Last day allowed for regular session under state constitution.”