WA Legislature - Update
(January 29, 2025)

WA Legislature - Update (January 29, 2025) - Takeaways

Four public hearings on Tuesday evidenced the complexity of cannabis policymaking, Republicans were eyeing excise tax revenue, and legislation may be advanced on WSLCB data dashboard development.

Here are some observations of the Washington State Legislature (WA Legislature) for Wednesday January 29th, the 17th day of the 2025 regular session.

My top 5 takeaways:

  • Also on Tuesday, Washington State House Consumer Protection and Business Committee (WA House CPB) members hosted public hearings on three cannabis-related bills regarding patient data sharing, lab certification authority, and home grow.
    • HB 1341 - DOH Patient Data Sharing
      • Representative Sharon Wylie introduced WSLCB request legislation to authorize agency staff access to Washington State Department of Health (DOH) patient data.
      • Positions: testifying + not testifying = total (no duplicates)
        • Pro: 2 + 4 = 6 (0)
        • Con: 0 + 0 = 0 (0)
        • Other: 1 + 0 = 1 (0)
      • WSLCB Director of Legislative Relations Marc Webster spoke in support of the legislation, conveying a legal interpretation that a statutory change was necessary to authorize the same access to protected DOH patient data as granted to the Washington State Department of Revenue (WA DOR) to validate excise tax exempt sales of DOH compliant cannabis products.
      • Cannabis Alliance Executive Director Caitlein Ryan also testified in support of the bill to ensure that WSLCB Finance staff could audit tax exempt sales to prove the narrowly tailored incentives put in place through HB 1453 in 2024 were being upheld.
    • HB 1347 - WSLCB Lab Certification Authority
    • HB 1449 - Cannabis Home Grow
      • Representative Shelley Kloba introduced legislation to allow an adult to grow six cannabis plants (combined up to 15 per ‘housing unit’) while establishing parameters and penalties around the practice.  One third of all WA House CPB members were signatory sponsors of the bill.
      • Positions: testifying + not testifying = total (duplicates)
        • Pro: 12 + 165 = 177 (3)
        • Con: 4 + 492 = 496 (16)
        • Other: 2 + 3 = 5 (0)
      • Despite the curious number of registrants signed in against the legislation, the majority of testifiers supported having Washington follow the example of 21 out of 24 other states that had legalized adult use of cannabis while also safely allowing home growing of a limited number of plants.
        • Of the three remaining legalized states which do not allow home growing of cannabis, Washington ranked as the most punitive and carceral, threatening residents who weren’t licensed commercial growers—and even some patients who were authorized to grow for personal use—with seizure of property, a class C felony punishable by up to 5 years imprisonment, and/or a fine up to $10,000 with an additional mandatory fine of $1,000 applied to first offenses and $2,000 to second or subsequent offenses.
        • Testifiers described a multitude of known and anticipated benefits associated with home cultivation of cannabis for personal use while addressing concerns and fears perennially raised by intransigent interests for over a decade.
      • Four representatives of law enforcement, public health, and prevention groups testified in opposition to the legislation:
      • Arriving late, democratic Representative Kristine Reeves still exhibited an unusual interest in the proceedings for the third year in a row, asking staff whether law enforcement concerns had been met (audio - 2m, video - TVW), spinning a hard to follow hypothetical about colluding adjacent apartment renters (audio - 2m, video - TVW), and attempting to encourage a commercial grower to speculate about home insurance policy impacts (audio - 2m, video - TVW).
      • At publication time, an executive session on the legislation had not been announced.
  • On Tuesday, the introduction of a Republican-sponsored bill seeking to increase distributions of State cannabis revenue to counties, cities, and towns went as planned; and a more aggressive version of the legislation was staged for introduction in the House.
    • SB 5547 - “Increasing cannabis revenue distributions to local governments.”
      • Cannabis Excise Tax Local Distributions
      • Republican Whip Keith Wagoner introduced legislation which would stepwise increase the standing distributions of cannabis excise tax revenue to participating localities encoded in RCW 69.50.540 by decreasing the appropriation to the State general fund from 32% down to 27% by 2030.
      • On Tuesday, Wagoner was joined by one co-sponsor, Senator Leonard Christian.
      • The bill was referred to the Washington State Senate Ways and Means Committee (WA Senate WM) and a hearing had not been announced by publication time.
    • HB 1704 - “Increasing cannabis revenue distributions to local governments.”
  • On Wednesday, WA House CPB members planned to host an executive session on legislation to specifically direct WSLCB data dashboard development efforts.
    • 1:30pm - WA House CPB - Committee Meeting [ Event Details ]
      • Executive Session
        • HB 1066 - WSLCB Data Dashboard
          • While previously scheduled for an executive session on Tuesday January 21st, action was deferred on the regulated substances data dashboard bill due to a pending amendment by Reeves, the prime sponsor.
          • However, at publication time, no amendments had been published.
      • Shortly after being announced the week prior, public hearings on three cannabis-related bills previously scheduled for this meeting were deferred.
    • Also on Wednesday, the House would convene a floor session at 10:30am [ TVW ] and the Senate would convene at 12:30pm [ TVW ].