WA Legislature - Update
(January 26, 2024)

WA Legislature - Update (January 26, 2024) - Takeaways

Senators moved legislation ahead seeking to study revision of cannabis excise tax policy and signaled interest in recommending their labor and “high THC” bills.

Here are some observations of the Washington State Legislature (WA Legislature) for Friday January 26th, the 19th day of the 2024 regular session.

My top 2 takeaways:

  • On Thursday afternoon, legislative staff published updates to the agendas of the WA Senate LC for the following week, adding executive sessions for a cannabis employee labor bill and the “high THC cannabis” legislation.
    • The announcement indicated executive sessions on the two cannabis-related bills remaining in committee had been added to their Tuesday January 30th meeting.
      • The House of Origin Policy Committee Cutoff would occur the next day.
    • SB 5662 - "Creating the cannabis employee job retention act."
    • SB 6220 - “Concerning high THC cannabis products.”
      • Heard on Monday January 22nd in the Senate, testimony was similar—at times identical—to what was uttered during the public hearing on HB 2320, companion legislation in the House sponsored by Representative Lauren Davis.  Representatives heard about the intention to raise the minimum age of purchase on cannabis concentrates to 25, fund additional educational resources, and require the development and evaluation of “interventions.” Those measures received support from prevention groups and researchers but the higher age gate evoked opposition from cannabis stakeholders.
      • During the Senate hearing, prime sponsor Senator Jesse Salomon introduced his copy of the legislation which he characterized as addressing “the real specific issue of youth using high potency cannabis and having mental health ‘slash’ schizophrenia psychosis triggering” (audio - 2m, video - TVW).
        • Salomon perhaps unwisely feigned to “remember back in the day, there was some video from the 50s, what was it—Reefer Madness—that I thought was absolutely ridiculous showing, like, somebody smoking pot and getting high and losing their mind.”
          • Wikipedia editors describe the “1936 American exploitation film about drugs, revolving around the melodramatic events that ensue when high school students are lured by pushers to try marijuana – upon trying it, they become addicted, eventually leading them to become involved in various crimes such as a hit and run accident, manslaughter, murder, conspiracy to murder and attempted rape. While all this is happening, they suffer hallucinations, descend into insanity, associate with organized crime and (in one character's case) commit suicide.”
        • Salomon then attempted to correlate the purported effects of cannabis in the film, “when the THC concentrations were, I don't know a couple, few percent - to this day where you can buy a hundred percent THC concentration.”  He paused, quickly adding, “You do have that effect on the high end.”
          • While it’s not altogether clear the extent of the associations the senator was attempting to make in his introductory remarks, we here at Cannabis Observer do not think it was compassionate nor helpful for him to characterize a child’s or adult’s suffering, regardless of cause, as a contemporary form of “Reefer Madness.”
        • After describing some of the actual effects of the legislation, Salomon concluded, “I’m not trying to make the statement that marijuana is bad for everybody. I'm just trying to protect kids. There's evidence that this is happening, and I think we need to be responsible and move this forward.”
          • Here at Cannabis Observer, we believe the law restricting legal sales of cannabis to adults 21 and over is a wise one.  We do not believe children should be consuming cannabis, except in circumstances where the medicinal properties of the plant can be beneficial to their quality of life and only then under the caring guidance and supervision of well informed adults.
          • We also think it’s entirely reasonable to assume that some children are obtaining access to concentrated cannabis and/or hemp cannabinoid products, consuming the products unwisely, and having bad experiences.  Our culture does not provide children with guidance about how to consume cannabis, how much to consume, nor what to expect.  The formal indoctrination we do provide is typically prevention/prohibition-oriented rather than seeking to inform with a goal of reducing potential harms.  The horror of a child’s bad experiences with controlled substances can be compounded by lack of perspective in addition to fear of discovery and legal jeopardy.
          • Given the federally illegal status of cannabis which has prohibited research into its properties, it is unsurprising that medical professionals and poison control first responders are not as well prepared to handle these predictable situations of acute—meaning limited in duration—panic as they could be.  Parts of SB 6220 wisely seek to fill that gap.
          • However, the increasingly hyperbolic language of particular prevention researchers and their legislative proxies who seek to frighten their peers into action by claiming children having bad experiences are under threat of lifelong schizophrenia seems characteristic of an unfortunately well known response to Reefer Madness which has plagued our societies for long enough.  Such rhetoric is unhelpful and has not served to protect children during the past five years the legislature has been unconvinced to take action.
      • At publication time, there were no published amendments on the legislation.