Harmony Farms

Staff received more input on how draft agency request bills on contract growing for patients and advertising changes might potentially impact patients, businesses, and the cannabis market.

WSLCB leaders introduced two concepts for 2024 request legislation, one for medical patients to contract with licensees; another to revise limits around cannabis retail advertising.

Researchers ran through various efforts to regulate cannabis concentrates which had been supported by some stakeholders before taking questions on how to influence legislators and the public.

Committee members heard testimony in favor, opposed, and ‘other’ while seeking suggestions on THC levels for hemp products after the Senate decided any amount of THC was too much. 

Within its fiscal committee, testimony on a cannabinoid regulation bill championed by WSLCB was divided, there were THC threshold concerns, but also claims the bill helped cannabis tax revenue.

Feedback on a bill to legalize out-of-state cannabis license ownership was divided: some companies anticipated benefits while others viewed the move as only helping larger entities.

A public hearing on cannabinoid legislation had a mix of support from public officials and prevention groups, as well as opposition/other remarks from hemp and cannabis interests.

Bills to restrict cannabis concentrates had the support of some health officials and an anti-legalization group, but industry members and a consumer advocate tagged them “prohibition bill[s]."

Unanimously supportive testimony on a bill to remove the cannabis excise tax for medical patients registered with the state called attention to problems around taxing medicine.

Legislation to permit out-of-state ownership and suspend inactive producers received mostly supportive testimony, with opposition centered on equity implications from the change.