Legal Corner: Bills to Harmonize the State

ashington
legislators recently dropped a slew of bills to regulate medical cannabis
and to harmonize it with Initiative 502, the state’s recreational cannabis law.
For weeks now, no one has been able to predict if any of these bills will
emerge as the victor for overhauling medical cannabis in The Evergreen State.
That changed though in mid-February when Senate Bill 5052, the Cannabis Patient
Protection Act, passed in the Senate by a 36-11 margin, giving it a good
chance of making it through the House and eventually onto the governor’s
desk for signature into law.

The
58-page bill contains many, many regulations for the “new” medical and recreational
cannabis hybrid industry, including the below highlights:

• Creating the
  Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board, which pretty much qualifies as
  the existing Liquor Board but with a new name.
• Qualifying
  patient debilitating conditions will remain nominally the same as currently set
  forth in RCW 69.51A, but a limiting definition will be added to mandate
  that the condition must be “severe enough to significantly interfere with
  the patient’s activities of daily living and ability to function, which can be
  objectively assessed and evaluated. . . .”
• In-person
  visits with health care providers will be required for patients to secure
  medical cannabis authorization cards, and health care professionals will need
  to have a documented relationship with the patient as a principal care provider
  or specialist.
• Existing
  I-502 retailers can apply to hold “medical cannabis endorsements” that will
  allow them to sell cannabis for medical use to qualifying patients and
  designated providers.
• The
  Board must develop “a competitive,
  merit-based application process that includes, at minimum, the
  opportunity for an applicant to demonstrate experience and qualifications in
  the cannabis industry. Operating a collective garden before [application] and
  having a business license and a history of paying sales tax to the department
  of revenue may be factors used to establish the experience and qualifications
  of the applicant.
• The
  Board’s existing 1,000-foot perimeter around schools, playgrounds, recreation
  centers, child care centers, parks, public transit centers and arcades would
  still apply, and will apply with equal force to licensed businesses with
  medical cannabis endorsements.
• Health
  care professionals will be required to enter the names of their qualifying
  patients into a centralized database that health care professionals, qualifying
  patients, retailers, and law enforcement would be able to access in limited
  ways, with unauthorized access to the database being a Class C felony.
• Qualifying
  patients could grow up to six plants at home (unless a health care professional
  specifically authorizes more up to a maximum of 15), and qualifying patient
  cooperative grows would be permitted for up to four patients (with a maximum of
  60 plants) if they are at least 15 miles from a retail outlet and if everyone
  participating is in the foregoing qualifying patient registry. Only one
  cooperative garden would be allowed per tax parcel.
• Collective
  gardens as they are currently structured under RCW 69.51A would be phased out
  by July 1, 2016.

Hardly
a week goes by where our law firm does not get asked when the Liquor
Control Board will reopen the licensing window for Initiative 502. Should the
Cannabis Patient Protection Act become law, it looks like that window will
be reopening relatively soon but with very strict requirements.

The
bottom line? Anyone currently operating an unlicensed medical cannabis business
in Washington should begin to contemplate what their options will be in the
event SB-5052 passes this legislative session.