We advocated for our member businesses with regulatory agencies and the legislature. Resulting in changes such as removing quarantine, removing harvest date, and receiving a full year to implement rule changes.
We consistently have a voice and a seat at the table with the WSLCB, WSDA, DOE, DOH and the Governor’s office.
We’ve insisted industry stakeholder voices be heard during legislatively mandated agency reports such as DOE’s Lab Accreditation Report and the WSLCB’s Home Delivery report.
We participated in WSDA’s workgroup on the establishment of an organic-like program for cannabis.
We are at the forefront of the conversation as it pertains to testing and lab standardization, edible regulations, state traceability fixes, medical access, and small business protections.
We participated in a UV exposure research grant in partnership with the UW.
We are currently participating in impairment research in partnership with WSU.
We are leading the effort to establish the first agricultural commodity commission for cannabis in the United States.
We have created successful events for our membership and the broader community such as:
- The WA State Cannabis Summit, now in its 5th year
- Lobby Days
- Kickball Tournaments
- Member hosted mixers and parties
Social Equity
Black Lives Matter. The Cannabis Alliance is dedicated to the advancement of a vital, ethical, equitable, and sustainable cannabis industry. This mission is a call to action in all the work that we do. The cannabis community is no stranger to the ways law enforcement can act in devastating ways to deliver a person into an even more devastating prison industrial complex. Due to legalization, Washington is better than most of the United States where 83% of cannabis arrests are for possession, a number that has increased every year since 2010. Washington, however, falls squarely in the ACLU statistic from 2019 that a black person is 4 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person. Indeed, in some states and Washington DC black people are 8 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana charges. Upon arrest, “African Americans are incarcerated at more than 5 times the rate of whites” and after incarceration the “negative impact of a criminal record is twice as large for African American applicants” for job consideration (NAACP). Beyond meeting our mission, The Cannabis Alliance is committed to affecting meaningful change in this shameful reality.
At the beginning of 2019, Governor Inslee came to The Cannabis Alliance Summit to announce the culmination of our collaborative efforts to vacate non-violent marijuana misdemeanors. While it was an exciting win at the time, even in our own work we recognize how this success benefits white people first. As debates about how to address social equity filled the legislative session at the beginning of the year, we have been learning and growing as an organization how to best bake-in principles of social justice in every aspect of our work. We have committed to doing better by recruiting people of color for positions of leadership, opening committees dedicated to Latinx and women issues, while standing behind in support of organizations with strong voices for communities of color. As a result, multiple targeted initiatives are underway to address funding for minority business development, arrest protocol, new I502 license categories for social equity, patient access and education for communities of color, and collaborative support for initiatives from partner organizations. We can still do better. It is our goal to demonstrate what an intersectional, powerful industry organization can look like.