Washington cannabis czar reflects on growth

As director of Washington’s Liquor and Cannabis Board, Rick Garza oversees the implementation and supervision of a billion-dollar industry that didn’t exist legally five years ago. He and LCB officials statewide ensure everything is done properly at the consumer, retailer and producer level, and also have been looking ahead to how this industry can and should grow, along with paying attention to other states.

Q.  Several states have recently adopted legalization efforts either for recreational or medical cannabis. Have you shared any guidance as they plan their regulations?

A.  It’s kind of been a fascinating ride for the last couple years. We’ve probably met with 26 states, eight countries and in the example of Canada, three of the provinces and a couple different meetings with the federal government.   The way it usually works is that they’re either going to Colorado right after meeting with us, or coming from Colorado after having met with officials there. Washington and Colorado are going to co-host a regulators summit for cannabis this spring.  Initially, it will only be for regulators. It doesn’t have to be just recreational; it will also include medical. In discussions with my counterpart in Colorado, we had so many people visiting, it was like, ‘Dude, why don’t we get together and bring the states in and let’s put a day and a half of panels together around banking; effective enforcement; how do states position themselves like we have to get regional credit unions to work with the cannabis industry; what are the legal issues; what are the health and prevention issues; how in the hell do you package and label cannabis; what’s pesticide testing and what are the protocols? We’re kind of excited to do this.

Q.  What’s Washington doing that’s unique?

A. Whether they did it by initiative or referendum, other states have addressed the creation of their marketplace a little bit differently, just like we did. Washington does not allow businesses to be vertically integrated. This made it very difficult initially because a lot of people who were already in business wanted to be able to grow, process and dispense. That was a bit of a headache walking in, but we didn’t write the initiative.  

Now you’ve got eight states for recreational and more than 25 for medical. I think one of the only concerns, if there is a concern, is how the new administration is going to address the Cole Memorandum. Everything we set up in Washington was based on the Cole Memorandum’s eight enforcement priorities.

I’ll be honest with you: not to slight any other states, but we’ve got such a restricted, conservative approach that we used to set up our marketplace, that I think we’re in the best position if issues were raised, or the Trump administration took a different position about legalization.

Q.  How do you measure Washington’s success?

A.  The growth of the industry is much larger and faster than even we were predicting. The only thing that can stop this industry, honestly, is the federal government.  From a regulator’s point of view, when you think about the government’s job, it’s to make sure we have public safety. That’s really why the initiative was written in the first place. It’s also making sure we’re not in a position where the federal government steps in and says, ‘We’re not going to let this go any further.’ We’re the one agency that is doing compliance checks in its retail stores, just like for alcohol. Our youth compliance rate is better for cannabis than for alcohol. Our compliance rate is over 90 percent, so we’re doing a pretty good job trying to keep it out of the hands of kids, at least in our retail stores.

We visit a retail outlet typically at least three times a year for compliance checks. That’s even better than alcohol, because there are fewer retail stores for cannabis. We have so many bars, restaurants and grocery stores — thousands — compared to just over 400 retail marijuana stores. It’s a little easier to regulate them because they’re smaller, but I think one of the surprising things for the agency, is that we almost hit a billion dollars in retail sales in fiscal year 2016.
 

For an extended version of this interview visit https://www.marijuanaventure.com/rick-garza-qa/