Medical marijuana

OLYMPIA – A major revision to the state’s marijuana laws, blending the medical and recreational systems and setting up a voluntary registry for adult patients, overwhelmingly passed the Senate on Tuesday and was sent to Gov. Jay Inslee. Changes to the two systems – the heavily regulated recreational pot and the largely unregulated medical marijuana – drew some of the largest and most vocal crowds as it worked its way through committee hearings over the last three months. Some patients said they would be afraid to register as a user of a drug that is still illegal under federal law. Others urged legislators not to disrupt their access to strains of marijuana that were successfully treating pain, epilepsy, cancer or post-traumatic stress disorder when pharmaceuticals have failed them.

OLYMPIA – A major revision to the state's marijuana laws that blends the medical and recreational systems and sets up a voluntary registry for adult patients, overwhelmingly passed the Senate Tuesday and was sent to Gov. Jay Inslee.

After spending most of the day in caucus, the House began debating the first of three marijuana bills, the Cannabis Patient Protection Act, about 4:25 p.m. We'll follow it live inside the blog.

OLYMPIA – Leading the way for legalized marijuana nationally doesn’t mean just anything goes in Washington when it comes to pot. Instead, it provides a springboard into new questions for lawmakers, sessions in House committees proved Monday.

OLYMPIA -- Pot again provided legislators with plenty to talk about.

OLYMPIA – As legislators worked this week to blend the state’s recreational and medical marijuana laws, Spokane Valley officials asked them to consider one more wrinkle in the rapidly changing marketplace: pot lounges. The Members Lounge, which is connected to a medical marijuana dispensary and allows consumption of some vapor and edible marijuana products on its premises, is an example of where the state’s two very different systems don’t mesh well. Using recreational marijuana in public is not legal, but the law is silent on public consumption of medical marijuana, and the lounge contends its patrons aren’t in public but become members of a private club by paying a fee.

OLYMPIA – As legislators worked this week to blend the state’s recreational and medical marijuana laws, Spokane Valley officials asked them to consider one more wrinkle in the rapidly changing marketplace: pot lounges.

The Kettle Falls Five marijuana collective has been reduced to three this week after one of the defendants in the federal criminal case cut an eleventh-hour plea deal with prosecutors. Details of the plea agreement were sealed by U.S. District Judge Thomas Rice before the trial of the other defendants began Wednesday.

OLYMPIA – Major changes to the state’s largely unregulated medical marijuana industry passed the Senate after sponsors beat back a challenge to requirements for a patient database and a plea to let recreational users grow their own. Medical marijuana stores would be regulated by the Liquor Control Board, which currently licenses recreational pot growers and sellers, under a bill drafted by Ann Rivers, R-La Center, and Brian Hatfield, D-Raymond. The agency would expand the number of licensed stores to meet the medical market, and current recreational marijuana stores could get an endorsement to sell special medical strains, which patients could buy without paying some of the heavy taxes on recreational pot.

OLYMPIA – A House panel rolled 18 different proposals to change Washington’s marijuana laws into a single wide-ranging bill Monday, hoping to address at least some problems with the state’s medical and recreational pot systems. As currently written, the bill includes some contradictory provisions. Several sections restrict the ability of cities or counties to ban recreational marijuana businesses in some sections; another bans all recreational pot and any medical form of the drug that doesn’t come in a pill.

OLYMPIA –A House panel rolled 18 different proposals to change Washington’s marijuana laws into a single wide-ranging bill Monday, hoping to address at least some problems with the state’s medical and recreational pot systems. As currently written, the bill includes some contradictory provisions.

OLYMPIA – If one lives long enough, things that once seemed impossible will become commonplace. Or so my grandfather used to say. He was living proof of that: Born before the Wright brothers flew, he lived to watch men walk on the moon, from his living room, on a device that he couldn’t have imagined in the first half of his life.

OLYMPIA – Medical marijuana growers and sellers have a series of unfair business advantages, their recreational pot counterparts told legislators Thursday. Medical marijuana is unregulated in Washington state. It’s unlicensed. It’s not tested for harmful substances like pesticides and fungicides. It’s not labeled for its potency.