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A Washington State Senate committee on Tuesday approved bills to provide employment protections for adults who use marijuana and promote social equity in the cannabis industry.<\/p>\n
While Washington was among the first states to legalize marijuana for adult use, lawmakers continue to work to improve upon the law<\/a>, including by recently passing legislation in committee<\/a> earlier this month to prepare for eventual interstate cannabis commerce following federal reform.<\/p>\n The Senate Labor & Commerce Committee advanced the employment bill from the panel\u2019s chair, Sen. Karen Keiser (D), as well as the equity measure from Sen. Rebecca Salda\u00f1a (D), in voice votes on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Keiser\u2019s bill would prohibit employers from discriminating against most job applicants for off-duty marijuana use or for testing positive for non-psychoactive THC metabolites.<\/p>\n Members adopted<\/a> a substitute from the sponsor ahead of the vote that makes modest revisions, including clarifying that the anti-discrimination policy would only apply to pre-employment drug testing and that while employers can still test for all controlled substances, they just can\u2019t punish an applicant over marijuana.<\/p>\n The legislation<\/a> says that the legalization of adult-use marijuana in the state in 2012 \u201ccreated a disconnect between prospective employees\u2019 legal activities and employers\u2019 hiring practices,\u201d adding that most drug tests only detect inactive THC metabolites that can be in a person\u2019s system for weeks after use.<\/p>\n There are some caveats to the proposal. For example, it wouldn\u2019t preclude an employer from using drug tests that can detect active impairment from marijuana.<\/p>\n It also says that the reform wouldn\u2019t affect \u201cthe rights or obligations of an employer to maintain a drug and alcohol free workplace, or any other rights or obligations of an employer required by federal law or regulation.\u201d<\/p>\n The committee defeated a proposed revision to exempt people in safety sensitive positions from the workplace protections reform.<\/p>\n \u2014 Meanwhile, the panel also approved legislation<\/a> that\u2019s meant to enhance the state\u2019s social equity program for the marijuana industry.<\/p>\n It seeks to accomplish this through several means, including changing the way that regulators are authorized to approved additional equity licensees. The Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) would be able to add equity retailers to the program based on population trends, and those retailers could be located in any municipality that allows marijuana businesses to operate, rather than being confined to a specific location that the board assigns.<\/p>\n The bill would also amend the statutory definition of a \u201cdisproportionately impacted area\u201d (DIA), which is used to assess equity license applications.<\/p>\n Under a substitute adopted ahead of the committee vote, DIA would be defined as a census tract or geographical area \u201cwithin Washington state where community members were more likely to be impacted by the war on drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n The areas would have to meet at least two of four criteria: 1) the \u201carea has a high rate of people living under the federal poverty level,\u201d 2) \u201carea has a high rate of people who did not graduate from high school,\u201d 3) \u201carea has a high rate of unemployment\u201d and\/or 4) \u201carea has a high rate of people receiving public assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n Additionally, the legislation would amend the definition of a social equity applicant to mean a business with at least 51 percent ownership by people who meet at least of two of the following criterion: 1) have lived in a DIA for at least five years between 1980 and 2010, 2) has faced a cannabis-related arrest, or have a relative who faced such prosecution, 3) earned an income prior to submitting the application that is less than the Washington State median and\/or 4) is \u201cboth a socially and economically disadvantaged individual.\u201d<\/p>\n Lawmakers approved an amendment to the substitute to increase the number of marijuana processor licenses that regulators could accept from 65 to 100.<\/p>\n Another amendment that was adopted would make it so LCB wouldn\u2019t have the sole authority to approve additional social equity retailers; instead, it would need to be handled by the legislature.<\/p>\n Members rejected an amendment to require LCB to \u201cassess cannabis retailer licenses based on one license per 15,000 residents statewide\u201d and have the board conduct and public analyses on market demand for retailers.<\/p>\n The panel voted against another proposed revision that would have mandated that regulators \u201cassess <\/span>cannabis retailer licenses based on one license per 15,000 residents statewide\u201d and also \u201cconduct and publish certain analyses and request the legislature increase retailer licenses if it determines new licenses should be made available.\u201d<\/p>\n Further, members voted against an amendment that would have required the board to promulgate a rule stipulating that any move to add retailer licenses accounts for \u201cadequate dispersion of such licenses and whether there is a sufficient market to support new licenses.\u201d<\/p>\n And an amendment to extend the timeline for annual fee waivers for social equity licensees from December 31, 2025 to December 31, 2029 was also defeated.<\/p>\n The bills now head to the Senate Rules Committee for consideration before potentially moving to the floor.<\/p>\n The Labor & Commerce Committee separately took up measures on Tuesday that deal with allowing the sale of cannabis \u201cwaste\u201d and revising LCB\u2019s subpoena authority.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, state lawmakers are again\u00a0considering drug possession penalties and related issues<\/a>\u00a0this session.<\/p>\n Following a state Supreme Court decision in February 2021 that\u00a0invalidated the state\u2019s felony law against drug possession<\/a>, lawmakers enacted a temporary criminalization policy that is\u00a0set to expire on July 1<\/a>. Some lawmakers want the state to formalize a policy of decriminalized possession, but others want to maintain criminalization.<\/p>\n Bipartisan Washington State senators also recently unveiled a\u00a0revised bill to legalize psilocybin services for adults<\/a>.<\/p>\n FDA Announces It Will Not Issue Rules To Allow CBD As Dietary Supplements Or Food Items, Punting To Congress For Regulations<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Washington State Senators Approve Marijuana Employment Protections And Social Equity Bills In Committee<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A Washington State Senate committee on Tuesday approved bills to provide employment protections for adults who use marijuana and promote social equity in the cannabis industry. While Washington was among the first states to legalize marijuana for adult use, lawmakers continue to work to improve upon the law, including byContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":61454,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61453"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61453"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61455,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61453\/revisions\/61455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Washington State Senators Approve Marijuana Employment Protections And Social Equity Bills In Committee<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"