Washington State Senators Approve Bill To Legalize Marijuana Home Grow For Adults

Washington State lawmakers have advanced a bill to expand the state’s
voter-approved marijuana legalization law by allowing recreational
consumers to grow their own cannabis plants.

Weeks after Sens. Rebecca Saldaña (D), Noel Frame (D) and T’wina Nobles (D)
filed the legislation, the Senate Labor & Commerce Committee on Tuesday
approved the measure in a voice vote. It next heads to the Senate Rules
Committee before potentially reaching the floor.

The vote comes about a week after the Senate panel held an initial hearing
on the proposal, with law enforcement representatives voicing opposition to
the reform and military veterans testifying in support of allowing personal
home cultivation.

Under SB 6204, adults over 21 years of age would be allowed to cultivate up
to six marijuana plants at home. No more than 15 cannabis plants could be
produced at any one time in a single housing unit, regardless of how many
adults live there.

People could lawfully keep the marijuana produced by those plants despite
the state’s existing one-ounce limit on possession.

Property owners would be allowed to prohibit tenants from growing cannabis
in rental units, and probation and parole officers would be able to bar
people from cultivating marijuana as a condition of their supervised
release.

Home cultivators would be required to keep plants from public view and
grown in such a way that they could not be smelled from public places or
private properties of other housing units. Violating those rules would be a
class 3 civil infraction.

It would be a class 1 civil infraction for a person to grow more than six
but fewer than 16 cannabis plants, while it would be a class C felony to
produce more than 16 plants, under the bill.

No cannabis plants could be grown in housing units that are used to provide
early childhood education and early learning services by a family day care
provider.

The committee on Tuesday approved an amendment from Sen. Mark Schoesler (R)
to allow municipalities and counties to ban or enact moratoriums on
cannabis cultivation in housing units in areas that are zoned primarily for
residential use.


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A companion bill has also been introduced in the House of Representatives
but it has not received a hearing or a vote.

Washington was one of the first U.S. states to legalize adult-use marijuana
when voters approved a ballot initiative in 2012. Growing marijuana for
personal use without a state medical card, however, has remained a Class C
felony, carrying up to five years in prison and up to $10,000 in fines.

Legislative efforts to allow personal cultivation stretch back to at least
2015, but so far each has failed.

Last year, the House Consumer Protection and Business Committee approved a
similar marijuana home cultivation bill but it later stalled before the
House Appropriations Committee.

Meanwhile, under a separate bill introduced last week, short-term rentals
like Airbnbs in Washington State would be able to offer guests
complimentary marijuana prerolls.

Lawmakers in the state also recently approved a bill that would allow
terminally ill patients to use medical cannabis in healthcare facilities
such as hospitals, nursing homes and hospices.

*Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis // Side Pocket Images.*

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Grow For Adults appeared first on Marijuana Moment.