The Educational Service District 123 received over $230,000 in grant funds for tobacco and cannabis prevention and education over the next five years. The Youth Cannabis and Commercial Tobacco Prevention Program Hispanic/Latinx Priority Population grant takes effect with the start of the 2022-23 school year. 

The funding goes towards educational resources for Hispanic and Latinx students and families regarding cannabis and tobacco prevention. Some resources include education for both parents and youth, media outreach in English and Spanish and the distribution of containers that store products safely by locking. 

Protecting consumers from unhealthy products is key for cannabis growth worldwide

Several years after Washington's legislature first discussed these requirements, the state has finally approved compulsory pesticide testing for all cannabis products produced and sold in the state. Cannabis manufacturers have a duty to meet the demands of cannabis users in a state. For profit reasons, some of these operators have settled for harmful chemicals to increase the output of their crops. These chemicals include insecticides, pesticides, and inorganic fertilizers. Many of them are unfit for human consumption.

By citizen initiative a decade ago, the people of Washington legalized a regulated market for recreational cannabis. As a leading state to end this prohibition, Washington has seen the rise of a $1.4 billion-a-year industry now generating well over a half-billion dollars in annual state revenue. The growth of our state’s cannabis industry is remarkable since outdated federal drug and banking laws prohibit the agricultural, processing and retail cannabis industries from using financial institutions, forcing business owners to conduct business almost entirely in cash. Despite U.S. Treasury policy that essentially consents to state-authorized cannabis sales, nearly all financial institutions are still federally banned from the cannabis market.

Much has changed in the 10 years since Washington voters approved Initiative 502, which legalized recreational marijuana. More than a dozen states have followed suit, and while for some the rosiest tax revenue projections failed to materialize, none have seen the dire consequences opponents envisioned.

What hasn’t changed, even as the marketplace continues to evolve and mature, is the state’s enforcement arm, the Liquor and Cannabis Board. In 2019, the Legislature effectively worked to move the LCB away from a culture of punitive enforcement to that of a business regulatory agency, while keeping a strong focus on public safety.

Washington lawmakers are making a last-ditch attempt to block intoxicating, synthetically derived cannabis products, including gummy candies and vape oil, from being sold at gas stations, convenience stores and smoke shops after earlier bills failed.

“These are being sold right now, without any regulation, without any oversight,” said Democratic Sen. Karen Keiser.

“It’s a public health danger and a threat, and it needs to be removed.”

Washington has an issue with legal cannabis robberies, and they’re eager to put it to an end with harsher penalties.

A proposal in Washington to impose harsher penalties for robbing cannabis retailers was approved by lawmakers in the state Senate last week. 

The legislation, Senate Bill 5927, would tack on a year to the prison sentence of an individual convicted of first or second degree robbery of a cannabis shop—which, as local television station KING 5 noted, is “the same sentence that is given to someone who robs a pharmacy.”

The sponsor of the bill, Republican state Senator Jim Honeyford, invoked a notorious 20th century American bank robber to convey the urgency behind the proposal.

Jim Buchanan is more than ready for change.

A second-generation Seattleite, cannabis retailer and entrepreneur, he is also president of the Washington State African American Cannabis Association and has spent months fighting for House Bill 2022, a bill that would make sweeping changes to Washington state’s cannabis industry.

The bill is the latest in a series of legislation intended to increase social equity and racial diversity in the cannabis trade.

Ten years ago, Washington voters created the first legal adult-use cannabis industry in the country.

That industry drives billions in revenue to the state and provides 18,360 jobs statewide. But as we look at the last decade in preparation for the next, we are concerned Washington is losing its head-start advantage. It’s time to course correct, and we count on all industry stakeholders to work toward a common goal: a safe, equitable, quality-controlled and fully regulated market for cannabis.

Too many license-holders have been cut off early — some well before they even got started — and the agency holding the axe is the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB). In 2012, the world changed almost overnight for the LCB.

A new vaccine being developed could be used to help those prone to Opioid Use Disorder and opiate addiction.

Scientists with a new research center at the University of Washington are working on a vaccine to help fight the opioid epidemic in a bid to stem the tide of overdose deaths that has swept the nation over the past two decades. 

Marco Pravetoni, the head of the new UW Medicine Center for Medication Development for Substance Use Disorders, is leading the effort to develop the vaccine. Similar to immunization against an invading pathogen, the vaccine under development would stimulate the body’s immune system to attack and destroy opioid molecules before they can enter the brain.