The Washington State Liquor and Hashish Board (LCB) voted and authorised the Social Fairness in Hashish rule proposal yesterday morning, October 11. The Board’s approval will add section “570” to Washington Annotated Code Chapter 314-55.
There was hope that the general public remark interval would yield some significant alterations to part 570, however the rule stays unchanged and that’s a disgrace. Part 570 will change into efficient November 12, 2022.
Part 570 is hardly making its method to turning into regulation with favorable winds and following seas. There are some remaining uncertainties about implementation of part 570 and doubts amongst stakeholders that it is going to be accomplished effectively. In the course of the Board assembly this morning, the LCB mentioned that it expects to have the ability to settle for purposes for part 570 licenses “in 2023”.
As a number of stakeholders on the Board assembly lamented, the absence of a concrete plan for rolling out the licensing regime after two years of engaged on the rule leaves a lot to be desired by the group hoping to benefit from the licenses. Additional, some stakeholder curiosity teams have had alternative phrases for the whole lot of part 570’s substantive provisions. That is all going down in an setting through which sure stakeholders mistrust the Board relationship again to Washington’s I-502 grownup use enactment. Many stakeholders who had been collaborating within the medical hashish area really feel that that they had been frolicked to dry by the enactment of I-502 and are involved in regards to the Board’s implementation of part 570 for related causes.
Outlook
As we wrote right here a number of weeks in the past, there are some vital points with Part 570 that can create heartburn down the highway. With out revisiting them intimately, essentially the most problematic are:
- the restrictions on to whom and the place one can promote a bit 570 license
- anchoring the licenses to particular counties
- scoring standards that don’t seem to successfully worth essentially the most disaffected candidates
- a extremely subjective utility course of through which third-party distributors act as utility adjudicators
These facets of part 570 don’t seem to serve any respectable function. Every is counterproductive to its mandate.
Given the obvious dissatisfaction of sure stakeholders with the Board, paired with the pre-existing points between them, it appears more and more seemingly that lawsuits difficult Part 570 will likely be filed as soon as the applying course of is up and working. We are going to monitor the developments of the Washington Social Fairness in Hashish rule turning into remaining and the LCB’s progress in rolling out the licensing plan right here. Keep tuned.