It could be the end of medical marijuana dispensaries in Seattle, Washington. A letter, dated in September, was recently sent out to roughly 330 medical marijuana businesses in the Seattle area telling them to either get a license to operate, or close. One of the licenses that the letter is calling for is a state license. The sad irony being that the state won’t issue licenses to those businesses because there aren’t any to issue. It has been a long time coming for these businesses, many of which fought a patient registry system in Washington (among other regulations), which is required to start issuing licenses for those businesses.
I’m sure many of these companies will blame recreational marijuana legalization. Either way you look at it, it’s a sad day for safe access in Washington. Below is a summary excerpt of the letter, per Seattle PI:
Seattle also has regulations specific to “major marijuana activity,” which includes all activity that involves more than 45 marijuana plants or 72 ounces of useable marijuana.
Major marijuana activity is prohibited in certain zones. It is also prohibited everywhere in Seattle without a license issued by the Washington State Liquor Control Board (LCB).
Businesses that have been conducting major marijuana activity since before November 16, 2013 have until July 1, 2015 (or January 1, 2016, depending on action by the state legislature), to either: (1) obtain a state-issued license or (2) stop conducting major marijuana activity.
Any new (i.e., commencing on or after November 16,2013) major marijuana activity in Seattle must have a state license. If you began operating after November 16, 2013 and do not have a state issued license, you are in violation of City law and can be subject to enforcement action.
You can read the entire letter at this link here, which I encourage everyone to do. Hopefully the Washington Legislature can get a meaningful bill passed soon to help fix this mess.
