Washington State Should Serve As A Cautionary Tale To Cannabis Activists On The East Coast

By Johnny Green I have worked as a cannabis activist in Oregon since I was in high school in the late 1990s. In 1998 Oregon became the second state in the nation to legalize cannabis for medical use, which is a fact that every cannabis activist in Oregon is very proud of. Our medical program is a shell of its old self, but the 1998 victory is still very much worth being proud of.

Oregon was the first state to decriminalize cannabis in the United States, and was poised to be one of the first states to legalize cannabis for adult use in 2012. We had a legalization measure on the ballot in 2012, along with Washington State and Colorado. Unfortunately, Oregon failed to pass the measure and had to wait until 2014 to legalize, however, voters in Colorado and Washington State did approve their measures and those states made history.

The successful measures in Colorado and Washington differed in various ways, but one difference stood out from the rest - Colorado’s new law allowed home cultivation for adult use while Washington State’s new law did not allow home cultivation. That difference has proven to be a major deficiency in Washington’s legalization model as time has gone by.

I worked fairly closely with the Washington campaign back in 2012, and while I played no role in drafting the legalization initiative language, I did have conversations at the time with the team that drafted the language. When I asked them why they omitted a home cultivation provision I was told that it did not poll very well in Washington State, and that they omitted it to increase the chances of success on Election Day.

At the time the general consensus seemed to be that the campaign wanted to go with a sure thing, and that they would work to get home cultivation passed through Washington’s Legislature in the next session. It seemed like a straightforward approach back then because, after all, no state had legalized previously and many cannabis activists (myself included) assumed that lawmakers in Washington would step up. Unfortunately, time has proven that assumption to be flawed.

Washington State still prohibits home cultivation for adult use. Several states have since passed legalization measures that include home cultivation provisions, yet adults in Washington can still face charges if they cultivate even one plant without a medical cannabis card.

As states on the East Coast move to legalize cannabis for adult use, or pursue their process of implementing an already approved cannabis legalization measure, it is vital that cannabis activists fight for home cultivation. It is extremely important that they learn from what has happened in Washington State and fight as hard as they can to ensure that legal home cultivation becomes a reality.