Pot industry lobbyist wrong about WA Liquor and Cannabis Board. Here’s the truth

Cannabis lobbyist Vicki Christophersen wrote here recently that a bill pending in the Legislature is an effort to “update” the Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) by adding more members and legislators to our board. Elsewhere she’s called it a move toward “reforming the legacy structure — and culture” of the board, which I’ve chaired since March of last year.

In actuality, it is part of a major effort by Christophersen and the Washington Cannabusiness Association (WACA) she leads to demean and discredit the LCB in the hopes that she can design a board more to her liking. There’s nothing shocking about a lobbyist unhappy with an independent regulatory body. The lack of truth in this instance is notable.

What makes this stand out — and should raise questions from legislators — is that most in the cannabis industry oppose the WACA bill. This clearly is not an industry vs. regulator battle. Instead it is an effort by a small, but well-funded, sliver of the industry. WACA’s membership, according to its website, includes at best 4% of the more than 1,000 growers, processors and retailers operating today in Washington’s thriving legal, adult-use cannabis system.

Representatives of two larger organizations testified against the bill. One called it a “cynical effort to politicize the regulatory authority of the Liquor and Cannabis Board.” The other said it is “a vehicle for corporate interests.”

Christophersen’s attacks are a distraction from the important work on cannabis facing this legislature, including increasing racial equity in the marketplace and ensuring the integrity of the existing cannabis regulatory system by banning the use of THC synthetically derived from hemp. WACA believes impairing THC created in a lab from hemp belongs in the system created by voters in 2012. We disagree.

The bill to remake the LCB would add two voting members and four non-voting legislators to the three-person board. She didn’t mention it here, but Christophersen is the source of the bill. Sen. Derek Stanford, (D) Bothell, is the prime sponsor.

The primary thrust of Christophersen’s argument for her modifying this regulatory agency is that the LCB is over-zealous in enforcement of cannabis laws, has failed to adapt to our changing roles and failed to follow a legislative mandate to evolve our enforcement approach. None of that is true.

Here is a key statistic: from 2019 to 2021, notices of violations to cannabis licensees decreased from 177 per year to 63 per year. Educational visits by LCB to licensees, to help them understand the rules and avoid a violation notice, increased from 2,082 to 5,027 in that same time period. Penalties for cannabis violations were cut in half. As the cannabis industry matured, the LCB evolved to the changing times. And when the agency was behind the curve the legislature mandated change that has been fully embraced and implemented.

Christophersen also claims the courts support her arguments, focusing on just two cases where judges found for the licensees while ignoring that a higher court ruling on the same central issue sided with the LCB. When board actions are appealed to Superior Court, the LCB is overwhelmingly upheld. Christophersen claims that judges have ruled that the LCB ignored state law and made decisions out of bias. The decisions don’t say that and they don’t mean that, even in her two oft-cited cases.

Christophersen claims the 2011 initiative privatizing liquor sales expanded our scope of duties and that the LCB failed to responded to that growth. But moving from a state-run system to a state-regulated system was a major diminution, not expansion, of our regulatory scope and meant the loss of more than 70 percent of our staff.

One of the more concerning things about the bill is what it would do to transparency mandated by the Open Public Meetings Act. Because two board members constitutes a quorum of our three-member board, we cannot meet with another board member unless it is an official meeting.

At a Jan. 19 Senate committee hearing, a WACA board member said the bill was needed specifically to free the board from restraints of the open meetings law. “If two of those members communicate at all it creates a quorum,” the Spokane license holder said. “It’s way too clunky. … We need better access to that board.”

We have no problem getting our business done while following the spirit and letter of the Open Public Meetings Act. We are open and unscripted. We don’t count votes or lobby each other.

If legislators want to join the LCB they should do what Christophersen did not: talk to people active in the cannabis business, other industries we regulate and the people who do the work today. They should look at how the LCB has adapted to changing times and not fall for a blatantly false narrative.

David Postman was appointed as Board Chair effective March 15, 2021. Prior to his appointment, Postman served as Gov. Inslee’s chief of staff from Dec. 2015 until Nov. 15, 2020. Before joining the Inslee administration, Postman served as a senior director at Vulcan Inc., the company headed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Postman has a 26-year career as an award-winning journalist, including 14 years as a political reporter for The Seattle Times.

This story was originally published February 1, 2022 at 5:00 AM.