Washington State Senators Approve Bill To Legalize Marijuana Home Grow For Adults
- Washington State lawmakers have advanced SB 6204, a bill that would allow adults over 21 to grow up to six marijuana plants at home, with a maximum of 15 plants per housing unit, expanding the state’s existing marijuana legalization law.
The bill includes restrictions such as prohibiting cannabis cultivation in housing units used for early childhood education, allowing landlords to ban cultivation in rentals, and permitting probation officers to restrict cultivation for those under supervision.
Violations of cultivation rules would result in civil infractions or felonies depending on the number of plants grown, and local municipalities may enact bans or moratoriums on home cannabis cultivation in residential zones.
A companion bill is pending in the House, while Washington continues to explore related cannabis reforms, including allowing marijuana prerolls in short-term rentals and medical cannabis use in healthcare facilities.
Washington State lawmakers have advanced a bill to expand the state’s voter-approved marijuana legalization law by allowing recreational consumers to grow their own cannabis plants.
Weeks after Sens. Rebecca Saldaña (D), Noel Frame (D) and T’wina Nobles (D) filed the legislation, the Senate Labor & Commerce Committee on Tuesday approved the measure in a voice vote. It next heads to the Senate Rules Committee before potentially reaching the floor.
The vote comes about a week after the Senate panel held an initial hearing on the proposal, with law enforcement representatives voicing opposition to the reform and military veterans testifying in support of allowing personal home cultivation.
Under SB 6204, adults over 21 years of age would be allowed to cultivate up to six marijuana plants at home. No more than 15 cannabis plants could be produced at any one time in a single housing unit, regardless of how many adults live there.
People could lawfully keep the marijuana produced by those plants despite the state’s existing one-ounce limit on possession.
Property owners would be allowed to prohibit tenants from growing cannabis in rental units, and probation and parole officers would be able to bar people from cultivating marijuana as a condition of their supervised release.
Home cultivators would be required to keep plants from public view and grown in such a way that they could not be smelled from public places or private properties of other housing units. Violating those rules would be a class 3 civil infraction.
It would be a class 1 civil infraction for a person to grow more than six but fewer than 16 cannabis plants, while it would be a class C felony to produce more than 16 plants, under the bill.
No cannabis plants could be grown in housing units that are used to provide early childhood education and early learning services by a family day care provider.
The committee on Tuesday approved an amendment from Sen. Mark Schoesler (R) to allow municipalities and counties to ban or enact moratoriums on cannabis cultivation in housing units in areas that are zoned primarily for residential use.
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A companion bill has also been introduced in the House of Representatives but it has not received a hearing or a vote.
Washington was one of the first U.S. states to legalize adult-use marijuana when voters approved a ballot initiative in 2012. Growing marijuana for personal use without a state medical card, however, has remained a Class C felony, carrying up to five years in prison and up to $10,000 in fines.
Legislative efforts to allow personal cultivation stretch back to at least 2015, but so far each has failed.
Last year, the House Consumer Protection and Business Committee approved a similar marijuana home cultivation bill but it later stalled before the House Appropriations Committee.
Meanwhile, under a separate bill introduced last week, short-term rentals like Airbnbs in Washington State would be able to offer guests complimentary marijuana prerolls.
Lawmakers in the state also recently approved a bill that would allow terminally ill patients to use medical cannabis in healthcare facilities such as hospitals, nursing homes and hospices.
Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis // Side Pocket Images.