Democrats in the state legislature of Washington have once again abandoned their plan to legalize personal marijuana cultivation at home, choosing instead to maintain the practice as a felony. This decision comes despite ongoing advocacy for expanded cannabis rights, including easier access to a medical marijuana card and broader legalization measures.
Rep. Shelley Kloba’s homegrow bill, HB 1449, is now dead for the session because lawmakers in the House Appropriations Committee failed to take action on it before a legislative deadline on Friday.
The bill would have permitted individuals aged 21 and over to cultivate up to six cannabis plants for personal use at home, with households being limited to 15 plants regardless of the number of adults living there. Even though the state currently has a one-ounce possession limit, people could still legally keep the marijuana that those plants produced.
For almost ten years, Kloba and other pro-business lawmakers have been trying to enact legislation that would permit adults to cultivate a limited number of cannabis plants for personal use, but every year, other lawmakers and executive agencies have blocked the plan.
The bill will not proceed this year, Kloba’s staff confirmed to Marijuana Moment on Friday. They stated that the lawmaker “will continue pursuing this policy,” but they would not elaborate.
Kloba sponsored HB 2194 last year, but it also failed because the House Appropriations Committee did not call it to a vote.
Kloba also declared she would keep working on the reform after last year’s proposal was unsuccessful.
At the time, she told Marijuana Moment, “The bill has not yet made it to the Senate because each session has its character and constraints.” “But I’m not going to give up.”
With the passage of a ballot initiative in 2012, Washington became one of the first states in the union to legalize marijuana for adult use. However, cultivating marijuana for personal use without a state medical card is still a Class C felony, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum fine of $10,000.
Since at least 2015, attempts to pass legislation permitting personal cultivation have been unsuccessful.
Several marijuana industry groups supported the proposal this year, and state agencies like the Liquor and Cannabis Board, which had previously opposed home grow plans, opposed it much less. Despite this, Democrats were unable to unite behind the bill.
Earlier this month, Kloba stated during a hearing of the House Consumer Protection and Business Committee that “it’s time to make this change.” “When we passed I-502, we legalized many things related to cannabis, but we didn’t permit this.”
After first approving three amendments to the bill—all of which were proposed by Representative Christine Reeves, a Democrat from Federal Way who has previously opposed attempts to legalize home cultivation—that committee voted to move HB 1449 forward.
To track plants, cannabis harvested from those plants, and waste produced by homegrown marijuana, Reeves’s changes require state marijuana regulators at the Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) to set up traceability requirements. Additionally, LCB would have the authority to set up a fee that adults who want to grow at home would have to pay.
To be disposed of legally, cannabis waste would have to be ground and mixed with other household waste.
Additionally, commercial cannabis producers would have to provide consumers with information about state laws pertaining to home cultivation, and LCB would have to post thorough information about home cultivation, including associated criminal and civil risks, on its website.
A different amendment from Reeves would mandate that anyone growing cannabis at home first get liability insurance, like renter’s insurance.
According to Reeves’ third amendment, if someone grows more marijuana or has more of it than is permitted by state law, they will first be warned by law enforcement. When determining whether to enforce the state homegrow law, it also instructs law enforcement to take into account whether legal marijuana is available in a jurisdiction.
During the hearing, Reeves stated that “communities like mine do not want cannabis in their communities,” pointing out that Federal Way does not currently permit marijuana businesses. Adult use and possession are permitted throughout the state.
In a different case, the Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that Washington’s simple possession law was unconstitutional, and county courts are now responsible for overturning hundreds of thousands of previous drug convictions. Jurisdictions throughout the state, however, are clearing the records at varying rates, according to a recent report.
Meanwhile, as Washington continues to debate cannabis policy, states like California offer a more expansive legal framework for cultivation, with programs such as the California grower’s license allowing individuals and businesses to legally cultivate marijuana under regulated conditions.
