NEW YORK TIMES: Nearly two decades after voters passed a medical marijuana law that often left the police, prosecutors and even patients confused about what was allowed, Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill on Friday that attempts to clean up that largely unregulated system and to bring it in line with Washington’s new recreational marijuana market.
Among the law’s many provisions, it creates a voluntary registry of patients and, beginning next year, eliminates what have become in some cases large, legally dubious “collective gardens” providing cannabis to thousands of people. Instead, those patients will be able to buy medical-grade products at legal recreational marijuana stores that obtain an endorsement to sell medical marijuana, or they will be able to participate in cooperatives of up to four patients.
And those big medical marijuana gardens will be given a path to legitimacy: The state will grant priority in licensing to those who have been good proprietors… (more)
