Washington State Could Legalize Marijuana Home Cultivation

Washington State lawmakers next month will yet again weigh whether to allow residents to grow marijuana at home, extending a debate in the legislature that’s stretched on for years.

A bipartisan bill introduced late last week would let adults 21 and older grow up to six cannabis plants and keep any marijuana produced by those plants. It’s a policy that resembles similar provisions in neighboring Oregon, as well as those in Colorado, California and nearly every other state that has legalized marijuana.

Whether the new bill has a fighting chance to be enacted, however, is anyone’s guess—though its sponsor says it will at least get a vote in the committee she chairs. Washington lawmakers have repeatedly introduced homegrow bills going back at least to 2015, but so far the measures have languished. Not a single one has made it to a full floor vote.

The latest bill, HB 1019, prefiled last week by Reps. Shelley Kloba (D) and Drew MacEwen (R), is nearly identical to last year’s legislation, which itself was a reintroduction of a measure that stalled a year before. Previous years saw separate efforts crash and burn, too.

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