At the end of a long week, everyone has something they enjoy on a Friday night. Maybe a glass of wine or a platter of nachos with a spiked seltzer or a cold beer.
This experience is one that most people don’t think about when we discuss legal, adult-use cannabis — but we should.
On the Aug. 6 primary ballot, there will be a vote on Proposition 1 in West Richland — an advisory measure to the city council.
If the council agrees some day to raise taxes from cannabis sales, the money could help reduce the need to increase taxes on gas or groceries.
Allowing retail stores also would create real jobs and help undermine those who get paid by selling unsafe, untested garage drugs.
Most of all, a yes vote on Proposition 1 acknowledges that the current local ban within West Richland does not create a cannabis-free zone but instead empowers an illegal and unsafe cannabis monopoly.
Voting yes respects that adults 21 and over can make their own decisions within a regulated, safe and quality-controlled cannabis marketplace.
Ten years into a regulated cannabis sector in Washington state, millions of Washingtonians and visitors to our state have experienced safe, tested products in a marketplace that curtails youth access. However, the illicit market is a fundamental concern we should be real and transparent about.
Here’s what we know: Clear labeling on dosage and quality-control by certified labs means that adult consumers can make safe choices. We know that cannabis businesses cannot be located within 1,000 feet of schools or parks or churches or daycares.
We also know that in its most recent evaluation, the 2023 Washington Healthy Youth Survey showed that high school youth usage of cannabis in Benton County has decreased by 56-65% since 2012 when cannabis was legalized in our state, a trend mirrored statewide.
Sadly, we know that illicit drug use is a plague that constitutes a public health crisis we cannot avoid. But garage-generated pills and powders have as much to do with regulated cannabis as shed-distilled moonshine has to do with locally produced wine.
The last decade has shown that the distorted focus on cannabis as a wicked vice overlooks the reality that for the vast majority of cannabis consumers, cannabis is as banal as a can of beer.
There are other considerations specific to regulated cannabis being sold in West Richland.
A yes vote on Proposition 1 tells the council that it should collect sales tax on cannabis, raising up to $160,000 annually for city needs . In most places, every cent counts if it helps offset taxes that burden everyone.
The state’s cannabis industry directly and indirectly employs more than 18,000 workers statewide, some of those jobs could be in West Richland.
The Washington Liquor and Cannabis Board, which is the state’s primary regulator for cannabis, has found that the retail store compliance rate for blocking youth access for the sector is 95%, significantly surpassing both alcohol and tobacco, something that has occurred year after year since voters approved legal cannabis.
The prospect of erasing nearly a century of fear and legend about cannabis in a short ten years was never going to be easy. Yet, the industry has modeled the regulatory compliance and community commitment that we should expect from any type of legal business and especially a sector selling an impairing product, whether it’s alcohol or cannabis.
These are businesses who also regularly join chambers of commerce and sponsor local events, civic participation that we would respect from anyone operating a small business in our communities.
West Richland voters have the opportunity to use your private ballot to vote and send a message in favor of economic opportunity and safety over fear and ignorance. Please consider a YES vote on Proposition 1.
Vicki Christophersen serves as the executive director of the Washington CannaBusiness Association, the trade association in Washington that represents licensed producers, processors, retailers, transports and labs operating in our state’s regulated industry working to uphold a safe, quality-controlled and regulated marketplace that keeps products out of the hands of kids.
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