This bill amends existing Washington cannabis statutes (including RCW 69.50.325, 69.50.375, and 69.51A.230) to create a regulatory framework that expands medical access and changes licensing and procedural rules. It establishes a new medical cannabis endorsement for retail and processor licenses that permits sales and, at the licensee’s discretion, no-charge provision of department-identified “compliant cannabis products” to qualifying patients and designated providers. The amendments also clarify that production, processing, possession, delivery, distribution, and sale by validly licensed producers, processors, and retailers under the specified provisions is not a criminal or civil offense; set application and annual license fees ($250 application, $1,381 annual); require a separate license for each location; cap collective retail ownership at five licenses per person/entity; and direct the licensing board to adopt a process and timing rules (including a nine-month no-forfeiture window and required forfeiture by 24 months unless delays are outside the licensee’s control) for forfeiting retailer licenses that are not fully operational. The bill requires the department, working with the board, to adopt rules on products sold or provided to qualifying patients/designated providers (including limits on THC/CBD concentrations or ratios, labeling, testing and solvent limits, safe handling, and employee training). Endorsed retailers and processors must train employees to verify authorizations, use equipment to enter patients/providers into a medical cannabis authorization database, and recognize strains and THC/CBD information when assisting qualifying patients and designated providers. The bill creates a secure, confidential medical cannabis authorization database and recognition card system, establishes that qualifying patients and designated providers may be entered by endorsed retailers/processors or health care professionals, and sets recognition-card features and expirations (one year for adults 18+, six months for minors). It requires database security and privacy measures (nonreversible PII per NIST, differential privacy, no linkage with external data), five-year record retention, a $1 fee per initial or renewal recognition card, contract remedies and fines (up to $5,000) for a noncompliant database administrator, and rulemaking authority for the department. The bill also creates a medical cannabis consultant certificate with required background checks, training, annual renewal and continuing education, a defined scope of permissible advisory services (product selection, risks/benefits, safe handling, demonstrations), and grounds and procedures for refusal, suspension, or revocation of certificates with appeals under the administrative procedure act. Some textual provisions are incomplete or omitted in the extracted facts: the full list of database access permissions, complete amendments to RCW 69.51A.290 and 69.51A.310, and formal definitions of “department” and “board” are not provided in the available excerpts.

If enacted, the bill creates a medical cannabis endorsement that allows licensed processors and retailers to sell and, at their discretion, provide cannabis at no charge to qualifying patients and designated providers who hold a state-issued recognition card. The state must set product, testing, labeling, handling, and employee-training rules for those sales, and it will establish a secure, confidential medical cannabis authorization database with $1 fees for initial and renewal recognition cards (collected by the issuer and deposited into the dedicated cannabis account) and penalties for a noncompliant database contractor. The people most affected are licensed cannabis businesses, qualifying patients and designated providers, and state agencies. Businesses will face new application and annual fees ($250 application, $1,381 annual), separate licenses for each location, a five-license ownership cap, added training and recordkeeping obligations, and the risk of retail-license forfeiture if not operational within the prescribed timeframes; they may also need to obtain the medical endorsement to serve medical patients. Patients gain expanded legal retail access but must obtain and renew recognition cards; the department must absorb contracting and oversight duties for the authorization system and create rules. The bill leaves some implementation details unclear, including certain database access permissions, the precise identities of “the department” and “the secretary,” and the full text of related amendments cited elsewhere.