The bill creates a new law, adding sections to chapters 69.51A, 70.41, 18.51, and 70.127 RCW, that permits the medical use of cannabis by a qualifying patient with a terminal condition in hospitals, most nursing homes, and hospice care centers beginning January 1, 2027, and may be cited as "Ryan's law." It requires each facility type to adopt a written policy governing patient medical cannabis use. The required facility policies must prohibit smoking or vaping, record the patient’s medical cannabis use in the medical record, require the patient to provide a valid authorization, and require the qualifying patient or the patient’s designated provider to acquire, retrieve, administer, and remove the cannabis. Medical cannabis must be stored securely in a locked container in the patient’s room, another designated area, or with the designated provider. Health care professionals and facility staff, including physicians, nurses, and pharmacists, are prohibited from administering or retrieving medical cannabis, and sharing between patients and visitors is prohibited. Upon discharge the patient or designated provider must remove remaining cannabis; if removal is not possible and no designated provider is available, the product must be disposed of under the facility’s medical waste procedures. The law does not apply to hospital emergency departments, patients receiving emergency services, or patients not admitted for inpatient services, and compliance is not a condition for obtaining or renewing facility licensure. The statute allows a facility to suspend compliance if a federal regulatory agency, the U.S. Department of Justice, or the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services initiates enforcement or issues a rule expressly prohibiting medical cannabis in health care facilities until the federal entity notifies the facility it may resume permitting cannabis. It also bars a facility from prohibiting patient medical cannabis use solely because cannabis is a Schedule I drug or because of federal constraints that existed before this section’s effective date. A qualifying patient and terminal condition are referenced to other RCWs (69.51A.010 and 70.122.020) and a “designated provider” is used but not defined in the provided text; other operational details and certain cross-reference language are not included in the extracted facts. The bill passed the House and Senate in early 2026.

If enacted, hospitals, most nursing homes, and hospice centers will need to create and run new written policies by January 1, 2027 that let terminally ill, authorized patients use non‑smoked/non‑vaped medical cannabis on site. Practically this means facilities will spend time and money writing policies, training staff on limits (staff cannot retrieve or give cannabis), adding secure locked storage options in patient rooms or designated areas, recording cannabis use in medical records, and setting procedures for patients or their designated providers to bring, administer, and remove the product at discharge. Qualifying patients and the people they designate will carry more responsibility and likely cost and effort to obtain, store, administer, and, if needed, safely dispose of cannabis; staff roles in administration will be restricted. There is a clear operational risk that facilities must pause these policies if a federal agency or CMS/DOJ issues enforcement or a rule forbidding in‑facility use, and the law also does not let facilities block use solely because cannabis is federally controlled. Key implementation details are unclear from the text provided—most importantly who counts as a "designated provider" and exactly how facilities must handle storage, retrieval, and medical‑waste disposal when a patient has no designated provider—so facilities may face uncertainty and uneven practices until those details are resolved.