House Bill 2302 (H-2566.1) reenacts and amends RCW 18.64.011 and amends RCW 69.41.030, creates new sections, and sets at least one specified effective date. The bill is described as expanding pharmacists’ prescriptive authority so they may practice to the full extent of their education, training, and experience; it also creates or revises statutory definitions and regulatory text related to pharmacy practice. Section 6 makes Section 4 of the act take effect June 30, 2027. The bill text indicates there will be an effective date and an expiration date, but the expiration date for Section 3 is incomplete in the available material. Substantive legal changes shown in the extracted text include an explicit statutory expansion of the “practice of pharmacy” to include diagnosing and prescribing drugs and devices based on a pharmacist’s education, training, and experience, and initiating or modifying drug therapy pursuant to written guidelines or protocols. The bill also defines shared pharmacy services and a variety of other regulatory terms, reenacts many existing definitions in RCW 18.64.011, and notes the Doctor of Pharmacy degree and required direct patient care hours as part of the record. Separately, the act makes it unlawful to sell, deliver, knowingly possess, or knowingly use a legend drug in a public place except on the order or prescription of specified authorized practitioners, lists exceptions (for wholesalers, practitioners acting in scope, carriers, certain family planning clinics, and authorized take-back program participants), and prescribes penalties: sale, delivery, or possession with intent to sell or deliver is a class B felony, while knowing possession and knowing use in a public place are misdemeanors. Prosecutors are encouraged to divert misdemeanor cases to assessment or treatment, and law enforcement is encouraged to offer referral or diversion alternatives in lieu of arrest and prosecution. Agencies and entities identified as affected include the Pharmacy Quality Assurance Commission, the Department of Health (including the secretary of health), the board of nursing and medical commission in authorization roles, the Health Care Authority, prosecutors, and law enforcement, among others. Important parts of the bill are not present in the extracted facts: the full amended text of RCW 69.41.030, the complete definition of “pharmacy,” the full text of the newly created section(s), and the specific expiration date referenced for Section 3; those details are therefore uncertain from the provided material.

If enacted, the bill would let pharmacists take on more clinical work: they would be explicitly allowed to diagnose and to prescribe or order drugs and devices within the scope of their education, training, and experience and to start or change drug therapy under approved written protocols. That would likely increase patient access to medication services in pharmacies, long‑term care, hospice, and other health care settings and shift some responsibility for day‑to‑day medication decisions from physicians to pharmacists. The Pharmacy Quality Assurance Commission and the Department of Health would have a larger role in oversight, and Section 4 of the act is set to take effect June 30, 2027. Prosecutors and law enforcement are also affected by changes around public possession and use of legend drugs: selling or distributing remains a serious felony, but simple possession or use in public is treated as a misdemeanor with encouragement to divert people to treatment or assessment rather than prosecution or jail. Key details are missing from the provided text — including the specific amendments to RCW 69.41.030, the contents of the new section that is created, and the expiration date for one provision — so the exact scope, any temporary provisions, and administrative or funding impacts are uncertain.