City Council to host public hearing about medical marijuana licensing July 23

Last year, the Seattle City Council adopted a zoning ordinance regarding where marijuana businesses can be located within the city.  The ordinance includes a stipulation that all medical marijuana businesses be licensed by the state by January 2015.  At the time the ordinance was adopted, the state only planned to license recreational (I-502) marijuana businesses.

The City Council is now considering a change to the ordinance to extend until July 1, 2015 the deadline for lots, business establishments, and dwelling units where the production, processing, selling, or delivery of marijuana was being conducted prior to November 16, 2013.

The intent of the January 2015 deadline was to provide time for implementation of medical marijuana legislation, including the licensing of businesses selling medical marijuana, that was to be created by the Washington legislature in 2014.  However, the state did not adopt new medical marijuana regulations in 2014.  The newly proposed city legislation includes a six-month extension of the original deadline to July 1, 2015.  The hope is that the legislature will adopt legislation during their 2015 session that will license businesses that sell medical marijuana.

The Council’s Finance and Culture Committee  will hold a public hearing on the proposed legislation:

July 23, 2014

2:00 p.m.

Seattle City Hall

600 Fourth Avenue

A few facts about the marijuana market:

• Seattle is currently home to more than 200 medical marijuana retail businesses and an unknown amount of businesses that produce or process medical marijuana.  
• The Liquor Control Board allocated 21 recreational (I-502) retail marijuana business licenses for Seattle, similar to the number of liquor outlets in the city prior to privatization (I-1183).  
• About 10% of people over the age of 12 in King County used marijuana within the last month, according to research conducted for the Liquor Control Board last year.  
• About one quarter of the state's marijuana consumers are people under the age of 21 according to research conducted for the Liquor Control Board last year.
• Medical marijuana may be sold to people under the age of 21, recreational marijuana cannot.
• This past spring, a Washington State Court of Appeals ruled that medical marijuana businesses are illegal under state law.