News flash from CDC about the list...oh my word.
Who comprises the Washington Cannabis Association has been very unclear. The WCA was created by activist attorney and Sensible Washington founder Douglas Hiatt in October. The group hired the volunteer Sensible Washington director Ezra Eickmeyer for $5000 per month starting in October, and hired the volunteer Sensible Washington media director Phillip Dawdy in November. Dawdy announced the group to the Seattle Weekly, claiming it was comprised of "two to three dozen business." Weeks later, Dawdy scaled that number back, telling the Associated Press it consisted of "about two dozen" businesses. According to the public records WCA is required to file, both of these number are inflated, and the WCA was actually comprised of ten members who could afford the $5000 entry fee. See:
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http://cdc.coop/docs/wca_eickmeyer_registration.pdf
According to these records, which can be found on the Public Disclosure Commission's web site (
Washington State Public Disclosure Commission), the WCA is:
* Evergreen Holistic Center
* People Helping People
* Tacoma and Seattle Cross
* Medical Movement Network, LLC / THC List
* Individual Freedoms Corporation
* COBRA Medical Group
* Compassion in Action / Dunshee House
* Sacred Plant Medicine
* Green Hope Patient Network
* Sensable Patient Network
These are the medical cannabis businesses that are working to ensure they receive preferential treatment when it comes to future licensing of medical cannabis businesses. And for the time being, they have succeeded in adding a "grandfather clause" to the law, which states that currently operating growers and dispensers will be provided an affirmative defense to cannabis-related charges between the time the bill passes and the time licensing is set up in 2012 -- if those growers and dispensers had filed a corporate registration with the Secretary of State before January 1, 2011. And, of course, all WCA members have done this. We believe the WCA threatened to oppose the bill if this clause was not added.
Currently, this "you are protected if you have a pre-2011 corporate registration" clause is our single largest concern about the bill. Our membership has identified equal access to licensing as one of only two requirements for supporting this bill, and we intend to work on behalf of all Washington medical cannabis activists and business people to modify this language to ensure equal access to licensing.:wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf: