Operation Medical Access Transition

by Dominic Corva, Executive Director

The passage of I-502 meant that its Legal Landscape would operate in conjunction with current Washington State Medical Marijuana legislation, until or unless the legislature acted to clarify the situation.  This is quite significant, since current Medical Marijuana statutes are much more liberal than I-502, despite offering less formal protection as affirmative defense.  Many current Medical Marijuana patients are justifiably concerned that if the Medical regime is subsumed under the Legal, more restrictive regulations regarding production, distribution, and retail will translate into lack of access to the medical care.  For instance, under I-502 no home grows will be legally permitted and consumers may only buy one ounce at a time at retail stores, if they can get to retail locations given restrictive zoning rules.

No matter what one thinks about the broad set of conditions for which one may become a medical marijuana patient in Washington State, a significant percentage of these are seriously ill and debilitated patients — patients that no reasonable person could accuse of “hiding” behind medical to get high.  Further, these patients often get free cannabis from their access points or from their caretakers, in the existing black- and grey-market industry.  For them, I-502 may take away their de facto (socially conferred) and de jure (legally conferred) right to affordable and accessible medicine.

This Project asks how Initiative 502’s relationship with current Medical Marijuana Policy in Washington State affects catastrophic patient access to medicine.  We will partner with existing medical dispensaries to select and track a sample population over time.