"...A group of recreational producers, processors and retailers are lining up behind the Rivers proposal. Organized as the Washington Cannabusiness Association (WACA) it has a seasoned lobbyist, Vicki Christophersen, as its executive director.

As with any regulated industry, she said, 'there needs to be consistency in application across the state.'

And, she added later, 'I think there are a lot of folks that are in the medical system right now that want to be regulated.'

After last year’s attempted overhaul failed in the Legislature, Christophersen said she brought the idea of an industry group to recreational-marijuana entrepreneurs.

'I went to them and said, ‘We need a trade association,’ ' said Christophersen, whose other current clients include the Association of Washington Spirits and Wine Distributors and Washington State University. 'We need to be just like the restaurant association or the hospital association. We need to have a professional organization that can have a credible voice.'

And that’s how WACA, which now has 42 industry members — growers, processors, retail stores and one testing lab — is operating. WACA has focused its arguments, testified in legislative hearings and even donated to lawmakers’ campaigns last election cycle."

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"The leading proposal to emerge this session to regulate the industry is the Cannabis Patient Protection Act, or SB 5052, which would license medical-marijuana stores, and mandate testing of the medical products."

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"The Senate has approved a strong bill that promises to wring the profiteering and quackery out of what had been — pre-toleration — a humane and narrowly tailored state policy. If it isn’t weakened in the House, Senate Bill 5052 could return medical marijuana to its original focus: bona fide patients, not common pot users and dealers."

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"The Washington CannaBusiness Association is supporting four bills in the State Legislature, that, if approved, would ease the emerging recreational marijuana industries’ biggest challenges."

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“‘This levels the marketplace for all those businesses who have taken steps to participate in the regulated, taxed industry, so that they’re not unfairly burdened,’ said association spokeswoman Lynsee Swisher. ‘It’s important that we have one regulated system with the same background checks and traceability and security and the testing of the product.'”

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