Serious criminals can now obtain cannabis licenses in Washington State

Starting next Saturday, October 2nd, criminals will no longer be automatically prevented from obtaining a cannabis license in Washington state. Several updates to the rule now allow some serious criminals to obtain cannabis licenses on a case-by-case basis.

This is thanks to a new rule by the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board that will come into effect shortly. Anyone who gets a license must pass a mandatory background check first, but now a crime on a record doesn’t necessarily automatically disqualify.

However, major convictions for major criminal offenses in the past 10 years will still trigger a deeper consideration of an individual’s application. But the rules no longer prohibit people with crimes from obtaining a license.

The protocol for less serious crimes has also been updated. In particular, in the case of a class C crime in a file, the license application is not automatically blocked. In addition, if someone had fewer than three misdemeanor convictions in the past three years, this is not enough to warrant further investigation.

The failure of an old administrative offense at the juvenile court no longer applies to the applicant.

With a strong focus on social justice in recent years, the rule change by cannabis businesspeople is celebrated for allowing people arrested for disproportionate arrests to enter the legal industry.

“I think it’s great what the state is doing to give people with a history of problems the opportunity to qualify,” Tran Du, co-owner of Shawn Kemp’s Cannabis in Seattle, told KOMO News.

The idea behind the rule change is that people arrested for cannabis at disproportionately high rates should not be excluded from participating in the industry now that it is legal.

“We wanted to reconcile the disproportionate that we saw in the remnants of the drug war and that blacks and browns were arrested disproportionately,” said Melanie Morgan (D-Parkland), who also chairs the state’s Social Equity on Cannabis Task Force.

Morgan stressed the need to align the state’s priorities. “The end result brings equality to the industry and ensures that blacks and browns have equal access to this industry,” she said.

Why allow felons?

Many states have differences in arrest rates for people of color, and Washington state is no different.

A study conducted by the Marijuana Arrest Research Project, entitled “240,000 Marijuana Arrests Costs, Consequences, and Racial Disparities of Possession Arrests in Washington, 1986-2010,” found that African Americans and Latinx people use marijuana at lower rates than whites, Africans Americans were arrested for marijuana crimes, 2.9 times the number of whites in the state. Latinos were 1.6 times more likely to be arrested than whites.

The burden of a crime can deter some people from getting involved in the cannabis industry. As an example, the High Times highlighted the case of Katree Darriel Saunders, who was expelled from Nevada’s industry on a pot charge. A one-time employee in the Nevada medical field, he served four months in federal prison on parole violation after choosing cannabis over opioids to treat trauma and injury. That choice weighed on Saunders for over a decade and, despite years of experience, success, and otherwise pristine record, largely prevented them from making their mark in the industry.

Depending on which state you live in, other avenues into the cannabis industry are available. Several states that have legalized marijuana also offer prisoners the option to clear their records.