I asked Lauren Dake, The Columbian’s politics reporter, to give us some tips on how to look up the various marijuana-related bills in the Washington state Legislature right now.

Below is her advice.

Cheers!
-SueVo (sue.vorenberg@columbian.com)

By Lauren Dake
Columbian Politics Reporter

The 2015 legislative session has passed the halfway mark, giving lawmakers fewer than 40 days, under the state constitution, to rein in what some have dubbed the “Wild Wild West” of the state’s unregulated medical marijuana market.

The measure gaining the most momentum and attention is Senate Bill 5058, whose chief sponsor Sen. Ann Rivers, R-La Center, is a local lawmaker.

Rivers has mentioned her inbox has been filled with notes from people concerned about her bill.

She attributed a lot of that to misunderstanding about what the bill actually does.

If that’s true, it’s certainly understandable. It can be difficult to track legislation as it travels to the different chambers (House and Senate) and is amended or at times completely rewritten.

There’s a reason for the often repeated quote comparing laws to sausages: Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made.

But it’s crucial to the democratic process to stay involved.

So, here’s the best way I know to track legislation.

Go to the Washington State Legislature’s website: http://leg.wa.gov

On the left hand corner, click on “bill information”

From there, you could track by bill topic (marijuana bills, for example), bill number or a variety of options

Let’s say you want to track Senate Bill 5052, type it into the box and you can see the entire bill’s history, including hearings, amendments added, fiscal information and a staff report that explains the legislation in plain English

Another great resource to track legislation from Vancouver is TVW (www.tvw.org) where you can watch many of the hearings live or once they have been archived

Hope that helps!

Source: Cannabis Chronicles