Public Hearing on Medical Marijuana Tonight in Shoreline

In July, the Shoreline City Council passed a six month moratorium on medical marijuana before a new state law went in effect July 22.

According to the new state law, SB 5073, dispensaries are now illegal, but “collective gardens,” which can be used by 10 qualified patients and have up to 45 plants or 72 ounces of consumable medical marijuana, are allowed. There is also a 15-day waiting period for having patients join a collective garden. 

A public hearing on the moratorium is at 7 p.m. tonight September 12 at the Shoreline City Council chambers to discuss the impact of the new law and what could be changed. The exact language of the law can be found here. 

The bill as it was passed by the legislature had a system for registering patients and an individual patient could have up to 15 plants or 24 ounces, but Gov. Chris Gregoire vetoed this language out of the bill.

The moratorium that the Shoreline City Council passed tightens up some of the language and zoning for areas where collective gardens can exist in Shoreline. The moratorium mainly focuses on keeping collective gardens out of residential neighborhoods and 1,000 feet away from schools.

Restrictions go further by limiting only one collective garden per tax parcel and can’t be within 2,000 feet of another collective garden or delivery site. This limits the number of collective gardens that exist in Shoreline given our commercial area’s size.

Similarly, the City of Seattle passed a ordinance that allowed for dispensaries, just required them to get all the appropriate business and food handling permits that would normally be enforced along with medical marijuana dispensary licenses. However this city law does go directly against state law, as the City of Seattle doesn’t have a right to hand out these licenses, only the state does.