What a Former Regulator’s Reflection Says About How Washington Regulates Cannabis
On September 1, Cannabis Observer published an opinion piece by Cassidy West titled "What I Learned from Both Sides of Cannabis Regulation." West served as Policy and Rules Manager at the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) from late 2022 until December 2024, after working on cannabis compliance and policy in the private sector. She holds a Master of Public Administration from George Washington University, where she studied administrative process and benefit-cost analysis.
It is a candid piece, and it is worth reading in full. Perspectives from people who have worked on both sides of the regulatory table are rare, and this one raises questions the entire community — regulators, licensees, patients, and policymakers alike — should be willing to sit with.
What the piece argues
West's central claim is that motion should not be mistaken for progress.
"Regulatory activity is not regulatory success. A busy agency isn't necessarily an effective one."
She writes that the analytical requirements built into Washington's rulemaking system were too often treated as paperwork completed after a decision had already been made, rather than as tools used to reach the decision in the first place. Washington law requires agencies to prepare a cost-benefit analysis for significant legislative rules under RCW 34.05.328 and a Small Business Economic Impact Statement under the Regulatory Fairness Act, chapter 19.85 RCW. Those requirements exist precisely because rules impose real costs on real businesses. When they become post-hoc exercises, the state loses the information it built the process to gather.
She also describes a culture in which institutional appearances could take priority over public accountability, and in which enforcement instincts outpaced evidence-based policymaking:
"Public trust isn't built by managing appearances. It's built by telling the truth, acknowledging mistakes, and correcting course."
"Power should make you more careful, not more comfortable exercising it."
Notably, West does not write this as an indictment of the people at the agency. She is explicit that "good people can exist inside a dysfunctional system" — a distinction that matters, and one we would echo. Many of the staff we work with at the LCB are thoughtful, responsive public servants operating inside a structure they did not design.
She closes by offering five questions for evaluating any rule:
Does the rule solve the problem?
Is it supported by evidence?
Are the costs justified?
Were alternatives considered?
Does it reflect the realities of the people and businesses subject to it?
Why this matters right now
Those five questions are not abstract. They describe the difference between a regulatory system that works and one that simply persists.
Structure shapes outcomes. Washington placed cannabis within the Liquor Control Board when voters approved I-502, adding responsibility for an entirely new regulated industry to an existing enforcement and licensing agency. That structural choice, made as the state moved quickly to implement legalization, continues to shape how cannabis is regulated today.
Yet cannabis presents questions that cross traditional agency boundaries: cultivation and agriculture, product testing, public health, patient access, consumer protection, taxation, business regulation, and enforcement. Other states have divided those responsibilities differently.
The Cannabis Alliance has been examining what a more intentional structure could look like in Washington, mapping cannabis regulatory functions across state agencies and asking a basic question: Which agency has the expertise and mission best suited to each function?
That does not mean every function currently housed at the LCB belongs somewhere else. It means that nearly fourteen years after legalization, Washington should be willing to examine whether the regulatory structure built at the beginning remains the best structure for the industry and the public today.
Analysis has to come before the decision, not after it. Our recent comments on the ESSB 5403 rulemaking illustrate the point. The draft would create an exception to Washington's longstanding prohibition on discounts and rebates between licensees by introducing a volume-pricing framework — inside a rulemaking convened to implement a statute about management agreements and financial interests.
Whatever one thinks of volume pricing as policy, a change of that magnitude deserves its own analysis, its own economic impact review, and its own stakeholder record. That is exactly the kind of question West's framework is designed to catch.
The costs land hardest on the smallest operators. A rule that is merely inconvenient for a multi-store operator can be existential for an independent producer or a social equity licensee. When economic impact analysis is treated as a formality, those are the businesses that absorb the difference.
The same is true for patients, who continue to navigate a system in which medical access is governed largely through rules written for adult-use retail. Regulation should account not only for the government's objective, but for how the policy actually functions for the people expected to live under it.
Regulatory legitimacy is earned in public. West's argument about transparency is one the industry should take seriously in both directions. Agencies build trust by acknowledging what has not worked. So does an industry.
The case for reconsidering how Washington regulates cannabis is strongest when it is made with evidence, in public, on the record — not in the hallway afterward.
Nearly fourteen years after voters approved I-502, Washington has enough operating history to evaluate its regulatory architecture honestly. We have seen where rules have produced their intended results, where they have produced workarounds, and where we still lack the data necessary to know. We have seen where compliance burdens fall hardest.
The question is whether the state is willing to examine that experience systematically — and change course when the evidence calls for it.
Why Cannabis Observer matters
We would not be having this conversation without Cannabis Observer.
Cannabis Observer covers Washington cannabis policy the way it needs to be covered: by showing up. They attend public meetings, legislative hearings, regulatory proceedings, and rulemaking workshops and make that information accessible to the rest of us.
For those doing policy work full time, that record provides invaluable institutional memory. For licensees, patients, advocates, journalists, and community members who cannot spend hours following every government proceeding, it provides a way to stay informed and participate.
It also creates space for perspectives like West's that deserve public discussion.
Cannabis Observer makes its work freely available without a paywall or advertising and relies on community support to sustain it. If you use their reporting — or simply believe independent observation makes government better — we encourage you to support their work.
Read Cassidy West's opinion piece
The work ahead
Cannabis Observer helps make Washington's cannabis policymaking visible. The Cannabis Alliance uses that record — alongside the experience of licensees, patients, workers, and other stakeholders — to advocate for a regulatory system that works better.
We will keep pressing these questions in rulemaking comments, in the legislature, and in public:
What problem are we trying to solve? What does the evidence tell us? What does the rule cost? What alternatives have we considered? And does the policy work in the real world?
Nearly fourteen years after Washington voters chose legalization, those are not unreasonable questions to ask of our cannabis regulatory system.
They are necessary ones.
If you believe Washington's cannabis system should be evaluated on results rather than activity, join The Cannabis Alliance, sign up for our newsletter, or support our advocacy work.