Dispensary in WA

Hey everyone!
I am looking for information on the legal aspects of starting a dispensary in western washington. I know that i can possess and cultivate with a medical card but I don't know how to legally run a dispensary if anyone can help or point me in the direction of someone who can that would be awesome.

Where Im at the only dispensary around is super expensive and I feel like I can make a killing with the right products and prices. I really want to do this as legal as possible.

Thanks for the help

No lawyers out there? Nobody Knows anything?

Check out oaksterdam it's a college dedicated to cannabis check it out online!!

does not help me in washington if I was in cali that would be a different story. Theres all kinds of info about it in cali but wa just like every state has their own laws and they are enforced differently.

Everyone lets assume I've done some leg work here. I have tried looking online and found nothing, and short of calling lawyers, judges and dispensaries that are already open, ive done everything I can think of. Thus, the post, Trying to see if anyone here can help. If no one can help, then its on to the next place to try on my list. I appriciate the help as much as I can but lets try and have some reasonably intelligent comments and suggestions.

There are no legal "dispensaries" in Washington state. There are one or two in Spokane that claim to be dispensaries, but the cops harass them a lot.The mmj law does not support dispensaries. There are a few co-ops and people on craigs list trying to start them. Advertising is a bitch, cuss it's a solid grey area. Its a ground level opportunity for people that don't mind getting busted and testing state laws. Better be able to afford a good lawyer.............good luck.

there are actually a few in Wa.. I have seen them first hand.. there are many more opening up as well. I wouldnt mind hearing more about this as well

yea its kinda weird up here i just got myself blueberry , afghan,trainwreck, ATF, humbolt duff, master kush and a strain called fist from a disp. idk how legal it is but there here... i would luv to open my own disp!

To stay on the legal side you would need to talk to your local DA. In the end thats the guy that will send you to jail. At this time the law still says no. But it's up to the local DA If they will let it slide. Every one would love to open a disp, untill they find out it is work and a big pain in the ass. I bet the FDA will get in on the act soon.

I too live in WA state and never heard of a dispensaries being opened up and being run legally. We need to get the decriminalization bills thru first. I dont want to have to buy my pot at a liquor store as they are proposing. Anything Washington State owned or governed sucks. They will charge a handling fee of 23% percent aka sales tax.

If we get the dispensaries here we need to make sure they stay out of the hands of the state government and no big businesses that can rule the roosts. If it stays with the small mom and pop gardens I think you will get better smoke.

BTW I grow my own Cancer survivor

They will find a way to screw it up. I have that much faith in the Wa. Gov.

yeah those bills got shot down ... because its still illegal federally they couldnt get enough votes todecrimilize and/or sell out of the liqour stores and i heard it wasa 15% tax per gram

You know that they can only be ran as a non profit, right? How can you make a killing if you have to donate all proceeds in the end?

you can still pay out to employee's and all the other running expenses. you don't have share holders to pay out to. A non ptofit will have some type of goal. Like funding mmj research or something. Thats the every short version.

I know of at least 10 "dispensary's" in Washington. There is a huge market if you got huge balls. Just dont open one in Kitsap County they are denying all business permits for mmj dispensary's the rest of the countys out there all have at least 1

non profit is such a joke of a term. The red cross is a non profit and the ceo pockets $250,000 a year and they just passed a law in Washington that allows dispensary's to grow their own

Don't think anything has passed yet.

this is an old ass thread. but there is I-502 thats gonna get voted on next week. hope it passes, got my fingers crossed.

I guess it would be a start but overall the bill sucks.

Dr.GreenBuds said:

Hey everyone!
I am looking for information on the legal aspects of starting a dispensary in western washington. I know that i can possess and cultivate with a medical card but I don't know how to legally run a dispensary if anyone can help or point me in the direction of someone who can that would be awesome.

Where Im at the only dispensary around is super expensive and I feel like I can make a killing with the right products and prices. I really want to do this as legal as possible.

Thanks for the help

Click to expand...

Dispensaries are legal in the state of Washington. We've worked on a getting a lot of them legally setup over the last few years, in fact.

For now, they must be run as a non-profit and usually structured as a co-operative. It heavily depends on the county and city how they require it to be structured. But that doesn't mean they can't make a profit. It just means the business structure and equity disbursements are different than a regular for-profit business (like an LLC). This is a common misconception.

You will need to setup your business structure and be licensed on the city and possibly county level as well. For the cities, they usually have zoning ordinances in place which might effectively make a dispensary not possible. That's sometimes called a soft ban - where it's technically legal, but something life having only 1 possible store location in the entire city and a crazy high rental price could make owning a dispensary virtually impossible. This happens pretty regularly.

Keep in mind that prices are high because sometimes tax and licensing fees are high, so the owners have to make at least some operating profit to stay afloat.

The thing we noticed in Washington, with our dispensary customers, is that the community really has a lot to do with how much you'll be harassed. If you go into a space, guns blazing and wagging your finger in people's faces, they're not going to take kindly to that and make running your business a living hell. They'll continually harass you, call the cops at the drop of a hat and just make owning such a business not fun. The best and happiest dispensary owners are very active in the community and are also discreet.

Hope that helps!

So if these are ran legal who do the pay taxes to. As far as I know there have been some open. But they don't stay that way long. Even with this new law it's still not legal to sell pot in the state. Not saying it's not being done but it's still not legal. It seems with this new law the state wants to make all the money and drive prices up.