Washington is one of eight states that allows social cannabis sales, but the only one that does not allow people to grow their own plants.

The state’s Liquor and Cannabis Board is currently carrying out a survey that addresses the public’s feedback on the matter. The three potential options that would take into consideration home grows are the following:

• Tightly regulate recreational home grows and require residents to enter their plants into a state traceability system.
• Locally control recreational home grows, which doesn’t require residents to register their plants — but they must have a local permit.
• No change to the current system, allowing home grows only for medical marijuana patients and cooperatives.

However, opponents fear that allowing people to grow cannabis at home would affect sales, decreasing taxes the state and cities are collecting. Another concern involves the ability to regulate who is in charge of growing.

“If a person is growing it on their own, obviously, they won’t buy it at a store, so that’s a lost sale,” said Kevin Bommer, Colorado municipal league deputy director.

In the other seven states that allow residents to grow their own cannabis, residents are required to follow certain restrictions on the number of plants they can grow. Because the police tends to focus on larger scale operations, it is hard to find how often the rules are violated.

In addition, if residents in Washington were to register their own plants, as one of the options mentions, there would be a chance they may not do so, violating the rules.

“There are plenty of news articles about homes being used as grow houses and, in some cases, coordinated by multiple people who are using it to traffic black- market marijuana in and outside Colorado’s borders,” Bommer said. “That’s not very good for neighborhoods and communities.”

While some believe it is an individual’s right to grow cannabis at home, some are unsure of the consequences the potential options may generate.