By Bill Lucia | Editor
For pharmaceutical companies, it’s a tough pill to swallow: A new Washington law taking effect Thursday aimed at reducing prescription drug prices for hospitals. Senate Bill 5981 adds transparency to what’s known as the federal 340B drug pricing program and seeks to stop drug manufacturers from restricting who can dispense their medications. Billions of dollars worth of drugs flow to patients through the program each year. Drug makers and a pharmaceutical industry group sued over the law. But on Tuesday, a federal judge declined their request for a preliminary block on it.
Also in today’s edition…
A state legislator defends herself against ethics allegations in a two-day hearing.
The Trump administration backs off plans to gather data on mail-in voters.
And, debates over how to regulate high-potency marijuana.
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(Stock photo by Mint Images/Getty Images)
By Jake Goldstein-Street
Drug makers Novartis and AbbVie and the industry group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America quickly appealed Tuesday’s court ruling that will allow Washington’s 340B drug pricing law to take effect.
The 340B program requires drug makers to give certain safety-net health care providers steep discounts on outpatient drugs. But the providers can then bill insurers for the prescriptions at higher market rates. Complicating the picture further, many providers contract with outside pharmacies to distribute medicine to patients, and those pharmacies can also get a cut of the insurer payments for the discounted drugs.
Manufacturers have pushed to restrict the contract pharmacy practice, which they see as the key to abusing the federal program. Like other states, Washington is seeking to prohibit drug makers from limiting the use of contract pharmacies under 340B.
Washington state Rep. Tarra Simmons, D-Bremerton, listens to testimony during a hearing on allegations she violated state ethics laws on June 8, 2026. Simmons denies the charges. (Photo by Jerry Cornfield/Washington State Standard)
By Jerry Cornfield
State Rep. Tarra Simmons spent nearly three hours in front of a state ethics panel on Tuesday, disputing allegations that she improperly used her sway as a lawmaker to help a friend get a job and to steer funding to a nonprofit where she worked. As the first formerly incarcerated person elected to state office, Simmons insisted she’s been hypervigilant about complying with the rules since arriving in the Legislature in 2021.
“I’ve tended to be a little paranoid about it,” she said.
Hearings like this before the Legislative Ethics Board don’t happen often. The last was a decade ago.
There was no ruling by the panel after proceedings wrapped up Tuesday. Simmons’ attorney pushed to submit closing statements in writing. Those will be due on June 23, at which point the board will begin deliberations and issue a final order within 90 days. If Simmons is found to have broken the rules, she could be fined up to $5,000 per violation and ordered to pay the state’s costs.
By Jonathan Shorman
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is walking back, for now, a plan to sweep up data on millions of Americans who vote by mail. President Donald Trump’s March 31 executive order requires states to submit lists of potential mail-in voters to the Postal Service if they want ballots delivered and directs Homeland Security to compile lists of voting-age citizens in each state. But in a federal court filing Monday night, the Justice Department cast the idea as in the early stages and dependent on approval of a new U.S. Postal Service rule for mail ballots.
The order faces several lawsuits ahead of the November midterm elections, but so far hasn’t been paused by a federal judge. For mail-in voting states, like Washington, complying with the order would effectively mean turning over the names of all or nearly all their voters to the Postal Service. It’s unclear if those lists would include voters’ sensitive personal data, like driver’s license information and partial Social Security numbers, that the Justice Department has sued to obtain.
By Amanda Watford
A growing body of research suggests that frequent use of high-THC cannabis increases the risk of cannabis use disorder, psychosis and other mental health problems for users, particularly adolescents and young adults. (Cannabis use disorder is when a person’s marijuana use becomes difficult to control and begins interfering with daily life.) Lawmakers in some states have moved to impose stricter potency caps.
While cannabis flower once commonly contained THC levels in the single digits, many products sold legally today contain 15% to 20% THC or more. Concentrates — such as waxes, oils and shatter — can exceed 80%.
Here in Washington, Democratic state Rep. Lauren Davis has spent years trying to place guardrails on high-potency cannabis products. Since 2020, she has introduced at least five bills to cap THC levels in concentrates or impose safeguards, including age restrictions, warning labels and a higher tax rate on products with elevated THC levels. Most of those measures failed amid opposition from the cannabis industry, Davis said.
Industry advocates, she said, “basically rain down all fire and brimstone and crush every bill that I’ve ever attempted in this area.”
ICYMI
Ahead of World Cup, authorities focused on deterring drones in Seattle | by Jake Goldstein-Street
State order to kill wolf in northeast WA is canceled | by Aspen Ford
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