Liquor Control Board chairwoman Sharon Foster says friends are calling her the "queen of weed," because the board is responsible for regulating marijuana in Washington State.
Foster has been chair since 2009. Prior to this, the Olympia resident worked as a contract lobbyist whose clients included the California Wine Institute, the Washington Restaurant Association and the YMCA. She was formally the Washington director of the YMCA Youth and Government Program, is on the Heritage Park board and oversees the Capital Lake park area on the campus of Washington State University.
"There is going to be a lot more people selling and growing marijuana legally and getting into the retail market and those things trickle down into so many other jobs and industries," Foster tells the Capitol Record. "It’s going to be fascinating to watch what develops assuming we can continue on and become a legalized market. It will be a whole new industry. Maybe we will get a reclassification and our eastern Washington farmers can grow hemp. There is certainly a demand for that material. A grower that grows lettuce and tomatoes can probably make a little more money growing pot in his warehouse than he does tomatoes. Let’s just hope we don’t see a shortage of lettuce, tomatoes and potatoes. If we can do it right, I think it’s an economic boom to the state of Washington because it certainly has a rosy revenue picture."
