Ever since the state legislature convened in January, lawmakers have been bickering about basically every aspect of marijuana law. Taxes, research, home grows, medical pot—it’s all on the table and lots of it has been at the mercy of the Republicans who control the state senate. Over the last few days, a massive bill to overhaul medical marijuana has passed through the hamstrung bureaucratic swamp. Here’s what it would do, which is a hell of a lot.

First, a quick refresher: The medical and recreational marijuana industries exist entirely separately in Washington. Medical growers and stores are not licensed or regulated. Some of them test their products for pesticides, for example, but there is no requirement to do so. Recreational businesses, in sharp contrast, are subject to special taxes and a bunch of strict rules about what they’re allowed to do.

That’s made pot in medical stores cheaper, which — if you accept that there are some customers who are not true medical patients, which most people do — has made them tough competition for the new recreational market. So began the push in Olympia to do something. While some patient advocates argued the systems should be kept separate, others, including business owners licensed under Initiative 502 and prominent supporters of the legalization law, wanted to merge them so everyone would play by the same rules. [Read more at The Stranger weekly]