The Need For Weed
How a recent Senate bill could change the cannabis industry as well as sustainable building practices.
The backyard view of Pamela Bosch’s house, walled with beige-colored hempcrete.
Story by Alex Hodson // Photos by Jack Gates
March 29, 2025
Driving down Highland Street past Western Washington University’s campus, there is a stark contrast from college rentals and dorms to well-established homes. After driving for a few minutes, a large, tan house with red accents and a sweet garden with a koi pond becomes blatantly obvious. Little would one know when looking at this house that it serves as a symbol of potential in the realm of sustainable cannabis.
Upon entry, Pamela Bosch’s house feels unique. It’s large, but homey, with warm tones that are reminiscent of design catalogs. Some of the windows in the living room are horizontal, thin and flush with the ceiling, making it feel like the lower cabin of a boat. A staircase curves with the left side of the house. The walls in particular are what catch the eye, they’re beige and made of stone.
It’s what’s within these walls that makes Pamela Bosch’s house unique: hempcrete.
Known publicly as the Highland Hemp House, Bosch’s home is a trailblazer in the construction industry as the first home in Washington state permitted to be made completely out of hempcrete. Hempcrete is a building material that is made by combining the inner core of a hemp plant with lime and water. When dry, the product is a solid, moisture-resistant material.
“It was permitted under alternative materials,” Bosch said. “The code allowed for some experiment in favor of innovation.”
While Bosch’s home remains an oddity, in Washington, a recent Senate bill relating to cannabis waste could make the building practice more attainable and mainstream.
Senate Bill 5376 went into effect in June, 2024, making it so that cannabis biomass with a THC content of less than 0.3% could now be sold to the public. Previously, cannabis biomass was deemed a hazardous material and had to be ground with a neutralizing mixture before being sent to a landfill.
The goal of the bill is to divert waste from landfills and find ways to repurpose biomass, as well as create new revenue streams for the cannabis industry.
Under the new law, cannabis that would previously be sent to landfills can now appear in your garden, but not without risks.
Toxicology professor at Western, Ruth Sofield explained that pesticides from composted cannabis could be transferred to the plants in your garden.
“Any pesticide that's associated with cannabis would be transferred to whatever you're composting,” said Sofield. “So now it becomes part of your dirt. If you put that onto your garden, then it can be taken up by your plants.”
Pamela Bosch walks along a hempcrete wall as she heads to the second floor of her house.
However, there are already laws in place that can prevent these pesticides from becoming an issue in composting practices.
“Back in 2017, we started pesticide testing, and now Washington state makes it mandatory,” David Wasser, partial owner of Doctor and Crook Co., a craft cannabis oil company, said.
The mandatory testing Wasser is referring to is the Washington Administrative Code 314-55-108, which lists over 60 chemicals and how much of each is allowed in cannabis products. If a provided sample fails mandatory testing then the whole batch must be discarded.
The bill could impact cannabis processors, such as Doctor and Crook Co.. Wasser doesn’t see the law as an opportunity for profit but recognizes the difference it could make for himself and other processors.
The previous disposal process for cannabis waste was long and work-intensive.
“There are two different kinds of waste, the fats and waxes, and the extracted material,” Wasser said. “One waste is just a powdery kind of dust of plant material that we mix with dirt and store in five-gallon buckets.”
Residual biomass must be mixed with an equal amount of dirt before cannabis processors can dispose of it. Wasser plans to sell his cannabis waste for composting practices. Now that the law allows cannabis biomass to be distributed.
Bosch believes that building with hempcrete is more sustainable and eco-friendly, and benefits homeowners in many ways from mold and fire resistance to natural insulation.
“I have examples of blocks and walls that I've just left out in the elements,” said Bosch. “And then when they dry out, they don't grow mold. They'll crumble if they're not protected, but the pH is high enough that it doesn't grow mold.”
Using the analogy of a space heater, Bosch described how the hempcrete stores and radiates heat from the sun.
“The house is acting like the space heater. You heat up the walls in the daytime with the sun, then overnight the heat is transferring and moving into the house,” Bosch said.
For Bosch, getting her hempcrete was a complicated process, however, cheaper than it is now.
“When I built my house, I imported my hemp from the Netherlands, I had to bring it through the Panama Canal,” Bosch said. “I paid about $12 to $15 a bale, including all the shipping. But nowadays, there are people selling it for $60 a bale that's produced in Washington.”
Bosch thinks that the novelty of this concept is what is bolstering the price. For those wanting to build a hempcrete house, this price increase could be a strong deterrent.
Wasser doesn't feel that Doctor and Crook Co. could generate enough waste to contribute to hempcrete building projects, but could see larger processing plants having the output to do so.
“With some of these bigger places, they might be producing hundreds of pounds of waste a week,” Wasser said.
He went on to say that he would be willing to help with hempcrete projects, but he doesn’t believe his 7,000 grams of waste would make a dent in the need for weed.
“Although I don’t mind being a little wheel in their process, I don’t think they’ll be able to make business off of me,” Wasser said.