Despite its “Weed Island” reputation, Vashon has nowhere to legally purchase marijuana. The island’s only place to buy pot — a medical dispensary that opened in 2014 —closed on Saturday when the owner received a cease and desist letter from the King County Prosecutor. The shop had been operating illegally for more than a month due to new legislation that requires him to be licensed the same as a recreational pot shop.

The situation is a very public and visible example of the confusing, bureaucratic underbelly of marijuana legalization. When Washingtonians voted to legalize recreational marijuana in 2012, the law addressed licensing and regulations only for the recreational market. The medical dispensaries that existed before the recreational law passed — medical marijuana has been legal in Washington for 18 years — did not have to be licensed through the state.

In an attempt to regulate the medical market, Washington’s legislature voted in April of last year to bring medical and recreational weed under the same regulations, meaning all of the medical dispensaries that had been unlicensed for years, now needed a license, but not all would be able to get one.

Called the Cannabis Patient Protection Act, the law went into effect July 1 and effectively put an end to medical dispensaries across the state — hundreds in Seattle alone. A lucky 222 medical dispensaries were able to obtain recreational licensing thanks to a tier system embedded in the legislation that allowed businesses that existed prior to 2014, and were in good standing with tax payments, to get first priority on licenses. The remaining stores weren’t so lucky and were ordered to close or face legal ramifications and forfeiture of both product and cash.

Vashon’s Island Cure Collective continued to operate in violation of the July 1 deadline, since owner Kevin Bergin said, before Saturday, he never received a letter to close. An eagle-eyed reporter from the Tacoma News Tribune was driving through town last week and saw Bergin was still open and decided to investigate. The resulting article revealed a somewhat comical patchwork of passing-the-buck between county and state entities pointing fingers as to who’s responsibility it was to enforce the new law as far as Bergin’s dispensary was concerned. It seems he had slipped through the cracks temporarily.

While the legislature’s goal to regulate all marijuana and put an end to unlicened stores has merit, passing a law requiring established businesses to get licenses — which most would not be able to obtain anyway — and then ordering the rest to close seems like a draconian and hasty approach to the issue.

Medical and recreational marijuana are vastly different in a variety ways, mainly the chemical makeup — recreational marijuana contains high amounts of THC, the chemical that gets you high, while medical marijuana is high in CBD, a chemical that helps with pain — The state clearly recognized the merits of medical marijuana 18 years ago. To try and treat both as the same thing is a blatant disregard to that recognition.