On March 27, about two dozen cannabis advocates rallied at the John A. Wilson Building, the seat of Washington, D.C.\u2019s municipal government, handing out joints and seeds to the public \u2014 and even getting at least one councilmember to accept a joint.<\/p>\n
After the activists moved into the building, they settled outside the room where lawmakers were holding a breakfast meeting with Jewish community leaders. Councilmember David Grosso, a supporter of reforming the city\u2019s cannabis laws, was handed a joint as he left the breakfast.<\/p>\n
The rally was called by activist group\u00a0DCMJ<\/a>\u00a0and the D.C. Cannabis Business Association (DCCBA) to press for legalization of cannabis sales in the nation\u2019s capital. DCMJ was the outfit that pushed for 2014\u2019s\u00a0Initiative 71<\/a>, which made it legal to possess personal quantities of cannabis \u2014 but included no provision for legal sales. Cannabis enthusiasts in D.C. have in recent months been hosting \u201cpop-up markets<\/a>\u201d at local venues, where vendors have sought to skirt the law by selling trinkets and including cannabis-infused edibles or extracts as a gift \u2014 or giving out such \u201cgifts\u201d a gratuity upon paid entry to the event.<\/p>\n Free pot being handed out at the Wilson Building, right in front of DC Council chambers. All legal. Advocates want elected officials to push harder on legalizing sales. pic.twitter.com\/jRUSEo251e<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Martin Austermuhle (@maustermuhle) March 27, 2018<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n One such pop-up market in January, at downtown D.C.\u2019s XO Lounge, was shut down by the police<\/a> and 22 people were arrested. They were charged with misdemeanor drug possession with intent to distribute, although the cases were later dismissed.<\/p>\n \u201cThe impetus [for this rally] is that the raids have increased,\u201d said DCMJ activist Adam Eidinger to the Washington Post<\/a>, as he protested at the Wilson Building. \u201cAt our biweekly meetings at public libraries, especially in Southeast and Northeast, we\u2019ve heard about this issue more than any other issue, that people\u2019s livelihoods are being threatened.\u201d<\/p>\n Initiative 71 legalized possession of up to two ounces. But creation of a system to regulate and tax sales has been blocked by Congress, which controls the District\u2019s budget. A congressional rider\u00a0quickly enacted<\/a>\u00a0after passage of Initiative 71 prohibits cannabis sales in D.C. It also bars the D.C. City Council from passing measures to \u201creduce penalties\u201d for cannabis offenses.<\/p>\n The DCCBA and\u00a0DCMJ used their protest to call on council members to pressure Congress to overturn the rider, and then put in place a system to tax and regulate sales.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n A measure introduced last year by Sen. Thad Cochran \u2014 a Mississippi Republican, surprisingly enough \u2014 would repeal the rider<\/a>, but has yet to pass.<\/p>\n On March 7, the D.C. Board of Elections blocked another proposed ballot initiative<\/a> that would explicitly legalize retail cannabis sales in the capital. Building on the notion of \u201ccannabis equity\u201d \u2014 in which legalization policies are crafted to address the social and racial injustices of prohibition \u2014 the proposed measure would direct 40 percent of tax revenues from cannabis sales to the city\u2019s African American communities.\u00a0But the board said that putting the initiative to the city\u2019s voters would violate the congressional rider.<\/p>\n The initiative was submitted to the board by activist Asar Mustafa, who portrayed the measure as a way out of Washington\u2019s long-standing\u00a0fiscal challenges<\/a>, which have also disproportionately affected black residents. \u201cThose same men and women the city has typecast as criminals,\u201d he told D.C.\u2019s\u00a0WAMU Radio<\/a>. \u201cIf you legalize cannabis, you\u2019re talking about employing those people and you get a chance to tax them while they\u2019re working in the cannabis industry.\u201d<\/p>\n There is a sense of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu to all this. In 1998, voters approved a medical marijuana law in the District of Columbia<\/a>, but its implementation was blocked by Congress until 2010, when Capitol Hill lawmakers finally allowed it to go forward. Activists complain that the program is still being bottlenecked by bureaucratic overreach<\/a>.<\/p>\n The question of sales is practically certain to be in the news again next month. The third annual\u00a0National Cannabis Festival<\/a>\u00a0is scheduled to take place in D.C. on April 21 \u2014 the day after 420, of course. Herb-apostle hip-hop legends\u00a0Cypress Hill<\/a>\u00a0are set to headline the event. Inevitably, this raises expectations of a public smoke-in. However, as\u00a0WaPo<\/a>\u00a0wrote of last year\u2019s entry: \u201cWhile Initiative 71 did legalize marijuana for adult use in D.C. starting in 2015, the law bars anyone from using cannabis in public \u2014 and the festival doesn\u2019t change that.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet the prohibition on public use has not always been enforced. A\u00a0public smoke-in<\/a>\u00a0was indeed held right on the National Mall precisely as Trump was making his inauguration speech last January. There were no arrests.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong> do you think cannabis sales should be legal in Washington, D.C.?<\/p>\n The post Activists Pass Out Joints to Protest D.C. Pot Laws<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
On March 27, about two dozen cannabis advocates rallied at the John A. Wilson Building, the seat of Washington, D.C.\u2019s municipal government, handing out joints and seeds to the public \u2014 and even getting at least one councilmember to accept a joint. After the activists moved into the building, theyContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2252,50,3792,83,1046,81,3793],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24891"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24891"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24892,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24891\/revisions\/24892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n
\n
\nRead More: Activists Pass Out Joints to Protest D.C. Pot Laws<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"