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The Washington, D.C. Council unanimously approved emergency legislation on Tuesday that will effectively create a recreational marijuana market by allowing people to self-certify themselves as medical cannabis patients and access dispensaries\u2014without needing to get a recommendation from a doctor.<\/p>\n
The legislation from Councilmembers Kenyan McDuffie (D) and Mary Cheh (D) cleared the full Council in a 13-0 vote.<\/p>\n
It effectively enables the District to circumvent a congressional rider barring D.C. from using its local dollars to implement a system of adult-use marijuana sales. Voters approved the legalization of personal cannabis possession, cultivation and gifting at the ballot in 2014, but there\u2019s been no licensed retailers for non-patients.<\/p>\n
A similar bill that would have also provided the cannabis self-certification process<\/a> was narrowly defeated in April. But the reason for its defeat was largely related to separate provision\u2019s in Chairman Phil Mendelson\u2019s (D) measure that would have cracked down on unlicensed businesses that are using existing policy to \u201cgift\u201d cannabis to people who purchase unrelated products and services.<\/p>\n Those enforcement provisions were not included in the legislation<\/a> passed on Tuesday. However, the issue was addressed in a resolution attached to the measure. It notes that there are \u201clower barriers to access\u201d at \u201cgray\u201d market suppliers, because an unregistered person could simply buy a non-cannabis items in exchange gifted marijuana, without going through the application and certification process to access licensed dispensaries.<\/p>\n There are also safety risks in that market, the legislation<\/a> noted, because products aren\u2019t subject to quality control standards as in the existing medical cannabis program.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause these shops are operating outside of the law, there is no requirement or enforcement of customer registration, including verification that purchasers are of legal age,\u201d the resolution<\/a> says. \u201cIn addition, for gray market products, there is no assurance that the marijuana has been tested or adequately labeled, raising concerns that products could be contaminated or otherwise unsafe for consumers, and that the potency of the marijuana purchased could differ from what was advertised.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 \u201cOn the other hand, a patient wishing to buy legal marijuana for medical purposes from the existing regulated dispensaries must adhere to numerous regulatory requirements,\u201d it says, adding that the onerous registration requirements for qualifying patients \u201chas had real consequences for legal medical dispensaries.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis emergency legislation moves only the portion of that prior legislation regarding self-certification. Specifically, it would allow medical marijuana patients 21 years of age and older to self-certify that they are utilizing marijuana for medical purposes. Patients will still be formally registered in the medical marijuana program, issued a patient identification number, and recorded in ABRA\u2019s private and secure \u2018Metrc\u2019 track-and-trace system. While not a panacea to the issues facing our legal marijuana market, this emergency legislation provides a small amount of relief by increasing the ability of medical marijuana patients to access the legal and regulated medical market.\u201d<\/p>\n While local legislators, as well as the mayor, are eager to formally create a regulated market for adult-use marijuana, they\u2019ve been blocked from doing so because of a GOP-sponsored congressional spending bill rider that\u2019s been annually renewed, specifically prohibiting D.C. from using its local tax dollars to implement a system of recreational cannabis commerce.<\/p>\n But it remains to be seen when that rider might be lifted.<\/p>\n \u201cPatients who self-certify will still be formally registered in the medical marijuana program, issued a patient identification number and have all sales reported,\u201d Cheh said ahead of Tuesday\u2019s vote. \u201cPermanent legislation to comprehensively update the District\u2019s marijuana laws, including providing for certification, is currently moving its way through the Council. But in the meantime, this will provide a critical stopgap measure to help legal safe and regulated medical marijuana dispensaries retain and win back patients and protect the patients.\u201d<\/p>\n Under Democratic control, both chambers of Congress have proposed lifting the rider from Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) in recent years\u2014including in the latest spending bill<\/a>\u2014but last year\u2019s appropriations bill maintained the ban, and President Joe Biden proposed for the second time a budget that would continue the cannabis restriction<\/a>.<\/p>\n The patient self-certification provision of the measure would represent a significant expansion of another piece of legislation enacted into law<\/a>\u00a0this year that allows people 65 and older to self-certify for medical cannabis without a doctor\u2019s recommendation.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the D.C. Council unanimously approved a bill this month<\/a> to ban most workplaces from firing or otherwise punishing employees for marijuana use.<\/p>\n The legislation, sponsored by Councilmember Trayon White (D)\u00a0first cleared a key committee vote<\/a>\u00a0in March before\u00a0being initially approved by the full body during an April hearing<\/a>. It would expand on previous legislation the D.C. Council approved to protect local government employees against\u00a0workplace discrimination due to their use of medical cannabis<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 2019, another D.C. lawmaker\u00a0proposed a separate medical cannabis reform bill<\/a>\u00a0meant to ease the registration process for patients. Instead of having to wait several weeks for regulators to process their medical cannabis approvals, patients would simply fill out an application with the city health department and would then automatically qualify to legally purchase marijuana on a provisional basis.<\/p>\n Lawmakers held a joint hearing last year on a pair of bills to authorize the legal sale of recreational marijuana<\/a>\u00a0and significantly expand the existing medical cannabis program in the nation\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) has been adamant about the need to congressional remove the rider and fulfill the will of voters by establishing a regulated system of adult-use marijuana sales.<\/p>\n The mayor said last year that local officials are prepared to move forward<\/a>\u00a0with\u00a0implementing a legal system of recreational marijuana sales<\/a>\u00a0in the nation\u2019s capital just as soon as they can get over the final \u201churdle\u201d of congressional interference.<\/p>\n Bowser introduced a cannabis commerce bill last year, though her measure was not on the agenda for November\u2019s hearing alongside the cannabis legalization proposal\u00a0put forward by Mendelson<\/a>.<\/p>\n Last March, a federal oversight agency determined that the congressional rider blocking marijuana sales in D.C. does not preclude local officials from\u00a0taking procedural steps to prepare<\/a>\u00a0for the eventual reform, such as holding hearings, even if they cannot yet enact it with the blockade pending.<\/p>\n Separately, a group of activists last year\u00a0announced an effort to pressure local lawmakers enact<\/a>\u00a0broad drug decriminalization, with a focus on promoting harm reduction programs, in the nation\u2019s capital. A poll released last year found that voters are\u00a0strongly in favor of proposals<\/a>.<\/p>\n At the congressional level, Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said in November that she is\u00a0\u201ccloser than ever\u201d to removing the federal blockade<\/a>\u00a0on cannabis commerce in her district.<\/p>\n GOP Congresswoman Takes Marijuana Victory Lap After Primary Win And Talks Next Steps For Her Legalization Bill<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post D.C. Council Votes To Let Medical Marijuana Patients Self-Certify Without Doctors, In Workaround To Federal Block On Recreational Sales<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The Washington, D.C. Council unanimously approved emergency legislation on Tuesday that will effectively create a recreational marijuana market by allowing people to self-certify themselves as medical cannabis patients and access dispensaries\u2014without needing to get a recommendation from a doctor. The legislation from Councilmembers Kenyan McDuffie (D) and Mary Cheh (D)Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":55533,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55532"}],"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\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55532"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55534,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55532\/revisions\/55534"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: D.C. Council Votes To Let Medical Marijuana Patients Self-Certify Without Doctors, In Workaround To Federal Block On Recreational Sales<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"