DC Council chairman Phil Mendelson told the Washington Post this week that he plans on sending the legalization initiative, which passed this November with nearly 70 percent of the vote, to Congress in early January, as required with any law passed in the city.
The move could provoke a showdown with House Republicans who, led by Maryland Congressman Andy Harris, successfully included provisions blocking the legalization law in the $1.1 trillion spending bill that Congress passed last weekend. Members of the DC Council and their allies on Capitol Hill believe that the language of that provision could be murky enough to allow the city to go through with legalization anyway. In the final bill, DC is only barred from using funds to "enact" its marijuana reform laws—not "enact and carry out" as Harris's rider originally read.
It's a tiny technicality, but according to DC Delegate
Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District's non-voting member in Congress, Democratic
budget negotiators intentionally muddied the language to give city officials a
chance to work around the measure. The argument here is that by presenting the
law to Congress, the DC Council would simply be carrying out the voter-approved
marijuana measure, not enacting it.
The catch is that the city can't spend any money to move forward with the
measure, because doing so would give Republicans an opening to claim the city
is violating the ban on spending. And they're not above such petty grievances:
House Republicans
successfully blocked DC's 1998 medical marijuana initiative for a decade because the city's
election department couldn't spend $1.64 to tally the ballot results.
Harris thinks DC should check itself, lest it wreck itself. "The
intent of Congress is clear — and has strong bipartisan support," he told the
Post. But while he may have notched a
win this month, it's not clear if Republican leaders have the political will to
get into an ugly legal battle over DC autonomy in the next Congress. That fight
could illustrate the divide between drug policy hawks and more
libertarian-leaning conservatives in the GOP, and risks putting the party on
the wrong side of public opinion going into the 2016 election.
Regardless of how Congress deals with DC weed, though, a
high-profile clash over the marijuana issue may soon be unavoidable. On
Thursday, state attorneys general in Nebraska and Oklahoma
filed a lawsuit with the US Supreme Court against
Colorado for its legalization of marijuana. Meanwhile, the same omnibus
spending bill that blocked DC's legalization efforts also
forbids
the Justice Department and DEA from prosecuting medical marijuana dispensaries
and patients that are following state regulations.
After a grueling election season, said his group is "holiday
mode right now," but Legalization activists say they plan to keep up the
pressure on Congress when then new session begins next year. Organizers are
planning a vigil in January "to
demand Congress provide District of Columbia residents the same democratic
rights enjoyed by Americans of the 50 states."
"We're going to do a 420-hour DC democracy vigil somewhere
near the Capitol," said Nikolas Schiller, communications director for DC
Cannabis Campaign. "That works out to about 17 and a half days."
If the initiative manages to make it through the 30-day
congressional review period, activists say they also plan on organizing a seed
exchange and giveaway. Unlike states that have legalized recreational
marijuana, DC's law legalizes possession for personal use, but not weed sales.
The DC Council was working on a plan to tax and regulate legal marijuana, but
that legislation will likely be barred by the congressional provisions.
"One thing that's going to happen is people are going to want
to learn how to grow cannabis," said Schiller. "So we hope we can facilitate
the empowerment of DC residents to grow their own."
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