Pubdate: Thu, 26 Feb 2015
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2015 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491

D.C.'S LEGAL DRAMA

House Republicans Threaten City Officials With Jail for Implementing 
the Marijuana Law.

AMID ALL the uncertainties surrounding the legalization of marijuana 
in D.C., a few things are clear. Among them is that Congress has 
better things to do than meddle in the purely local affairs of the 
District. When it does interfere, it ends up making a mess of 
matters. Apparently, however, there are no bounds to the 
grandstanding of opportunistic politicians on Capitol Hill.

That District officials and employees have been threatened with jail, 
by no less than the chairman of a powerful congressional committee, 
for their good-faith efforts to follow a voter mandate is utterly 
inexcusable. Such a spectacle - and the fact that the District is 
under congressional attack for undertaking virtually the same steps 
as its counterparts in Colorado, Washington and, most recently, 
Alaska - should bring home to the rest of the country the need to 
redress the historic injustice of the city's limited political powers.

At issue is a disagreement between D.C. officials and key House 
Republicans over the legality of Initiative 71, a measure 
overwhelmingly approved by voters in November to legalize possession 
by adults of small amounts of marijuana and allow home cultivation. 
City officials announced the measure would go into effect at 12:01 
a.m. Thursday following the mandatory 30-day congressional review 
period in which it went unchallenged; House Republicans have argued 
that a rider attached to last year's omnibus appropriations bill 
blocks implementation.

"If you decide to move forward tomorrow with the legalization of 
marijuana in the District, you will be doing so in knowing and 
willful violation of the law," read a letter to Mayor Muriel E. 
Bowser (D), signed by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the 
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Rep. Mark 
Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the subcommittee that handles D.C. 
affairs. Just in case that wasn't clear, Mr. Chaffetz said in a 
subsequent interview, "You can go to prison for this. We're not 
playing a little game here."

Unquestionably legal opinion differs about whether the language in 
the congressional rider actually prevents the implementation of the 
initiative. But Mr. Chaffetz's charge that city officials are 
thumbing their nose at the law is completely without merit. Officials 
were acting on the advice of counsel, including Attorney General Karl 
A. Racine, who concluded that the rider did not prevent the 
initiative from taking effect. So cautious have city officials been 
that they canceled hearings called to examine regulation and sale of 
marijuana for fear of running afoul of federal law.

Therein lies more damage to the District. Issues that were not 
addressed by the voter initiative remain unresolved because 
congressional Republicans, in using the District to score political 
points, couldn't care less about the consequences. Yet they dare to 
say it is the District that is playing games.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom