Pubdate: Mon, 10 Aug 2015
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2015 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Authors: Brianna Gurciullo and Karen Mawdley

D.C. POT LAW CREATES CONFUSION, CULTIVATES ACCEPTANCE

Legalization Manifests Itself in Tasting Parties and Shrugged Shoulders

About 30 party guests wearing suits and summer dresses mingled in the 
candlelit back yard of a small, private home in the Forest Hills 
neighborhood in Northwest Washington and snacked on hors d'oeuvres to 
the sound of jazz. Instead of cocktails, they sipped gourmet coffee 
and tea infused with marijuana.

In the kitchen, servers poured hot and iced drinks for the tasting 
party. They were showcasing products from House of Jane, a 
California-based company that sells cannabis-infused beverages. 
Jane's Brew C-Cups were on display in the living room, stacked on a 
table alongside similarly branded coasters.

"What Jane's Brew is trying to do is alleviate, remove the stigma for 
cannabis," said Jill Amen, the company's co-founder, who was allowing 
the guests to sample her products for free. "It can be done in a 
professional way-just like a cocktail party, a very social event. 
Because it is a social event."

This is the new world of marijuana in the nation's capital, where 
residents have been able to legally possess, privately consume and 
grow limited amounts of pot since February.

The sale and purchase of marijuana remains illegal here, unlike in 
the four states that have fully legalized both recreational and 
medical marijuana. Instead of being sold at shops and generating new 
tax revenue, marijuana in the District can be grown at home and shared.

Smokers and growers said they can be more open about their passions, 
but local politicians, activists and businesspeople said pot 
continues to be sold illegally at homes, on park benches or in the 
street. The illegal market is as robust as ever-perhaps more so with 
D.C. residents curious and talking about marijuana.

As written, the law allows for dozens of scenarios that cause 
residents and police officers to shrug their shoulders. You can't buy 
or sell marijuana, but what exactly constitutes a transaction? The 
line between legal and illegal is fine and blurry, confusing many and 
creating loopholes that some growers and dealers hope to exploit.

The people who helped put legalization on last year's ballot said 
this will be the reality for the city for at least two or three 
years. The federal government still classifies marijuana as an 
illegal and dangerous drug. Lawmakers' positions on marijuana have 
not evolved as quickly as the public's, and Congress has blocked the 
District from creating a system to tax and regulate pot sales.

"D.C. is kind of like the Alice in Wonderland of cannabis. The Queen 
of Hearts is Congress," said Alex Jeffrey, the executive director of 
the D.C. chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of 
Marijuana Laws (NORML). "Recreation and regulation should go hand in 
hand. We are an exception to the rule."

The city also has a medical marijuana program, which the D.C. 
Department of Health regulates. More than 3,800 residents were 
enrolled in the program in mid-July.

Keith Stroup, the founder and former executive director of NORML, 
hopes that the success of the District's medical marijuana program 
will help change lawmakers' minds. Members of Congress drive by the 
District's medical marijuana dispensaries "and they realize that 
marijuana is legal here and the sky didn't fall," Stroup said.

Even if Congress - which approves the city's budget - steps out of 
the way, it could take more than a year for the local government to 
implement a system for regulating and taxing pot sales unless the 
D.C. Council passes emergency legislation. After voters approved a 
ballot initiative by almost 70 percent to legalize medical marijuana 
in 1998, Congress prevented the city from creating regulations until 
2009. The first legal medical marijuana sale didn't occur in the 
District until 2013.

But Adam Eidinger, who served as chairman of the D.C. Cannabis 
Campaign, which led last year's ballot initiative to legalize pot, 
said he thinks possession, consumption and home cultivation of 
recreational marijuana are enough for now.

"On a personal level-this isn't speaking so much about the movement 
but on a personal level - we've come so far. Like, it's okay," 
Eidinger said. "We can handle where we're at right now for a little 
while longer and be very content with it. We're not going to see a 
lot of problems with marijuana-for a while at least, I hope-that 
really require stores."

Opportunities, limitations

A business climate has emerged in the District characterized by 
entrepreneurs finding creative, roundabout ways to make money legally 
without selling marijuana itself.

Businesses such as Canna Party bring products related to smoking 
marijuana into clients' homes, similar to a jewelry party. MetroX DC 
delivers bongs, pipes and lighters to the doorsteps of D.C. residents.

After the D.C. law went into effect, Silver Spring, Md., resident 
Jacob Asbell founded Hydro-City, which sells and rents the equipment 
needed to grow marijuana indoors. Hydro-City's grow kits include 
lamps, bulbs, tents, fans, timers, fertilizers and filters. Asbell 
and his co-workers started to install growing systems in D.C. homes in June.

"We come to your place, we set everything up for you, we teach you 
how to use it, we include everything you need to grow, and then just 
add seeds and water," Asbell said. "Right now, unfortunately, the 
only way you legally can obtain cannabis in D.C. is to grow it 
yourself or have somebody give it to you for free. So unless you've 
got really, really generous friends, if you're a regular consumer, 
then growing is an incredibly viable option. So our main thing is 
really making it accessible."

Asbell said the law still causes confusion, and his business is 
"trying to navigate this crazy sort of situation in D.C." Other 
businesspeople said they often feel as though they are wading into 
gray areas and have to test the law through trial and error.

Eidinger reopened his head shop, Capitol Hemp, this summer - about 
three years after the city made him and his business partner shut 
down. He sees business opportunities in accessory retail and 
manufacturing, pointing out that there are many types of pipes, 
rolling papers and vaporizers. Before the new law, head-shop owners 
had to pretend their products were only being used for substances 
such as tobacco, he said.

"It's also sort of a sweet victory for us to be able to reopen the 
store without any fear," Eidinger said. "You'll be able to go into 
the store and talk about using marijuana if you're over 21, and we 
can be completely open and have a totally open conversation about marijuana."

Home growers here take pride in their plants and are trying to build 
their reputations among fellow growers. Facebook groups have cropped 
up where growers can share photos and ask for advice. Members of the 
groups also post about events, from massive seed shares to "grow 
schools" to "safety meetings," where people smoke together at a private home.

Marijuana possession remains illegal on federal land, and that 
includes federally subsidized public housing in the District.

Increased demand

Recreational legalization has had ripple effects in the medical 
marijuana realm. Corey Barnette, the owner of a medical marijuana 
cultivation center in Washington called District Growers, said he has 
seen an increase in demand at the dispensary level, which has 
translated into an increase in demand for the marijuana that his 
business grows.

"What's happened is that we do see a lot of people, who we would call 
closet medicators, are more open to marijuana programs," Barnette 
said. "We can debate whether or not that was a direct result of 
Initiative 71, but I can tell there has been a spike in the level of 
interest and level of awareness of the medical marijuana program."

In July 2014, 738 patients were registered with the Department of 
Health. By July 27 of this year, there were 3,948.

Barnette pointed out that the medical marijuana program had begun to 
explode before recreational legalization. The D.C. Council loosened 
the rules for obtaining medical marijuana last summer, setting off a 
surge in enrollment.

The District has seven cultivation centers and five dispensaries, 
according to the Health Department, and the D.C. Council has 
increased the number of plants that cultivators can grow from 95 to 
500 to 1,000. But Barnette said even that hasn't met demand. It has 
driven people to the black market, where marijuana is untested and 
sellers can't be held accountable.

And Barnette said he's not worried about homegrown plants competing 
with his product.

"Right now, all over D.C., people are learning just how difficult it 
is-or just how much attention is necessary - to grow a plant to 
pharmaceutical grade," he said. "You can grow your own tomatoes. Most 
people don't. You can grow your own carrots. Most people don't. You 
can make your own beer. Most people don't."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom