It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. In January 1964, the Beatles first broke onto the Billboard chart with "I Want to Hold Your Hand"; by June, Ringo Starr had collapsed from tonsillitis and pharyngitis. In January, the surgeon general announced that scientists had found conclusive evidence linking smoking to cancer and thus launched our highly successful 50-year public-health fight against tobacco. In August, the North Vietnamese fired on a U.S. naval ship in the Gulf of Tonkin, which led to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the public phase of the Vietnam War. Alongside an accelerating deployment of conventional troops would come their widespread use of marijuana and heroin. [continues 944 words]
The Dec. 24 front-page article "Obama's clemency list brings joy- and heartbreak" painted a picture of Weldon Angelos as a Greek immigrant's son who "was arrested for selling marijuana in three separate transactions . . . while possessing a firearm," resulting in a statutory sentence of 55 years in prison. Mr. Angelos was indicted by a grand jury that charged him with 20 criminal counts for distributing marijuana, possessing a firearm during a drug trafficking crime, possessing a stolen firearm, possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number, possessing a firearm while being an unlawful user of controlled substances and money laundering. [continues 121 words]
'Kush Gods' Took 'Donations' For months, a brightly painted Mercedes SUV and a Lexus coupe plied the hipster spots of the District along H and U streets and Adams Morgan, their operators openly doling out brownies, cupcakes, cookies and gummy bears that police say were laced with marijuana. The vehicles, with out-of-state plates and bearing pictures of marijuana plants, were as common in some neighborhoods as food trucks, and the proprietors of "KushGods" did little to hide their enterprise. They talked to the media about trading pot for "donations," and patrons could follow them on Twitter and call the mon a phone advertised on the vehicles. [continues 747 words]
As marijuana extracts expand their presence on the East Coast, an especially potent concentrate is appearing on law enforcement radar. Shatter, a cannabis extract with about 80 percent THC content, is legal for recreational use in states such as Colorado and Washington, sold in medical marijuana dispensaries in other states and is faster-acting and far more easily concealed than marijuana. On Monday, Loudoun County sheriff 's deputies intercepted a truck that had about $900,000 worth of packaged marijuana near Dulles International Airport. Included in that load was 15 pounds of shatter, in total packaged weight. Shatter, which is sold by the gram because of its potency, retails for about $60 a gram in Colorado, so 10 pounds of shatter would be worth nearly $270,000 - in a state where it is legal. Black-market shatter probably would cost much more. [continues 638 words]
Marijuana parties in Washington just aren't what they used to be, and Keith Stroup is pleased about that. They used to be wild, illicit affairs, held in word-of-mouth locations with off-the-record agreements. Stroup, the wild-eyed, long-haired, wire-rimmed-glasses-wearing founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, often acted as host. He lost his NORML job once, after outing President Jimmy Carter's drug czar for purportedly snorting cocaine at the organization's 1977 Christmas party. [continues 673 words]
Supporters of more liberal marijuana laws on Thursday delivered dramatic pleas that a temporary District law that bans consumption of the drug in private clubs be allowed to expire. If the ban remains, the District would be punishing the poor, the sick, children and many others, the advocates said, because the law effectively eliminates any loopholes allowing for marijuana use outside a private home. That leaves those who rent, are visiting or who live in federally subsidized housing without a "safe" space in which to partake, marijuana activists said. [continues 566 words]
Calling for Legalization Now Will Slow Reform Progress For marijuana reform advocates, 2014 and 2015 have been remarkable years. Two more states and the District of Columbia joined Colorado and Washington in legalizing recreational ("adult-use") marijuana. Congress passed legislation dealing with issues like Drug Enforcement Administration policies and veterans' access to state legal marijuana, among others. And candidates (from both parties) running for high-profile offices - governor, U.S. House, U.S. Senate, even president - are talking about marijuana policy, and not with War on Drugs rhetoric. [continues 732 words]
Regarding the Nov. 27 Metro article "Va. pot arrests defy trend": The Central Virginia Marijuana Task Force is guilty of using marijuana prohibition's collateral damage to justify throwing good money at bad public policy. Illegal marijuana in Virginia is a gateway to hard drugs because it is distributed by drug cartels that sell meth, cocaine and heroin. These criminals do not require identification to prove ages and kill to resolve business disputes over border trafficking routes. Legal marijuana in Colorado is sold by tightly regulated retailers that generate state tax revenue, require identification for proof of age and sell locally grown marijuana exclusively. [continues 65 words]
It May Be Legal, but Keep It Away From Kids, School Officials Say Cassandra Pinkney, the founder of a charter school in Southeast Washington, makes video messages for parents about how to prepare their children for school: Establish a bed-time routine, read with them, eat healthy food, and, with the city's relaxed position on marijuana use, do not smoke pot around them. In a "fireside chat" titled "marijuana and your student," the director of Eagle Academy Public Charter School, which enrolls children in preschool through third grade, told parents that, even though the District has legalized marijuana, it's not safe to expose children to the drug. Even second-hand smoke can affect their emotional states and attentiveness in school, she said. [continues 788 words]
The smell near the Columbia Heights Metro station Wednesday night was unmistakable. A lit joint in hand, Tony Lee stood outside a residence talking with friends as the evening bustle passed them by, no one paying the group of men any special attention. "The community I'm in, everyone engages in smoking," said Lee, 34, a District resident who runs his own small construction firm. Plus, he said, if he's not smoking, he detects the odor of other people getting high throughout the city on a daily basis anyway. [continues 1049 words]
Officer Who Guarded Capitol Now Heads Security for Possible Medical-Marijuana Grower in MD. For much of his 46-year career in law enforcement, Terrance W. Gainer viewed marijuana as a substance to be confiscated and its sellers as criminals to be investigated and arrested. He is now security chief for one of the nation's leading medical marijuana growers, tasked with, among other things, protecting a 20- acre site in Western Maryland that could become home to one of the state's first cannabis-growing operations. [continues 1072 words]
New Data Show Progress, but No Room for Complacency. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL candidates have spent much of their time on the campaign trail lately pledging more treatment and less punishment to deal with epidemic drug abuse, most dramatically in a viral video featuring an emotional New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. This is a welcome development - even if the GOPers, like their Democratic counterparts, exaggerate the degree to which arrests for simple possession of drugs, as opposed to trafficking, have swollen the prison population. The more attention leaders focus on the heartbreaking rise in prescription opioid and heroin addiction, and overdose deaths the better. [continues 372 words]
"Over the last few decades, we've also locked up more and more nonviolent drug offenders than ever before, for longer than ever before. And that is the real reason our prison population is so high." - - President Obama, remarks at the NAACP Conference, July 14, 2015 "Two-thirds of the people in our prisons are there for nonviolent offenses, mostly drug related." - - Businesswoman Carly Fiorina, remarks at the GOP debate, Sept. 16 "We are imprisoning or giving jail sentences to young people who are smoking marijuana." [continues 1165 words]
Releasing Nonviolent Drug Offenders Is Only a Start. THE FEDERAL Bureau of Prisons will release 6,000 inmates locked up for non violent drug crime sat the end of the month. If a bi-partisan group of senators gets its way, that will be just the beginning. On Thursday, the group pushed a criminal justice reform bill through the Judiciary Committee that backers say would reduce the federal prison population by tens of thousands. All of this is progress. But even if the bill passes, the number of people in prison in the United States would still be astoundingly high. [continues 408 words]
Last week, President Obama announced a multipronged effort to address the epidemic of addiction to prescription opiate painkillers in this country. This is long overdue and, unfortunately, like most action on addiction and mental illness, comes after the problem has reached Stage 4 - and is that much harder to treat - when it could have been diagnosed and treated at Stage 1, or perhaps even prevented altogether. I bring a unique perspective to this issue, one I would prefer I did not have. For 10 years, I sat on the House Appropriations Committee, overseeing every federal agency charged with addressing this subject. And during much of that time, I was addicted to prescription opiate painkillers myself. [continues 858 words]
The CDC Is Right to Advise Doctors on Opioid Prescriptions. HORRIFIC AS it is for the victims, drug addiction's impact reverberates beyond them, to include families, friends, whole communities. Thanks to a new Washington Post-University of Maryland poll, we can begin to quantify those wider consequences in our area. Nearly 3 in 10 Marylanders say they have a close friend or family member who was or is addicted to opiates such as prescription pain pills or heroin. The figures range from 4 in 10 in Baltimore to 1 in 6 in Montgomery County; but whether in the city or the suburbs, these numbers are far too high and fully warrant Gov. Larry Hogan's (R) promise to focus on the problem. [continues 422 words]
Why is it so hard for us to see how profoundly a $100 billion illegal market in anything would distort a society? To argue for legalization of marijuana and decriminalization of other drugs does not, at first blush, appear to put one on the side of the angels, especially given the accelerating heroin epidemic. But legalization and decriminalization are what we need if we want to make headway against mass incarceration, high homicide rates in urban black communities and poor educational outcomes in urban schools. [continues 1042 words]
The events described in the Oct. 14 Metro article "Murder conviction in robbery of Montgomery home" played out as an unfortunate example of why the strident gun supporters' push for firearms as the best defense is flawed. The victim set out to defend his housemates, himself and $17,000 of contraband with a firearm and was killed. Ironically, his defense failed in the face of not equal but lesser force, a cutting edge of some sort (which suggests that the mob who invaded his home was intent on robbery and not murder). As a corollary, if marijuana were controlled in Maryland as it is in the District, the "goods" would have been worth far less and perhaps not valuable enough to steal (and ultimately murder for). Kenneth Matzkin, Arlington [end]
In his Oct. 15 op-ed column, "A bipartisan marijuana myth," Charles Lane described the growing bipartisan support for looser drug laws as "the latest political free lunch, served up by politicians who would rather discuss anything except real public policy trade-offs." Over the past decade, numerous states have made very real trade-offs in their approaches to fighting crime. During this period, dozens of red and blue states decided to spend less money incarcerating nonviolent drug offenders and to use the savings on drug treatment and other programs aimed at reducing the likelihood that prisoners would re-offend. In nearly every case, these states were able to cut both their incarceration and their crime rates. [continues 55 words]
It seems that no presidential debate this year would be complete without denunciations of the drug laws, which, it is alleged, result in long prison terms for thousands of people, disproportionately African Americans, who are guilty only of low-level offenses, thus fueling "mass incarceration." At the last Republican debate, on Sept. 16, former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina charged that "two-thirds of the people in our prisons are there for nonviolent offenses, mostly drug-related." Apropos of former Florida governor Jeb Bush's admitted youthful marijuana use, Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) observed that "there is at least one prominent example on the stage of someone who says they smoked pot in high school, and yet the people going to jail for this are poor people, often African Americans and often Hispanics, and yet the rich kids who use drugs aren't." [continues 662 words]
My parents taught my brother and me to respect the police. We once lived on the same West Baltimore street where riots broke out after the death of Freddie Gray, whowas injured in police custody on April 12. Gray was unconscious when a police van transporting him for booking arrived at the police station. He died one week later from spinal cord injuries. Gray's death sparked protests in Baltimore and other cities. After getting a law degree, I returned to Baltimore and became an assistant state's attorney, a black female prosecutor among many white male prosecutors. That's when I began work on the assembly line that is the United States' criminal justice system, in the same office that later charged six officers in Gray's death. [continues 538 words]
When Samson Paisely entered the buds of his marijuana plant in the D.C. State Fair's first-ever marijuana competition Saturday, he wanted to pay tribute to a man who legalized another once-illicit substance. So he named the strain of marijuana "Delano," after Franklin Delano Roosevelt - the president who repealed the country's prohibition of alcohol in 1933. "If we can repeal prohibition, then surely we can smoke [marijuana] in America," said Paisely, 45, who grew the plants in his Adams Morgan home. [continues 539 words]
As Their Crops Mature, Growers Cook Up Ways to Profit From Surplus Yield In upper Northwest Washington, marijuana buds the size of zucchinis hang drying in a room once reserved for yoga. In the Shaw neighborhood, pot grown in a converted closet sits meticulously trimmed, weighed and sealed in jars. Elsewhere, from Georgetown to Capitol Hill to Congress Heights, seven-leafed weeds are flowering in bedrooms, back yards and window boxes. Welcome to the first crop of legal pot in the nation's capital - where residents may grow and possess marijuana but are still forbidden to sell it. [continues 1703 words]
Regarding the Aug. 21 editorial "The heroin emergency": Seriously ill children who are in significant pain should have access to all possibly effective prescription painkillers, and their doctors should have information about dosage, scheduling and toxicities of those painkillers. The recent Food and Drug Administration decision to approve Oxy Contin for children as young as 11 does just that - it gives their doctors better information on how to treat their pain. Drug abuse prevention is critically important. However, suggesting that seriously ill children for whom Oxy Contin is an appropriate treatment should instead suffer so that potential drug abusers are not harmed is not a fair or reasonable policy solution. Nancy Goodman, Washington The writer is executive director of Kids v. Cancer. [end]
Controlling Prescription Opioids Can Help Curb the Epidemic. NOT EVEN the federal government can solve the nation's growing heroin epidemic on its own, but it could always do more. That's probably the best way to think about the new anti-heroin initiative unveiled by the White House on Monday. A one-year, $2.5 million plan to track the flow of drugs through the Northeastern states and other "high-intensity" regions certainly can't hurt; but the White House isn't pretending that its new initiative will conquer the problem and nor should anyone else. [continues 457 words]
Regarding the Aug. 13 front-page article "When life begins in rehab": Let me get this straight: Ashley Kennedy faces no criminal charges for the agonizing pain she inflicted on her daughter, Makenzee, and when Ms. Kennedy and Makenzee are released from treatment, they will leave together. It seems that as a community we believe that addicts' criminal acts are not their fault and that their efforts to "get clean" outweigh the long-term interests of a severely injured infant who needs to find protection and stability. Sarah Willens Kass, Washington [end]
STONED A Doctor's Case for Medical Marijuana By David Casarett Current. 289 pp. $27.95 'Does medical marijuana 'work'?" That question, posed in an illuminating new book by David Casarett, a hospice physician and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, sounds simple and turns out to be anything but. The short answer is that it depends on the symptom or problem being treated, on the physiology of the patient using it, on the mode of drug delivery (a joint? a brownie? a vapor pen? a beer?) and on various other factors. [continues 1165 words]
A Pregnant Heroin Addict Passes on Her Struggle After a month of painful withdrawal that bunched her body into a tight ball, after tremors and diarrhea and sleeplessness and difficulty eating, Makenzee Kennedy went home to her bed in a drug rehab facility to celebrate a milestone: turning 2 months old. She lives there for now with her mother, 31-year-old Ashley Kennedy, who is 11 years into her on-again, off-again struggle with heroin addiction. If all goes well, Makenzee will never again see the inside of Mount Washington Pediatric Hospital, where she was weaned off drugs through intensive, round-the-clock care. "It's not my first time trying to stop," Ashley Kennedy acknowledged as she bottle-fed Makenzee. "It's my last time now. I don't want to touch another drug after putting my baby through this." In communities across the nation, the collateral damage of the heroin epidemic is rippling through the health-care system. The rate of hepatitis C is skyrocketing, fueled by needle sharing among addicts. Experts worry that an upturn in HIV rates may not be far behind. And the rate of fatal heroin overdoses has quadrupled over the past 10 years. In Baltimore, nearly two-thirds of the 302 overdose deaths last year were caused by heroin. "We have a very serious issue in the U.S. right now in terms of the use of heroin and other opiate agents," said Alan Spitzer, senior vice president at Mednax, which provides maternal and newborn medical services to hospitals. [continues 1209 words]
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. [continues 1405 words]
Don Winslow, novelist and conscientious objector to America's longest "war," was skeptical when he was in Washington on a recent Sunday morning. This was shortly after news broke about the escape, from one of Mexico's "maximum-security" prisons, of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, head of the Sinaloa drug cartel. Guzman reportedly disappeared through a tunnel almost a mile long and built solely for his escape. Asked about this, Winslow, his fork poised over an omelet, dryly said he thinks Guzman might actually have driven away from the prison's front gate in a Lincoln Town Car. What might seem like cynicism could be Winslow's realism. [continues 647 words]
This month, President Obama commuted the long sentences of 46 federal prisoners convicted of drug crimes, and over the next fewdays he laid out his vision for criminal justice reform in speeches to the NAACP and at the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in Oklahoma. Prison reformers hailed these events as important steps forward in the effort to rein in the sprawling U.S. prison system. I don't think they should be so happy. Obama's speeches, unfortunately, explicitly emphasized one of the most problematic myths standing in theway of true penal reform, and the commutations implicitly did the same. In all three instances, Obama suggested that we can scale back incarceration by focusing solely on nonviolent offenders. [continues 725 words]
Commuting sentences isn't about the law. It's about mercy, writes reform advocate Dennis Cauchon. President Obama's historic visit to a federal prison on Thursday shows that his head and his heart are in the right place on criminal justice reform. As he said a few days earlier, "Mass incarceration makes our country worse off, and we need to do something about it." The president overhauled the clemency process in April 2014 to much fanfare. He said that he wanted more worthy applications on his desk and that he was ready to act aggressively to approve them. But it's hard to square that rhetoric, andthe compassion Obama demonstrated by meeting with prisoners this past week, with Monday's miserly announcement that he'd granted clemency to 46 people. [continues 1336 words]
The High Taking Over Streets Is So Variable, It's Hard to Stop or Treat The man in the Mickey Mouse shirt was clinging to a light pole on H Street NE when police showed up, and then he dropped his pants. Another man near Eastern Market was laughing so hard that paramedics had trouble keeping him on a stretcher. A third, whom police found prancing through Capitol Hill, started kicking and screaming when eight police and fire officials tried to restrain him. [continues 1862 words]
Regarding the July 12 editorial "Weeding out synthetic drugs" : The use of so-called synthetic marijuana is an unintended side effect of the war on natural marijuana. Consumers are turning to potentially toxic drugs, made in China and sold as research chemicals before being repackaged as incense for retail sale in the United States. A punitive criminal justice system incentivizes use. These chemicals cannot be detected by standard drug tests. Some people use synthetic drugs to escape detection. Cracking down on retail sales will drive users to the Internet, where dangerous synthetic highs are readily available. A better solution is to legalize retail marijuana sales and stop drug testing for marijuana. [continues 63 words]
The President Visits a Federal Prison and Makes a Strong Case for Sentencing Reform. PRESIDENT OBAMA went somewhere Thursday that, according to the White House, no other sitting president ever has: a federal prison. His point was that no advanced society should be comfortable with the way this country punishes crime. The nation locks up too many people for too long, and it too often treats them poorly behind bars. In part because of Mr. Obama-but also because of a strong left-right alliance that includes the Koch brothers, the American Civil Liberties Union and others in between- change could come very soon. If, that is, Congress acts. [continues 491 words]
The difficulty in testing synthetic drugs is slowing the prosecution of suspects accused of possessing or selling the chemically engineered substances, even as authorities blame them for a spike in violence and overdoses, according to District officials. Prosecutors with the U.S. attorney's office have been unable to charge a number of people recently arrested, and many of them have had to be released while officials await test results, city and federal officials said. Police said they hope to charge them once testing is completed. [continues 930 words]
The Pot Head's Argument for Health Benefits Goes Up in Smoke Celebrating the medical benefits, if any, of marijuana has been an effective ruse to win social acceptance for getting high. This was thoroughly predictable, and now it's clear that the organized pot heads have been blowing smoke at us. This is the preliminary conclusion of a new wideranging study of the effects of medical pot. The rush toward legalization, like most whoring after new things, is likely doing considerably more harm than miniscule good. [continues 532 words]
The District's mayor has signed into law harsh new penalties for stores found selling synthetic marijuana in order to prevent an epidemic from taking hold in nation's capital the way crack cocaine once held D.C. streets hostage. The law grants Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier immediate authority to shutter businesses found selling synthetic marijuana for up to 96 hours and gives the mayor authority to fine businesses $10,000. "We don't want to go back to the crack cocaine days of what happens when people are addicted to dangerous drugs," said Chief Lanier after D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser signed the bill into law Friday. [continues 514 words]
A New D.C. Law Gives Police the Means to Combat Dangerous Substances. NEARLY A dozen people were rushed to the hospital after a mass drug overdose at a D.C. homeless shelter last month. A woman was accused of abandoning a 10-month-old baby on a busy D.C. street. A seemingly crazed 18-year-old allegedly stabbed to death a man on a Metro train July 4. Authorities say the common denominator in these incidents was the use of synthetic drugs. Emergency legislation to deal with the rising use of the dangerous substances comes none too soon. [continues 342 words]
A Medical Extract Offers Relief for Epileptic Children Imagine the following scenario: You have a son or daughter who suffers from epilepsy. Seizures wrack your child's body every day. Some days, he or she endures a dozen or more seizures. The condition prevents your child from going to school, from eating normally, from having friends. It also exacts a toll on you and your family. You cannot leave your child alone for any extended period of time, and certain activities, such as sports games, road trips or visits to the movie theater, are off limits. [continues 788 words]
"FBI drug agent risked all to feed heroin habit" [front page, June 29] was remarkable in that this disgraced felon showed no remorse for his crimes. As a former FBI executive who retired from the Washington field office and a former superintendent of detectives for the Metropolitan Police Department, I find Matthew Lowry's criminal conduct outrageous. The FBI motto is "Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity." Mr. Lowry's actions were disloyal, cowardly and dishonorable to his country, the FBI, his family, the citizens of the District of Columbia and, lastly, himself. [continues 72 words]
A Medical Extract Offers Relief for Epileptic Children Imagine the following scenario: You have a son or daughter who suffers from epilepsy. Seizures wrack your child's body every day. Some days, he or she endures a dozen or more seizures. The condition prevents your child from going to school, from eating normally, from having friends. It also exacts a toll on you and your family. You cannot leave your child alone for any extended period of time, and certain activities, such as sports games, road trips or visits to the movie theater, are off limits. [continues 783 words]
He Was Stealing Seized Evidence Even As Agency Was Hailing His Work "How do you tell someone you've idolized your entire life that you're a heroin addict?" Matthew Lowry, who kept his addiction hidden from his father and others Matthew Lowry was out of pills and getting desperate. The doctor who prescribed pain medication to ease his chronic and painful inflammation of the intestines had disappeared. He went to clinics, but his wife had begun questioning the bills. He was shaking, sweating, tired. [continues 2360 words]
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser vowed Monday to crack down hard on suppliers of synthetic drugs after a surge in overdoses sent dozens of people to area hospitals in the past month. Bowser (D) plans to introduce emergency legislation this week that would give the D.C. police chief authority to shut down any business found selling the drugs for a period of 96 hours while police investigate. The legislation would also institute a "two-strike rule," allowing the police chief to shut down two-time offenders for a period of up to 30 days, coupled with a $10,000 fine-five times as much as the current penalty. The District's Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs would then move to permanently revoke a store's license, Bowser said Monday at a news conference outside Sasha Bruce Youthwork, an organization that works with at-risk and homeless youths. [continues 659 words]
Residents' Responses Range From Praise to Skepticism Citing disappearing open-air drug markets and new ways narcotics are being sold, D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier says she wants her detectives to concentrate on suppliers and not streetcorner busts that have long been a staple of policing across the country. The strategy shift, outlined at a community meeting Thursday, will eliminate most of the plainclothes operations police have used for decades to target outdoor drug sales, magnets for drive-by shootings and other violence. Coming at a tense moment in the nation's relations between police and the public, it could also ease confrontations involving officers not immediately identifiable as law enforcement. It is an admission that some tactics - which were viewed by some critics as heavyhanded even when the crack epidemic sparked record numbers of homicides - no longer make sense amid a decline in fatal shootings and the availability of synthetic narcotics sold over the Internet, through social media and in convenience stores. "Our main goal is the supply," Lanier told about three dozen residents at the community forum in Northeast Washington. "We don't want to focus police efforts on just people who are addicted. We want to be focusing on the people who are bringing the stuff in." In an interview, she added: "Our criminal environment is changing rapidly. We have to keep up." The plan would eliminate District vice squads - each with about 20 detectives and supervisors - and shift higher-level investigations to the centralized Narcotics and Special Investigations Division. [continues 834 words]
House Budget Plan Would Continue Ban on Sales but Not Roll Back Legalization House Republicans advanced a budget plan Thursday that would prevent legal sales of marijuana in the District until at least 2017. Advocates for legalization, however, called it a victory. What the Republican budget does not do yet is roll back Initiative 71, the voter-approved measure from November that legalized pot for recreational use in the nation's capital. Since early this year, D.C. residents have been allowed to possess, grow and, in the privacy of their own homes, smoke marijuana. [continues 779 words]
Regarding the June 7Metro article "Pot-smoking parents: What about the kids?": Parents can reconcile personal marijuana consumption with its effects on children with three tools: science to understand how marijuana harms the developing adolescent brain and can be addictive in some people; a clear understanding of the law, including the differences between federal and state laws and between legalization and decriminalization; and strategies to have age-appropriate, effective communication with their children that acknowledges some laws have not caught up with science. [continues 120 words]
The June 7 front-page article "Against his better judgment," about mandatory minimum sentencing in drug cases, quoted U.S. District Judge Mark Bennett telling a defendant, "My hands are tied on your sentence. I'm sorry." The article failed to note that there is an actor in the system whose hands aren't tied: the federal prosecutor. Federal prosecutors have the discretion to pursue lesser charges in these cases but choose not to. Why would the prosecutor agree only to a plea bargain that carried a 10-year mandatory minimum for a defendant? How does he or she respond to the judge's criticism? Why was such a decision made in light of the Justice Department's August 2013 directive to assistant U.S. attorneys not to pursue charges bearing mandatory minimums against first-time nonviolent offenders? An examination of this case or sentencing in general should not overlook the immense power prosecutors have to alleviate the injustice of mandatory minimum sentencing or to perpetuate it. Brian A. Dupre, Washington [end]
Many Uncertain About Navigating the 'New Normal' Like the parent of any toddler and kindergartner, Jared wants to keep certain things out of reach. Liquor is stored out of sight in a cupboard. The household cleaners are safely kept behind childproof locks. And the marijuana is stashed high on a shelf in a fireproof lockbox. Evenings fall into a familiar routine. Family dinner. Baths. Then, after their daughters are snuggled in for the night, Jared slips out onto the back deck of their District apartment and a now-legal bowl of marijuana. [continues 1623 words]
In her May 31 Sunday Opinion commentary, "Caught in the drug trade," Danielle Allen proposed decriminalizing marijuana and other illegal drugs as a matter of justice because drug prohibition laws are administered inequitably. This reminds me of T.S. Eliot's line, "The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason." Even if drug prohibition were administered equitably, it would still be a costly folly, as we should have learned many years ago with alcohol prohibition. Alcohol and tobacco are as addictive and harmful as any of the prohibited drugs. An enlightened policy would legalize, regulate, tax and educate. Prohibition serves only to establish a criminal enterprise that breeds violence and tends to corrupt law enforcement. We spend some $50 billion a year to maintain this futile policy. If we would do the right thing, we would eliminate a great deal of corruption and violence while tapping a significant source of revenue. Stan Namovicz, Takoma Park [end]
The new visibility of police violence toward African Americans has stoked public debate about policing: What about body cameras? Should we reform police training? Perhaps we should go slow on all that military gear? I find it almost impossible to sit through any of this while the underlying issue goes unaddressed: It's the drug economy, stupid. It's well past time to legalize marijuana. But it's also time to consider decriminalizing nonviolent crimes involving other drugs, or at least to reclassify lower-level, nonviolent offenses as misdemeanors. We should also expunge felony convictions for many classes of nonviolent drug offenses - those involving marijuana but for other drugs, too - to re-enfranchise, economically and politically, those who have staffed the drug trade. [continues 922 words]
People with Alzheimer's disease - especially those in the District - should be aware of a 2014 article in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease that found that THC, the psychoactive component in marijuana, at low doses, "may slow or halt the progression of Alzheimer's disease." Since District residents can legally obtain medical marijuana for conditions with a doctor's approval, and considering the lack of effective treatments for Alzheimer's and marijuana's relative safety compared with many pharmaceuticals, it is an option worth considering. Richard Kennedy, Lorton The writer is a member of the steering committee of Safe Access-DC, an organization that advocates for access to medical marijuana. [end]
If you live in the District or one of the 23 states that have legalized marijuana and you work for the federal government, think twice before lighting a joint. Pot is still illegal for you. New guidance Wednesday from the Office of Personnel Management is unambiguous and stern. Federal workforce rules remain unchanged for the roughly 4.1 million federal employees and military personnel across the United States. The U.S. government still considers marijuana an illegal drug, and possessing or using it is a crime. [continues 439 words]
Venezuela is afflicted with the world's highest inflation, its second highest murder rate and crippling shortages of food, medicine and basic consumer goods. Its authoritarian government is holding some 70 political prisoners, including the mayor of Caracas and senior opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, and stands accused by human rights groups of illegal detentions, torture and repression of independent media. All of that is now pretty well known, and it is finally beginning to gain some attention from Latin American leaders who for years did their best to appease or ignore Hugo Chavez and his "Bolivarian Revolution." What's less understood is the complicating factor that will make any political change or economic reconstruction in this failing state far more difficult: The Chavez regime, headed since his demise by Nicolas Maduro, harbors not just a clique of crackpot socialists, but also one of the world's biggest drug cartels. [continues 651 words]
Regarding the May 18 Wonkblog excerpt "How the IRS seized a man's life savings without ever charging him with a crime": The Internal Revenue Service got a court order to seize Lyndon McLellan's bank account in a "civil forfeiture" action. No crime was alleged, just a pattern of suspicious actions-making bank deposits of less than $10,000. The article mentioned other civil forfeitures involving assets seized during traffic stops, on the premise that the assets might be tied to illicit activities. Why would law enforcement officers do such things? Clearly, the issue is not the solving of crime. Is it policy? Are there quotas? Do police and the government view all citizens as crooks - some caught, the rest guilty but not yet nailed? [continues 69 words]
The city is missing out on tax revenue. As the May 18 front-page article "Legal pot in the District is a boon for illegal dealers" reported, D.C. voters' determination to legalize marijuana possession through Initiative 71 is having significant unintended consequences. Because residents can legally use and possess marijuana but can't legally buy it, the illegal drug trade has increased and the city is missing out on the tax revenue it would receive if the sales were regulated. [continues 170 words]
Not long ago, a man who had covertly dealt pot in the nation's capital for three decades approached a young political operative at a birthday party in a downtown Washington steakhouse. He was about to test a fresh marketing strategy to take advantage of the District's peculiar new marijuana law, which allows people to possess and privately consume the drug but provides them no way to legally buy it for recreational use. Those contradictions have created a surge in demand and new opportunities for illicit pot purveyors. [continues 1614 words]
The first two steps toward uplifting young black men are simple: Stop killing them and stop locking them in prison for nonviolent offenses. Subsequent steps are harder, but no real progress can be made until the basic right to life and liberty is secured. If anything positive is to come of Freddie Gray's death and the Baltimore rioting that ensued, let it be a new and cleareyed focus on these fundamental issues of daily life for millions of Americans. Central to the crisis is "zero-tolerance" or "broken windows" policing, which basically involves cracking down on minor offenses in the hope of reducing major crime as well. Whether this strategy works is the subject of two arguments whose right answers can only be inferred, not proved. [continues 648 words]
Twice a week at the office of Patrick Fasusi, District residents line up to ask the pain specialist to approve their use of medical marijuana. For most, the brief wait in the lobby is longer than their consultation. As marijuana, which became legal for recreational use in the nation's capital in February, continues to morph from contraband to commonplace, Fasusi's clinic is a window into the ease with which some residents have been buying officially sanctioned pot for more than two years. [continues 1704 words]
Regarding the March 27 Politics & the Nation Digest item "Governor authorizes needle exchanges": With two Midwestern governors - Mike Pence (R) of Indiana and Steve Beshear (D) of Kentucky - recently supporting syringe-exchange programs in some fashion, it is a good time for Congress to repeal the federal ban that prohibits states from using federal prevention dollars to make sterile syringes available to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C. This ban has cost thousands of lives and millions of dollars. Repealing it would reduce federal healthcare expenditures and give states greater flexibility. Decades of peer-reviewed studies have conclusively shown that syringe-exchange programs save lives without increasing drug use. States should be free to use prevention money on these effective services if they want. Bill Piper, Washington The writer is director for national affairs of the Drug Policy Alliance. [end]
Prison Terms Were Set Under Guidelines Now Deemed Too Harsh President Obama on Tuesday commuted the sentences of 22 drug offenders, the largest batch of prisoners to be granted early release under his administration as it steps up an overhaul of the nation's criminal justice system. The early release of federal inmates is part of a sweeping effort to reduce the enormous costs of overcrowded prisons and address drug sentences handed down under old guidelines U.S. officials now view as too harsh. Obama had previously commuted the sentences of eight prisoners under the new Justice Department-led initiative; tens of thousands more are seeking to have their cases reviewed. [continues 638 words]
William Bennett, who served as secretary of education under Ronald Reagan and director of national drug control policy (or drug czar) under George H.W. Bush, has long been known for his strong and clear articulation of conservative principles in a number of best-selling books, among them "The Book of Virtues." In "Going to Pot," he and his co-author Robert White, a managing partner in an international law firm and former assistant U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, examine the current trendy rush to legalize the drug. "Marijuana, once considered worthy of condemnation, has in recent years become a 'medicine' legalized fully in four states, with others expected to follow." [continues 650 words]
Two days before Initiative 71 legalized possession of marijuana in the District, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, informed Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) that her decision to proceed with implementation and enforcement would be a "willful violation of the law." A Feb. 24 letter from Chaffetz and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) contended that the language of a continuing resolution enacted by Congress in December barred the use of appropriated funds by the District to legalize marijuana, and they characterized the mayor's actions as a violation of that bar. [continues 457 words]
Suspicion and Wariness of Marijuana Legalization Abounds - Especially Among Those in Public Housing Jamal Vaughn, a mechanical engineering student, was on his aunt's stoop in Northeast Washington on a recent afternoon, his long fingers curled around a half-smoked joint. "It used to be, ' Let me see who's around,' " Vaughn, 21, said between puffs and giggles, referring to his wariness of cops who had long made this neighborhood east of the Anacostia River a hot spot for pot arrests. [continues 1825 words]
In Zealously Punishing an 11-Year-Old, Officials Exhibit Clouded Judgment. THE NEWS is full of instances in which deficits in common sense produce bad outcomes. But rarely is the deficit so clear, or the outcome so wretched, as in the case of a sixth-grade boy in Bedford County, Va., who received a year-long suspension from school for possessing a single leaf of marijuana - which, on closer inspection, turned out not to be marijuana at all. The pupil, who is 11, was enrolled in a gifted-and-talented program not far from Roanoke when an assistant principal found the leaf in his backpack in September. Leave aside the possibility - hardly remote in middle school - that the leaf may have been planted as a prank, which the boy's parents suspect is the case; the leaf was not in dried, smokable form, and there is no suggestion that the boy smoked, sold or purchased this particular leaf - or any other. [continues 369 words]
Regarding the March 20 Metro article "Bowser weighs in on 'Black America' ": If Americans are troubled by the disparity of income between African Americans and white Americans, one tactic would go a long way to reduce it: Correct the country's racist policies regarding drug crimes. White Americans consume drugs at virtually the same rate as blacks, research shows. Yet black Americans are about twice as likely to be arrested for a drug offense as whites, and they are about four times as likely as white defendants to end up in prison. [continues 59 words]
Hundreds Turn Out for Giveaway Intended to Promote Home Growing The District witnessed a massive, public drug deal Thursday - and for those involved, it was quite a bargain. With D.C. police officers looking on, hundreds of city residents lined up and then walked away from an Adams Morgan restaurant carrying baggies containing marijuana seeds. Taking advantage of a ballot measure approved last fall by voters that legalized possession of the plant, the unprecedented giveaway scattered what organizers said were thousands of pot seeds to cultivate in homes and apartments across the nation's capital. [continues 841 words]
It sounds like an idea a stoner might come up with. In Washington, D.C., it's now legal to possess marijuana, to grow it, to smoke it and to give it away. But you're not allowed to trade in it. You can give your neighbor up to an ounce, but if he gives you money or even bakes you a pie in exchange, that's illegal. The District of Columbia has legalized marijuana - but is trying not to create a market in marijuana. It's aiming for a gift economy, not unlike what you might experience at Burning Man, but permanently. [continues 1139 words]
First, a disclaimer: There is no marijuana in the beer. That's what they said. Cannabis and hops are just a lot alike. It only smells like pot. And it might taste a little like it, too. So if that's what you like - a dank, resinous pint - or if you're willing at least to try it, this could be your season at the District's DC Brau Brewing Co. Starting Tuesday - St. Patrick's Day - the brewery began tapping green-decorated kegs of its new seasonal India pale ale. The beer is dubbed "Smells Like Freedom," in what must be one of the most unusual protests in the history of the District's protracted fight for full voting rights. [continues 563 words]
The weekend after marijuana became legal in the District, Capital City Hydroponics ran a sale on the indoor gardening kits needed to grow it. Business doubled. In a narrow Petworth basement stuffed with high-end gardening supplies, Michael Bayard gingerly explains that tomatoes are best grown indoors given the District's unfavorably dank weather. Tomatoes, it turns out, are cultivated similarly to marijuana. And since his shop, Capital City Hydroponics, opened in 2011, Bayard has often explained to customers how to grow the food - tacitly aware that some of them just go home and use their new tomato knowledge to grow pot. [continues 968 words]
During a visit with reggae singer Bob Marley in 1978, I asked him about the effects that smoking marijuana had on him. Relaxing in the sunroom of his home in Kingston, Jamaica, he said marijuana clarified his inner vision and inspired songs about peace and justice. Out of the "holy smoke," as Marley called it, came a plume of music that wafted far beyond the Jamaican shores, such as "Get Up, Stand Up" and another, written by fellow reggae singer Peter Tosh, called "Legalize It." [continues 632 words]
D.C. Business Owners Grapple With Diverse Needs As Laws on Marijuana Testing Evolve From white-linen restaurants to K Street law firms, D.C. employers have found themselves on the front lines of defining marijuana legalization in the nation's capital. If your employee shows up blearyeyed, can you do anything about it? And what protections will unions be able to offer? A survey of D.C. business owners and union leaders in the week since the District legalized possession, use and home cultivation of marijuana shows these questions have begun to fuel a lively debate in workplaces. [continues 933 words]
Here's the reality of the District's new law on legalized pot: Get busted while also holding two ounces of marijuana or less, and D.C. police will give it back to you. It happened this week at the 6th District police station in Northeast Washington. A man who had been arrested returned for the things that police take before they cart you off to jail. Among this man's possessions happened to be a small amount of marijuana - which police now view as property to store rather than contraband to seize. [continues 431 words]
After just five days of pot being legal in the nation's capital, the D.C. Council voted unanimously Tuesday to approve new limits on marijuana use. The legislation introduced last week by Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) prohibits smoking in bars, clubs and virtually anywhere outside a private home where people could gather. Although Bowser stood up to Congress last week and legalized marijuana over threats of jail time from House Republicans, the mayor immediately asked for the new curbs. She said they are needed to close a loophole in a voter-approved ballot measure that could allow clubs with membership fees and access to the drug to form in the city. [continues 673 words]
Adam Eidinger was flying high. As chairman of the DC Cannabis Campaign, he helped spearhead the push to legalize marijuana in the nation's capital. When the law went into effect Thursday, he retreated to his campaign headquarters and took a victory toke, then another and another. Now, just a few days later, Eidinger is feeling low. On Tuesday, the D.C. Council passed emergency legislation - offered by Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) - that Eidinger says will undermine some provisions of the original law and hamper further liberalization of marijuana use. [continues 631 words]
Homes Currently Only Legal Place for Usage The D.C. Council on Tuesday barred private clubs from allowing marijuana usage on their premises, dashing the hopes of some pot entrepreneurs who sought to host events where patrons could partake and share with others. The emergency legislation, which passed unanimously and takes immediate effect, says any business that violates the law could have its business license revoked. It clarifies pot legalization laws that took effect five days ago. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser sought the measure to close a loophole in the voter-approved ballot measure, Initiative 71, that she believed left room for clubs to potentially charge membership fees for access to pot parties. [continues 450 words]
Marijuana Convention in D.C. Helps Put Growers in Business Legally Part patchouli, part power suit, entrepreneurs and enthusiasts gathered over the weekend for the District's first cannabis convention since the city legalized recreational marijuana - offering a glimpse of the emerging markets that could take hold in the nation's capital. Although the faint smell of marijuana hung over the Southwest D.C. hotel's exhibition hall - where attendees could get tips on how to grow it, buy products to smoke it and speak with consultants on how to market it - nowhere could it be found. [continues 820 words]
The mind-altering-substance market got a little more crowded in Washington this past week when the District joined three states in allowing residents to possess and consume marijuana for recreational purposes. And despite the objections of some congressional Republicans, initially led by Rep. Andy Harris (Md.), who's quite keen to tell D.C. voters that he knows better than they do, the District is actually the best place in America for marijuana aficionados - in part because of Harris's efforts to block the will of the voters. [continues 344 words]
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan's (R) emotional disclosure that his cousin died of a heroin overdose shows that the tragedy of addiction is not restricted to any income class, ethnic group or geographic area ["For Hogan, the heroin crisis hit in the heart," Metro, Feb. 25]. Addiction afflicts individuals and families from all walks of life, in Maryland and across the United States. The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's 2013 Maryland Youth Risk Behavior Survey reported that 4.9 percent of the state's high school students have tried heroin at least once, 5 percent have tried methamphetamines and 3.9 percent have used a needle to inject these and other drugs. [continues 61 words]
Today, a rare consensus has emerged in favor of reforming our federal drug sentencing laws. This presents a historic opportunity to improve the fairness of our criminal justice system. But unless we act quickly, we risk letting the moment pass. The Justice Department has sought to be an early innovator on this front. A year and a half ago, I launched the Smart on Crime initiative- a comprehensive effort to reorient the federal government's approach to criminal justice. It focused on reducing the use of draconian mandatory minimum sentences for low-level drug offenses and deepening our investment in rehabilitation and reentry programs that can reduce the likelihood of recidivism. [continues 638 words]
In a chandeliered banquet hall not far from the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, a man with a Duke MBA and a Wall Street background offered the same sort of tips often given to aspiring entrepreneurs in places like this one: Develop a clear business plan; raise enough capital to weather setbacks; find a niche and own it. Listening were 150 or so people packed into rows of cushioned red-and-gold chairs at the District's first "Cannabis Academy," an event perfectly timed to capitalize on the rush from the city's newly legalized marijuana-growing marketplace. Butthe stereotypical images of stoner culture-leaf-adorned-Bob Marley flags and smoky photos of piled-high pot-were, by design, nowhere in sight at the Holiday Inn. The crowd, more grayhaired than long-haired, sipped coffee and thumbed through 100-plus page workbooks with categories such as "Legal" and "Accounting & Merchant Services." [continues 1233 words]
Sometimes it's hard to choose your poison, especially when all the options are horrible. That's what it's like when the District decides to take on Congress over an issue of self-government. The District's chances of winning such contests are small because of that pesky Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, which gives Congress the power to "exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over . . . the Seat of the Government of the United States." The "Seat" is us. Still, there are times when the District simply has to mix it up with Congress. The principle of self-government - the right of citizens to determine their own destiny - is too precious to forfeit out of fear that our overseers might take umbrage. [continues 708 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) - Defying threats from Congress, the District of Columbia legalized possession of marijuana for recreational purposes on Thursday, becoming the first place east of the Mississippi River with legal pot. The new law took effect at 12:01 a.m., despite last-minute maneuvers by Republican leaders in Congress and threats that city leaders could face prison time. Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser, who took office in January, said it was her duty to implement the initiative city voters approved overwhelmingly in November. [continues 554 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) - The new mayor of the nation's capital was hoping to get along fine with Republicans on Capitol Hill. Instead, they've threatened her with prison and she has accused them of acting like bullies in a showdown over legal pot that could end up costing District of Columbia residents dearly. Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser defied threats from Congress by implementing a voter-approved initiative on Thursday, making the city the only place east of the Mississippi River where people can legally grow and share marijuana in private. [continues 225 words]
Shortage Could Ease in D.C., As More Firms Have Registered to Be Growers Even as the nation's capital enters an uncertain new age of legal marijuana, the 2,500 District residents permitted to buy medical cannabis are facing a blunt truth of their own: There isn't enough pot to go around. For months, many of the marijuana-using patients registered with the D.C. Department of Health have been frustrated by a chronic shortage in the system's very limited supply chain. Since last summer, when the D.C. Council relaxed the rules for obtaining a doctor's prescription for cannabis, the number of medical users has soared past the ability of the city's three official growers to meet it. [continues 822 words]
With Sales of Pot Still Illegal in D.C. and a Clear Grow-Your-Own Message From Police, You'll Need Patience Before You Have a Supply The District's marijuana initiative offers many pitfalls for the cannabis connoisseur, with strict limits on how much you can have and where you can smoke it. JEFF CHIU/ASSOCIATED PRESS But the hardest part may be growing the stuff. Because marijuana sales remain illegal - unlike in states that have legalized recreational or medical use - the District's initiative is based on people growing their own. Or in the mantra of Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier: "Home use. Home grown." [continues 1205 words]
If marijuana is going to be as mainstream as chardonnay in our country's capital, it shouldn't be tough for a minivan-driving mother of two to find a pot party, right? Especially not if the city's stoners are lighting up in the wee hours Thursday to celebrate legalization. I tried a tweet. "So where's the pot party in D.C. tonight?" I asked, a few hours before the new law took effect. Nothing. I tried Facebook. "Well, I would [tell you where the party is], but since the law allows me to smoke it, but not to actually purchase it, it's a challenge," responded one of my Mommyland friends. [continues 1505 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) - The new mayor of the nation's capital was hoping to get along fine with Republicans on Capitol Hill. Instead, they've threatened her with prison and she has accused them of acting like bullies in a showdown over legal marijuana that could end up costing District of Columbia residents dearly. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, defied threats from Congress by implementing a voter-approved initiative on Thursday, making the city the only place east of the Mississippi River where people can legally grow and share marijuana in private. But Congress still has the final say over the city's budget and laws, and the Republicans in charge seem determined to make Bowser pay. [continues 531 words]
WASHINGTON - Some congressional Republicans said Thursday that they would increase their efforts to prevent District of Columbia residents from possessing small amounts of marijuana - which became legal Thursday - and warned that the city would face numerous investigations and hearings should the mayor continue her practice of telling them to please find something else to worry about. "We say move forward at your own peril," said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, echoing a letter he sent this week with Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., to city officials warning of legal action and ordering the district to turn over documentation on any employees involved with putting the law into effect. [continues 304 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) - The mayor of the nation's capital was hoping to get along fine with Republicans on Capitol Hill. Instead, they've threatened her with prison, and she has accused them of acting like bullies in a showdown over legal pot that could end up costing District of Columbia residents dearly. Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser defied threats from Congress by implementing a voter-approved initiative Thursday, making the city the only place east of the Mississippi River where people can legally grow and share marijuana in private. [continues 128 words]
Reaching Out to Hill Also Helped Bowser Ensure Low-Key Launch The mayor met with marijuana advocates to minimize drama. After staring down congressional Republicans who had threatened her with prison, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser helped usher in legal pot in the District this week with minimal fuss. But the work actually began 11 months ago in a Mount Pleasant coffee shop, when she struck a deal with marijuana advocates. Bowser secured a promise from leaders of the city's pot movement to keep legalization a low-key affair to avoid needlessly provoking opponents. Even though she hadn't yet won the Democratic primary, Bowser knew she didn't want to be mayor when images of weed-smoking crowds packed in public parks or around national monuments emanated from the city on national news programs. [continues 1237 words]
Advocates of Legalization Celebrate in Private; Police Report No Arrests D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser on Thursday sent emergency legislation to the D.C. Council to prohibit nightclubs, private membership clubs and virtually any other city-registered business from providing a venue for social marijuana smoking. The legislation is an attempt to rein in one aspect of the city's newly effective marijuana legalization law that Bowser (D) has said could produce confusion - and, potentially, more public use of the drug then she believes was intended under the ballot measure approved by voters. [continues 836 words]
Although marijuana became legal in the District of Columbia on Thursday morning, federal workforce rules remain unchanged for the roughly half-million U.S. government employees and military personnel who live in the area. After 12:01 a.m. Thursday, District authorities said anyone 21 and older could possess up to 2 ounces of pot, although the drug is still prohibited on federally administered properties, such as the Mall, Rock Creek Park and public housing. Despite the new policy, which resulted from an initiative voters approved in November, the U.S. government still considers marijuana an illegal drug and expects its civilian and military personnel to abide by federal guidelines. [continues 332 words]
WASHINGTON - The city that brought America government shutdowns and all-night filibusters is set to make pot legal Thursday. But by the time the chaos over implementing the law is settled, most everyone in the District of Columbia might wish they were smoking some. Residents voted overwhelmingly in November to allow growing and possessing small amounts of marijuana. But Congress, using its oversight authority over the nation's capital, inserted a provision into a massive December spending deal that prevented the local government from enacting the law. [continues 377 words]
Recreational Pot Use Becomes Legal in D.C., but Congress Calls the City's Law Invalid. WASHINGTON - The city that brought America government shutdowns and all-night filibusters made recreational marijuana use legal Thursday. And the foggy dispute over whether the law is even valid has probably made some people in the District of Columbia wish they were smoking some. It's a fight that could make sense only in Washington, involving language drafted in backrooms of Congress, partisan bickering and a disputed loophole that allowed the law to take effect at midnight. [continues 814 words]
Marijuana Legalization Seen As a Breakthrough for the Nation's Capital and a National Movement As Thursday dawns on the nation's capital, marijuana will be a legal intoxicant, though Washington will not be Amsterdam, or even Denver. There will be no pot shops, no open-air smoking, but at least for the moment, the District - for once in its decades-long struggle for the right to govern itself - has gotten its way, and a green rush is on. Despite a last-hours intervention by the Republican chairman of the House committee that handles D.C. affairs, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and D.C. Council members said Wednesday that they would not back down from implementing the will of the 70 percent of city voters who approved legalization in November. [continues 1845 words]
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. [continues 329 words]
D.C. lawmakers held steadfast that marijuana legalization laws would go into effect Thursday, despite threats from two House Republicans that doing so would put local government employees at risk of jail time. Local officials were put on notice late Tuesday in a letter from Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz saying that Congress is investigating whether the city violated federal law by spending money to implement a voter-approved initiative to legalize the possession and home cultivation of marijuana. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser responded Wednesday, saying the District is well within its legal right to implement the laws, which were set to take effect at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, and that she doesn't believe the implementation of Initiative 71 has cost the District any money. [continues 821 words]
The city that brought America government shutdowns and all-night filibusters is set to make pot legal on Thursday. But by the time the chaos over implementing the law is settled, most everyone in the District of Columbia might wish they were smoking some. Residents voted overwhelmingly in November to allow growing and possessing small amounts of marijuana. But Congress, using its oversight authority over the nation's capital, inserted a provision into a massive December spending deal that prevented the local government from enacting the law. [continues 148 words]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) Marijuana advocates' hopes that the US capital would easily follow in the footsteps of Denver or Seattle in clearing the way for lawful pot use are set to go up in smoke this week. Voters in the District of Columbia last year passed a measure clearing the way for pot possession, but members of Congress have used their power over the city to prevent local officials from coming up with any plan to let the drug be sold legally for recreational purposes. [continues 645 words]
Inside District of Columbia
