nation’s capital even though Congress tried to stop it.
District of Columbia residents who are at least 21 years
old are free to grow as many as six plants and possess
as much as 2 ounces, as a measure approved by voters
in November took effect Thursday. It’s still illegal to
sell the drug or smoke it in public.
Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, allowed legalization
to begin over the opposition of federal lawmakers, who
have constitutional sway over the city. In December,
Congress attached a provision to the U.S. budget that
blocked the city from spending money to implement
the measure. District officials said it doesn’t apply
because the initiative was enacted before the budget.
The police chief and head prosecutor agree.
“The residents of the District of Columbia spoke loud
and clear,” Bowser told reporters Wednesday. “We
believe that we’re acting lawfully.”
The decision thrust the city into the expanding
nationwide push against marijuana prohibition. Alaska
on Tuesday became the third state to legalize
marijuana after Colorado and Washington. Oregon is to
follow in July, when a ballot measure takes effect.
Voters in at least five states, including California,
Nevada and Arizona, may consider similar measures in
2016, according to the Marijuana Policy Project, a
Washington-based group that favors legalization.
District of Columbia officials have already
decriminalized possession of as much as one ounce by
reducing the penalty to a $25 fine. The step, approved
last year, was aimed at concerns that drug-enforcement
laws were disproportionately affecting black residents,
who make up about half the city’s population of
646,000.
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