Washington DC bill allows medical marijuana patients to self-certify, bypass doctors and ban cannabis sales
Through
Washington, DC lawmakers gave the green light to emergency legislation to establish a recreational cannabis market by allowing people to self-certify as medical marijuana patients without a doctor’s recommendation and to purchase cannabis from licensed retailers.
The measure, sponsored by Council members Kenyan McDuffie (D) and Mary Cheh (D), was pushed ahead by a 13-0 vote by the entire Washington, DC Council on Tuesday, Marijuana Moment reported.
Photo by Maria Oswalt via Unsplash
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The legislation allows the district to bypass the annually renewed Congressional spending bill that has prevented DC from using its local taxes to institute a legal cannabis trade system, despite voters approving cannabis possession, cultivation and gift giving in 2014 to have.
Why this matters
Cannabis is perfectly legal in the country’s capital, but due to a convoluted bicameral omnibus spending account, the sale of marijuana is banned in the district, which is home to about 700,000 people.
A similar measure to provide the cannabis self-certification process, sponsored by district council chair Phil Mendelson (D), was rejected earlier this year due to separate regulations that would have been made on unlicensed businesses using the existing policy to “gift” marijuana “. People who buy unrelated products and services.
While those enforcement provisions were not part of the bill passed Tuesday, lawmakers touched on the issue in a resolution accompanying the law.
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“Because these businesses operate outside of the law, there is no requirement or enforcement of customer registration, including verification that buyers are of legal age,” the resolution reads. “Additionally, for gray market products, there is no assurance that the marijuana has been tested or appropriately labeled, raising concerns that products may be contaminated or otherwise unsafe for consumers and that the potency of purchased marijuana may differ from advertising.”
Seniors don’t need doctors to get medical marijuana
In February, Mayor Muriel Bowser signed legislation expanding access to the district’s medical marijuana program to people 65 and older.
Under this bill, seniors can “self-certify that they will use cannabis for medicinal purposes, rather than attaching a recommendation from their doctor to their application for registration, as is required for all other applicants.”
The measure also extended the enrollment grace period for other patients and instituted a week-long medical marijuana tax “holiday,” which coincidentally coincided with April 20.
This article originally appeared on Benzinga and has been republished with permission.
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