Washington, DC Emergency Act assists medical cannabis patients and pharmacies

Washington, DC city guides on Tuesday extended a lifeline to the district’s beleaguered medical cannabis dispensaries.

The DC Council unanimously approved an emergency law that would allow medical cannabis patients “whose cards have expired since March 2020 to continue using them to purchase medical marijuana until the end of January 2022,” reported the DCist website, and also created “a new one two-year medical marijuana card (instead of the current one-year card), increasing the amount of marijuana a patient can buy at one time from four to eight ounces.

The emergency measure, according to the website, is intended to help pharmacies that “have seen a sharp decline in business this year because many patients whose medical marijuana cards have expired during the pandemic have not yet renewed them.”

The bill was tabled by Phil Mendelson, chairman of the DC Council, who said he was motivated to act when a district-declared public health emergency ended this summer.

This resulted in “approximately 6,216 patient registrations for the district’s medical cannabis program”. [expiring] in a very short time to reduce the number of registered patients in the program from almost 12,000 to around 5,500, ”said Mendelson in a memorandum to the council at the end of last month.

DCist reported that there was “minimal” debate on Mendelson’s bill on Tuesday, although the vote on the measure was controversial at times.

One of the key sticking points, the website said, focused on provisions in Mendelson’s original bill that would have “strengthened civil enforcement against marijuana” gift shops “and delivery services, which have been increasing in number in recent years and are alleged to have stolen stores from the regulated medical marijuana program. “

Such stores have circumvented the ban on the commercial sale of marijuana by selling products such as T-shirts at abnormally high prices and then offering marijuana “gifts” to customers as part of the transaction.

Mendelson eventually dropped that provision after “an outcry from the business owners and their supporters,” according to the DCist.

“Because the usual illegal business does not follow the same rules as other licensees, it drives farmers, producers and retailers out of business. Finally, how can you compete with someone who doesn’t play by the same rules that you’re bound by, such as: Mendelson said as quoted by the website.

Mendelson’s concern about illegal cannabis sales in Washington, DC, underscores a dilemma surrounding cannabis sales in the district that has lasted years after voters there approved a measure to legalize recreational marijuana.

District voters legalized weed in 2014, but cannabis sales are still illegal in DC due to Congressional oversight of the laws in DC

Every draft grant passed by Congress since that legalization vote seven years ago contains a budget originally drafted by Maryland Republican Rep. Andy Harris that prevents the district from commercializing weed.

But there have recently been signs that the so-called “Harris driver” might not be in this world much longer.

Specifically, the grant bill tabled by the Senate Democrats last month did not include the rider, which was hailed by marijuana advocates and Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser.

“The Senate Grants Act is a critical step in recognizing that DC residents in a democracy should be ruled by DC values,” Bowser’s office said in a statement at the time. “As we continue our journey towards DC statehood, I would like to thank the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Senator Patrick Leahy, our good friend and Subcommittee Chairman, Senator Chris Van Hollen, and of course our Champion on the Hill, Congressman Eleanor Holmes, thank Norton for recognizing and promoting the will of DC voters. We urge Congress to pass a definitive spending bill that will similarly remove all anti-home rule drivers so that DC can spend our local funds at its own discretion. “