The War on Cannabis Waterloo:The District of Columbia makes international news this month

In what some are
calling the “Waterloo” for the War on Drugs, Washington D.C. voters appear set
to legalize cannabis at the ballot box November 4. The District’s cannabis
legalization Initiative Measure 71 is polling at 65 percent “Yes” among likely
voters, and if it passes on Tuesday, the District’s old nemesis, Congress, may
be too divided to do much about it.

Congress controls the
funding of our nation’s capital—a city of 646,449 people. Congress blocked
medical cannabis for 12 years after D.C. legalized it in 1998. But this year,
the legislature can’t do much of anything. For once, Congressional inaction
looks to be a very good thing, said Dr. Malik Burnett, Vice-Chair for the D.C.
Cannabis Campaign, and DC
Policy Manager in the Office of National Affairs for advocacy group Drug Policy
Alliance.

The DC
Cannabis Campaign collected
more than 57,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot this year. Measure 71
legalizes possession of two ounces of the plant—equal to a two-month supply,
for a daily, one-gram user—for adults 21 and older. Those adults can also grow
up to three mature plants, and transfer up to an ounce to other adults 21 and
over. Measure 71 also legalizes owning a pipe or a “bong,” which is currently a
crime.

A September poll by Marist Institute for Public Opinion/Washington
Post found 65 percent of likely voters would support Measure 71—the highest
support ever polled for a cannabis legalization ballot initiative, DCMJ.org states.

The home turf of the
federal drug war overturning cannabis prohibition would be a powerful symbol,
said Burnett. Adam Eidinger, chair
of the DC Cannabis Campaign, called it the Drug War’s “Waterloo,” an allusion to
Napoleon’s history-changing defeat.

“That is not an
overblown statement,”
said Burnett. “Measure 71’s passage would further reiterate that the War on
Drugs has failed . . . It will make international news.”

The dominos are
already falling fast. This summer, the District’s City Council voted to
decriminalize personal possession of cannabis, making up to an ounce of cannabis
a civil fine of $25. The District also expanded its four year-old medical cannabis
program this summer, adding PTSD, chronic pain and many other conditions.

Congress has long been
a buzzkill of District reforms, but those days are over. To thwart the will of
the voters on Measure 71, Congress would have to pass a specific bill blocking
Measure 71, or attach an amendment to a must-pass budget bill. But such a bill
or rider cannot survive a sharply divided House and Senate, and a Presidential
veto. The White House threatened to veto a similar Congressional effort to
defund District decriminalization this summer.

Measure 71’s passage
has huge racial implications. The District is 50 percent black and 38 percent
white. Though both groups use cannabis at similar rates, the American Civil
Liberties Union finds District blacks are eight times more likely to be
arrested for cannabis than whites.

Black voters
nationally are split on legalization, and are “leery of the concept of drugs,
broadly speaking,” said Burnett. “But what the African-American community is united on is they are against the
continuous incarceration of people of color.”

Folks with cannabis
convictions would be able to enter the newly legal industry through a
commercial cannabis bill the District City Council plans to debate this winter.
“The District has the opportunity to be one of the vanguards of marijuana
policy in the nation, and we are reforming marijuana laws in the context of
racial justice,” Burnett said.