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Washington, DC Could Be the Next Place to Legalize and Tax Weed

A legalization measure will likely appear on the November midterm ballot.
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Washington, DC could be the next place to legalize marijuana in the United States after the city’s Board of Elections gave permission to a grassroots group to begin collecting signatures to put a legalization referendum on the November election ballot.

“We’ve got our first signature,” Adam Eidinger, a spokesperson for DCMJ, the group behind the initiative, told me from inside the election board office. “As I speak to you, there are a dozen people here getting their forms to go collect signatures.”

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In order to put Initiative 71, the “Legalization of Possession of Marijuana for Personal Use Act of 2014,” on the November ballot, they will need to collect 23,000 signatures by July 7, which shouldn’t be too hard to do in an extremely liberal city of 600,000 people. A Washington Post poll from January found that 63 percent of the city's residents favor legalization.

“I wanted to start collecting immediately. We’ll have 100 people hitting the streets in the next few days. Everyone thinks [getting the signatures] is a foregone conclusion, but from my perspective, it’s not foregone until we’ve concluded it,” Eidinger said.

We are distributing petitions! @YesOn71 is happening! #YesOn71 pic.twitter.com/SwUnRd874a

— DCMJ (@DCMJ2014) April 23, 2014

The legalization bill is more similar to the one in Washington state than it is to the one in Colorado: It would allow people 21 and older to have two ounces of marijuana for personal use, grow six cannabis plants, and transfer (without payment) up to one ounce of marijuana to another person. It would also legalize the sale of drug paraphernalia, which is a pretty big deal considering that police raided and shut down the city’s most popular head shop two years ago.

The tide has been turning in the city, however. After many hangups, the city recently opened several medical marijuana dispensaries, and last month the city council decriminalized pot.

The plan, if the measure passes, is to eventually have the city tax marijuana and to allow its existing medical marijuana dispensaries to sell weed to the public, just like they do in Colorado. The way DC law works, however, doesn’t allow ballot measures to create new taxes—a separate measure would have to be passed by the city council. So far, nine of the city’s 13 council members have suggested that they would support a measure to tax and regulate the sale of marijuana.

“Right now, the goal is to 100 percent remove the fear people have of being arrested,” Eidinger said. “But, we’re pleased that there are [medical marijuana] dispensaries open. If council decides, they can drop the ‘medical’ part and begin distributing to the public. That’s what they did in Colorado. We have a way to supply the public overnight if we choose to do so.”