Voters legalized possession, use and home cultivation of small amounts of marijuana in our nation's capital in November 2014, but since then, Congress has had it in for the initiative and has been hell-bent on squelching it, if even by subtle maneuvers. Congress also seemed determined to put a stop to any move by the D.C. Council to regulate and tax marijuana–as Colorado and Washington State have done, and Alaska and Oregon are in the process of doing. (All of the District's laws are reviewed by Congress before they can become fully legal–hence the current situation.)
In December, Congress included language in an amendment to a major federal spending bill that seemed to overturn Initiative 71, and even–as the Washington Times reported–appeared to retract D.C.'s marijuana decriminalization laws, passed in July 2014. The Washington Times article stated, "The 'rider' … prohibits federal or local funds from being used to 'enact or carry out any law, rule, or regulation to legalize or otherwise reduce penalties associated with the possession, use, or distribution of any schedule I substance.'" (Marijuana still is considered illegal by the federal government and is listed as a Schedule I substance by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.)
D.C. voters and legislators have been in limbo, with the possibility of a law suit even looming over legislators' heads. "Prohibitionists in Congress have floated the idea of suing D.C. if it moves forward to implement the voter-passed law. In other words, the fate of legal marijuana possession and cultivation in D.C. could depend on a court’s interpretation of the word 'enact,'" reports Marijuana.com.
Advocates of D.C.'s legalization initiative have argued that the law has passed, and, therefore, it is already "enacted." Any funds used would be to implement the law, not "enact" it.
Now, President Obama seems to be aiming to stifle this argument with the administration's 2016 federal budget plan. As Marijuana.com reports, "Tucked inside the 2,000-page, $4 trillion Fiscal Year 2016 Budget, the President is proposing that the District of Columbia should be able to spend its own money regulating marijuana however it wants. And he’s accomplished it with the simple addition of just one word: 'Federal.'”
In part B of Section 809, outlining the restrictions on spending to enact marijuana laws, Congress had specified in its spending bill:Â "None of the funds contained in this Act may be used to enact any law, rule, or regulation to legalize or otherwise reduce penalties associated with the possession, use, or distribution of any schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act," as Marijuana.com outlined.
The President's language simply added the word "federal" to clarify "None of the federal funds …" This would suggest that D.C. could spend local funds however it wished, as related to the subject.
As Marijuana.com notes, however, "The president’s budget request is merely the opening volley in a months-long back-and-forth negotiation with Congress. It remains to be seen what language will be included in the appropriations legislation that actually gets enacted into law, most likely later this year."
