Washington DC Council Allows Adults Aged Over 21 Easy Access To Medical Marijuana

A proposal handed by the Washington D.C Council on Tuesday will quickly permit residents who’re 21 years and older to self-certify their eligibility for buying marijuana for medical functions.

The hashish invoice is the newest try by lawmakers to point out assist for town’s medical marijuana business, which they mentioned misplaced enterprise to extra simply accessible marijuana “gifting” outlets working within the district.

Unregulated gifting companies, which supply shoppers hashish as long as they buy one other merchandise like a sticker or poster, develop into common after 2014, when leisure marijuana use and possession had been legalized within the district, however not gross sales. Entrepreneurs say the gifting methodology was a means out of the restrictions imposed by the Congress, which stopped D.C from controlling its gross sales.

DC Council Chairman Phil Mendelson and different lawmakers are vital of the 40-plus marijuana gifting outlets within the district, arguing that these “gray market” companies pull residents away from town’s seven regulated medical marijuana dispensaries, that are topic to taxes.

On Tuesday, the council unanimously handed an emergency invoice that targeted solely on the self-certification facet. Mendelson has argued that getting a practitioner’s suggestion for medical marijuana is cumbersome, bringing about delays for residents who want remedy, particularly those that are uninsured or lack monetary assets, pushing them towards gifting companies as a substitute.

The Invoice mentioned, “Allowing sufferers to self-certify will present a vital stopgap measure to assist authorized marijuana dispensaries retain and even win again medical marijuana sufferers from the illicit gray market.”

In an announcement, the i-71 committee, which advocates for town’s marijuana gifting companies, mentioned that they had been supportive of a invoice, partly as a result of it will increase entry to marijuana “with out harming legacy hashish operators within the course of.”

Earlier this yr, the council had okayed a invoice, which permits residents 65 and older to self-certify for medical marijuana till September 30; everybody who self-certifies can be enrolled within the metropolis’s medical marijuana registry. Mendelson has vowed to pursue stronger penalties towards gifting outlets.

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