Washington, D.C. medical marijuana affected person registrations proceed to surge because the metropolis began permitting residents to self-certify and not using a physician’s suggestion—with this system including about 1,500 extra sufferers in September.
On the finish of final month, D.C. had 22,482 registered hashish sufferers, which is sort of two instances as massive because the affected person inhabitants round this time final yr, representing a 90 p.c improve in comparison with October 2021. The speedy improve in current months seems immediately linked to the self-certification coverage that was signed into legislation on July 6.
That legislation permits folks to fill out a easy kind to register themselves as sufferers with no need a health care provider’s suggestion.
In June, there have been 14,468 medical marijuana sufferers registered within the District. That rapidly rose to fifteen,730 in July and 21,051 in August earlier than leaping one other roughly 1,500 over the subsequent month.
Total, D.C.’s medical hashish affected person inhabitants grew 55 p.c from June to September.
D.C. Medical Marijuana Affected person Registrations October 2021-September 2022:
| October | 11,856 |
| November | 12,041 |
| December | 12,368 |
| January | 12,661 |
| February | 13,034 |
| March | 13,445 |
| April | 13,848 |
| Might | 14,211 |
| June | 14,468 |
| July | 15,730 |
| August | 21,051 |
| September | 22,482 |
This development may develop considerably since D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) signed one other invoice final week that enables non-residents to self-certify as nicely. Regulators on the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration (ABRA) can now present guests with a short lived, 30-day registration to purchase hashish from dispensaries below the emergency laws.
What’s extra, the emergency laws that lets grownup residents 21 and older to self-certify could be completely codified below a invoice that cleared the D.C. Council Judiciary & Public Security Committee on Friday. That measure additionally accommodates provisions eliminating present licensing caps for hashish companies, which may assist meet elevated demand from guests and residents.
The impact of those reforms is that the District is successfully circumventing a congressional spending invoice rider that blocks D.C. from utilizing its native tax {dollars} to implement a system of regulated, adult-use hashish gross sales.
The lately signed invoice, which unanimously cleared the D.C. Council late final month, additionally makes it so sufferers from different states—and even different nations—can self-certify to purchase medical marijuana like District residents can, even when they don’t seem to be registered as sufferers of their house jurisdiction’s program. It additional will increase the quantity {that a} affected person can possess from 4 to eight ounces.
Medical hashish program metrics for the month of September at the moment are accessible: https://t.co/iA9BtTI24k
— DCGov_ABRA (@DCGov_ABRA) October 20, 2022
The emergency act took impact with the mayor’s signature and sunsets 90 days after enactment. A complementary measure that will final for 225 days has additionally handed the Council is at the moment below evaluation by the mayor, who has till October 25 to behave on the proposal.
D.C. lawmakers moreover handed a associated decision declaring an emergency that necessitates the reform.
It says that whereas ABRA lately instituted a coverage offering non permanent, 30-day affected person registrations—which has resulted in additional than 5,000 registrations since August—there “stays a have to develop upon affected person entry to medical hashish for qualifying non-resident sufferers visiting the District of Columbia who should not enrolled in one other jurisdiction’s medical hashish program.”
The decision factors out that states like Hawaii and Oklahoma “already enable visiting sufferers from different jurisdictions to register and procure non permanent affected person registrations playing cards from the jurisdiction being visited to buy medical hashish.”
Whereas advocates have welcomed the legislative efforts to develop hashish entry within the District, many proceed to push for an finish to the federal blockade that’s prevented D.C. from establishing a regulated market, regardless of voters approving an initiative to legalize possession and private cultivation in 2014.
After President Joe Biden issued a proclamation earlier this month pardoning People who’ve dedicated federal marijuana possession offenses, in addition to individuals who’ve violated the legislation in D.C., U.S. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) known as on the president to go additional by federally legalizing hashish and letting the District set up a industrial hashish market and grant clemency by itself.
The congresswoman mentioned the continued native ban, which was maintained in Biden’s final two funds proposals, represents a “stunning violation of D.C. house rule by a Democratic administration.”
A ballot launched final month discovered that D.C. voters strongly help marijuana legalization and oppose a crackdown on the hashish “gifting” market that’s emerged within the absence of regulated gross sales.
D.C. lawmakers additionally lately despatched letters to Home and Senate Appropriations Committees management, imploring them to take away the rider stopping native hashish gross sales as a part of Fiscal Yr 2023 spending laws.
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The Home handed the related spending invoice for FY 2023 in July, excluding the D.C. marijuana prohibition language. Within the Senate, the laws that’s at the moment on the desk from the Democratic Appropriations Committee chairman additionally omits the rider.
Bowser, Norton and different elected officers within the metropolis have routinely criticized Congress for singling out the District and depriving it of the flexibility to do what a rising variety of states have completed with out federal interference.
Norton informed Marijuana Second in a telephone interview in July that she’s “pretty optimistic” that the rider is not going to be included within the closing spending bundle. She added that the D.C. self-certification coverage is an “efficient workaround” till then.
The affected person self-certification provision of the measure represents a big growth of one other piece of laws enacted into legislation this yr that enables folks 65 and older to self-certify for medical hashish and not using a physician’s suggestion.
In the meantime, the mayor signed a invoice in July that bans most workplaces from firing or in any other case punishing staff for marijuana use.
The reform is designed to construct upon on a earlier measure lawmakers authorised to guard native authorities staff in opposition to office discrimination as a consequence of their use of medical hashish.
Whereas in a roundabout way associated to the coverage change, a D.C. administrative court docket lately reversed the termination of a authorities worker and medical hashish affected person who was fired after being suspected of intoxication on the job and subsequently examined constructive for marijuana in late 2020. It additionally ordered the Workplace of Unified Communications (OUC) to reimburse the employee for all again pay and advantages.
Photograph courtesy of Mike Latimer.