Staff within the nation’s capital gained’t have to fret about getting canned over hashish, under a bill handed by the Washington, D.C. metropolis council on Tuesday.
The measure, generally known as the “Hashish Employment Protections Modification Act of 2022,” was accepted unanimously by the governing physique.
It now awaits the signature of Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser. According to National Public Radio, if Bowser have been to signal it, “the invoice will develop into legislation after a 60-day congressional overview and the invoice’s publication within the District of Columbia Register.”
The invoice doesn’t apply to each worker working in D.C. As the Washington Post noted, the legislation would “[make] exceptions, nevertheless, for staff in ‘safety-sensitive jobs,’ together with operators of heavy equipment, building staff, police and safety guards who carry weapons and medical professionals.” And, after all, the legislation wouldn’t defend the scores of federal staff from dealing with self-discipline in the event that they examined constructive for hashish.
The federal authorities, nevertheless, continues to exert its authority over Washington, D.C.’s hashish legal guidelines.
Voters in D.C. accepted a measure legalizing pot use for adults again in 2014, however leisure hashish gross sales are nonetheless unlawful.
That’s as a result of Congress, which has authority over D.C.’s legal guidelines, has barred the commercialization of weed within the metropolis in each appropriations invoice because the legalization measure handed eight years in the past.
There was hope final 12 months that Congress could lastly finish the restriction, after a draft invoice launched within the Senate final October didn’t embody the availability.
Bowser’s camp applauded that on the time.
“The Senate appropriations invoice is a important step in recognizing that in a democracy, D.C. residents must be ruled by D.C. values,” Bowser’s workplace stated in an announcement. “As we proceed on the trail to D.C. statehood, I need to thank Senate Appropriations Committee Chair, Senator Patrick Leahy, our good good friend and Subcommittee Chair, Senator Chris Van Hollen, and, after all, our champion on the Hill, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, for recognizing and advancing the need of D.C. voters. We urge Congress to go a last spending invoice that equally removes all anti-House Rule riders, permitting D.C. to spend our native funds as we see match.”
Republicans, nevertheless, weren’t happy.
“This one-sided course of has resulted in payments that spend in extra of the Democrats’ personal price range decision and fail to provide equal consideration to our nation’s protection. Their payments are stuffed with poison capsules and problematic authorizing provisions, and so they take away necessary legacy riders on subjects like terrorism, abortion, and immigration that for years have loved broad assist on either side of the aisle,” Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chairman Richard Shelby stated on the time.
By March, Shelby and the Republicans gained out, as the ultimate model of the appropriations invoice maintained the ban.
Teams such because the Drug Coverage Alliance and the American Civil Liberties Union lamented the event, saying that Washington, D.C. “stays the one jurisdiction within the nation that can’t regulate marijuana gross sales or fruitfully faucet into the general public well being and security advantages of legalization.”
“In a single hand, Congress continues to make strides in advancing federal marijuana reform grounded in racial justice, whereas concurrently being accountable for prohibiting the very jurisdiction that led the nation in legalizing marijuana by means of this lens from having the ability to regulate it. This battle and contradiction should finish now,” Queen Adesuyi, Senior Nationwide Coverage Supervisor for the Drug Coverage Alliance, stated in March.
Regardless of the ban, some retailers in Washington, D.C. have nonetheless managed to promote pot, usually by means of the observe of “gifting,” by means of which a enterprise sells a product (usually a t-shirt or hat) after which supplies the client with a “present” of weed.
In April, the D.C. Metropolis Council rejected a proposal to crack down on these retailers.