Final week, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson referred to as a vote on emergency laws that aimed, partially, to offer the Council the authority to close down any enterprise that presents marijuana. Though the proposed invoice did not pass (by just one vote), Mendelson’s invoice reveals ongoing rigidity concerning D.C.’s legally questionable hashish “gifting economic system” and the unsure future of those “I-71 Outlets.”
Should you comply with this weblog you could recall {that a} 2015 Congressional Rider that stops the District from utilizing its native tax {dollars} to implement business hashish gross sales, regardless of the approval of a 2014 measure that legalized marijuana possession, cultivation and gifting (Initiative 71), led to the creation of a “gifting economic system.”
Artistic entrepreneurs have used a provision in Initiative 71 that states it’s lawful for anybody 21-years of age or older to “switch with out cost (however not promote) as much as one ounce of marijuana to a different particular person 21-years of age or older….”. These companies promote gadgets unrelated to marijuana at marked-up costs and providing marijuana as a complementary reward with the transaction.
In response to the language of Mendelson’s emergency laws, dozens of unlawful hashish companies are working within the District, lots of which promote untraced, untested hashish primarily grown outdoors of the District.
The decision additional gives that these companies are usually positioned in areas the place authorized hashish services are usually not allowed, equivalent to in shut proximity to varsities and recreation services, elevating issues of youth publicity to hashish and hashish merchandise. As well as, Mendelson’s invoice explains that the unregulated nature of those I-71 retailers, which don’t pay the charges and taxes imposed on licensed medical hashish dispensaries, are placing the District’s authorized hashish companies at a aggressive drawback.
The gifter companies strongly opposed Mendelson’s arguments, arguing that their enterprise operations weren’t solely lawful, however have additionally created a various native business of hashish distributors that might function the inspiration of a correct leisure market if Congress ever allowed D.C. to legalize and regulate leisure marijuana gross sales.
In response to reporting by the DCist, the gifters have been advocating for artistic methods to control leisure gross sales and circumvent the congressional prohibition on legalizing gross sales by transferring the gifters into the medical program.
Solely time will inform how the District will finally select to deal with this situation however one factor is for certain, till the Council receives Congress’s inexperienced mild on regulating leisure hashish, I-71 retailers will stay below the Council’s radar and susceptible to enforcement actions.