Is Congress About to Make Weed in Washington, DC Both Legal and Unregulated?

With the the passage of a contentious $1.1 trillion federal spending package last night, the US House of Representatives may have effectively made Washington, DC the first unregulated zone for legal marijuana in the United States.

Earlier in the week, a deal struck between Senate Democrats and House Republicans effectively blocked a law legalizing marijuana in the District by attaching a rider to the 1,600-page federal spending bill. Congress controls DC's purse strings, and the rider effectively barred DC from using federal funds to implement the recently passed Initiative 71.

That measure, which 70 percent of DC voters voted in favor of last month, permits residents and visitors in the capital who are over 21 to possess up to 2 ounces of marijuana and grow up to three plants in their homes.

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All of that said, legalization is still very much a possibility in DC thanks to a potential loophole in the language of the measure attached to the spending bill.

The rider prevents the District from spending money to "enact any law, rule, or regulation to legalize or otherwise reduce penalties" related to marijuana. But as Eleanor Holmes Norton, DC's non-voting delegate to Congress, points out, that does not actually repeal legalization since — depending on legal interpretation — the law was already "enacted" when it was passed by DC voters.

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