The mayor of Washington, D.C. signed emergency legislation on Wednesday that will allow people to self-certify as medical cannabis patients and access dispensaries, without a doctor’s recommendation.
This comes a week after the measure was unanimously approved by the District Council.
The now-enacted legislation from from Councilmembers Kenyan McDuffie (D) and Mary Cheh (D) effectively creates a recreational cannabis system in the jurisdiction, enabling the District to circumvent a congressional rider prohibiting D.C. from using its local dollars to implement a system of adult-use marijuana sales.
Voters approved the legalization of personal cannabis possession, cultivation and gifting at the ballot in 2014, but there’s been no licensed retailers for non-patients. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) didn’t specifically weigh in on the congressional rider in her statement on the bill signing, but she said it was an important step forward.
“We have made it a priority over the years to build a more patient-centric medical marijuana program and this legislation builds on those efforts,” Bowser said in a press release. “We know that by bringing more medical marijuana patients into the legal marketplace in a timely manner and doing more to level the playing field for licensed medical marijuana providers, we can
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