Don't mess with D.C. on pot legalization, congresswoman warns
Voters in the District of Columbia voted two to one to legalize marijuana for recreational use in last week's election, and if Republicans think they can block the expressed will of D.C. voters, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton said Thursday, they've got another thing coming.
Holmes Norton, who cannot cast a vote as D.C.'s sole delegate in the House of Representatives, said the District "should be able to legalize marijuana without federal interference."
She pointed to states like Colorado, Washington, and Oregon that have legalized the drug for recreational use in recent years, and she said none of those states have faced "possible nullification" of those laws by Congress. She urged lawmakers to "give the District the same benefit of the doubt."
The ballot question that legalized pot in D.C., initiative 71, would allow residents and visitors over the age of 21 to possess up to two ounces of the drug for personal use and to cultivate up to three cannabis plants at home.
D.C.'s mayor-elect, Muriel Bowser, has said the city will move forward with legalization after the city council passes separate measures to regulate the sale and taxation of marijuana.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Holmes Norton said D.C. has no interest in becoming a destination for pot tourism.
"We have to do it in a way so that we don't become the place to come to for pot," Holmes Norton explained. "So [Bowser is] trying to do it very carefully."
The measure is also subject to review by Congress before it can be implemented, and at least one area lawmaker has vowed to do everything in his power to prevent that from happening.
"Actions by those in D.C. will result in higher drug use among teens," GOP Rep. Andy Harris, whose district includes several D.C. suburbs, told The Washington Post the day after the election. "I will consider using all resources available to a member of Congress to stop this action."
Harris could attempt to muscle through a standalone bill nullifying D.C.'s legalization initiative, or he could attach language accomplishing as much to a larger spending bill in the hope that it might stand a greater chance of passing.
When the D.C. city council passed a bill earlier this year decriminalizing marijuana possession, the House, at Harris' urging, passed an amendment in June blocking the measure. That amendment never became law, but D.C. officials are worried the nullification effort could have more teeth with Republicans set to assume control of both houses of Congress in January.
Holmes Norton said Thursday that she's not encouraging anyone to smoke marijuana, although she said the drug is "practically ubiquitous" among young people today.
She suggested that many young people who experiment with the drug will eventually "outgrow" it, but she said a conviction for marijuana possession can drag down a young person's future for life. And those convictions, she added, fall disproportionately on young people of color.
Holmes Norton was joined by several Democrats at her presser, but her effort received some bipartisan cover from Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a conservative Republican from California.
Rohrabacher suggested law enforcement officials have far better uses for their time than prosecuting pot smokers, and he said he'd continue pushing his Republican colleagues to come around.
"If in the heartland of conservatism, I can get reelected, there's not a blowback, no pun intended on that one, that means that this issue needs to be looked at on a practical political level, and a lot different by my Republican colleagues," Rohrabacher said.