In the past five months, a significant number of DC voters have changed their tune about drug policy. Poll results released on September 2 by the Campaign to Decriminalize Nature DC show that three in five, or 60%, of DC voters support Initiative 81, the “Entheogenic Plant and Fungus Policy Act of 2020,” which aims to decriminalize plant and fungi medicines, making them the lowest priority for law enforcement. 

The results mark a 9% increase in support from April 2020. The poll, sponsored by the New Approach PAC and conducted by the polling firm FM3 Research, surveyed likely November 2020 voters via 620 live telephone interviews from August 16 to August 24, 2020. 

The most lenient states permit consumers to purchase almost every CBD type irrespective of its source or intended use.

As of 2018, all 50 states have officially legalized the use of hemp-based CBD products. In the United States, governing officials initially classified CBD, hemp, and marijuana as harmful substances. However, recent medical insight encouraged federal authorities to legalize industrial hemp and CBD on a national level.

For routine CBD consumers, legalization may be good news. Though CBD-based products are manufactured and distributed throughout the United States, you’ll need to remember that each state has set its own rules regarding CBD use.

Five years after the legalization of cannabis in Washington, D.C., racial bias is still prevalent in arrests for marijuana-related offenses in the nation’s capital, according to an analysis of police records by the Washington Post. Between 2015 and 2019, nearly 90% of those arrested for cannabis-related crimes in Washington, D.C.

The history of cannabis laws and regulations in the United States is a complicated, convoluted affair that has arguably only gotten more confusing as more and more states launch legal medical and recreational marijuana programs. The result can sometimes be, well, a bit odd.

The following is a short list of some of the stranger cannabis regulations currently on the books in the US. 

1. Don’t transport marijuana by boat in California 

Make sure not to run fowl of the law in California. (wiroklyngz/123rf)

Some D.C. patients will soon be able to have medical marijuana delivered to their home temporarily, as part of the District's response to the new coronavirus, also known as COVID-19.

Mayor Muriel Bowser and the D.C. Department of Health introduced emergency rulemaking to allow registered dispensaries in the District to dispense to qualifying patients via delivery, curbside pickup, or at-the-door pickup.

The story of cannabis legalization is, in part, a real estate story, as cannabis business owners buy and rent storefront property, scope out cultivation spaces, and engage with zoning boards. Today, eleven states and Washington, D.C. have legalized adult use cannabis, and a number of efforts to legalize by ballot or by legislature are underway, from New Jersey and New York to Oklahoma. 

This week, the House Judiciary Committee voted to pass the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, or the MORE Act, to decriminalize weed at the federal level.

As lawmakers in the Capitol debated this move, all around them in the District of Columbia, the herb in question was circulating widely, being “gifted” and enjoyed freely, if not for free, and perfectly legal.

In September, Washington D.C. mayor Murial Bowser brought an end to months of anxious waiting on the part of city workers who lawfully consume cannabis. The new mayoral order clarified that the use of cannabis for any reason cannot prevent a person from getting or maintaining a government job. The order also blocked any city agencies from setting their own workplace marijuana policies.