Category: Politics
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D.C. Effort To Decriminalize Psilocybin Mushrooms Gets Creative; Baltimore Psychedelics Info Online
COVID-19 won’t stop Decriminalize Nature D.C.’s goal of getting an initiative to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms on the ballot in 2020. After unsuccessfully asking Washington D.C. City Council and Mayor Muriel Bowser to allow online signatures due to the pandemic (which makes it impossible to gather signatures “IRL”), Decriminalize Nature D.C is now floating the possibility…
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Petitioning for Decriminalizing Psychedelics Gets Delayed Due to Coronavirus
Last Thursday, the D.C. Board of Elections voted 2-0 to allow the Decriminalize Nature D.C. organization to postpone petitioning for Initiative 81, otherwise known as the Entheogenic Plant and Fungus Policy Act of 2020. According to Marijuana Moment, the tentative new date for circulation approval is April 1. The board has not authorized a deadline…
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Coronavirus Threatens D.C.’s Success for Decriminalizing Psychedelics
The Decriminalize Nature D.C. organization has asked the D.C. Council and Mayor Muriel Bowser to develop and sponsor emergency legislation to authorize the Board of Elections to provide for online collection of signatures, citing the coronavirus. The organization will need to collect more than 35,000 signatures from D.C. voters to get their initiative that hopes…
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D.C. Council Candidate Christina Henderson’s Vision for Cannabis
After two terms as At-Large Councilmember, David Grosso is not running for reelection, but has instead chosen to endorse one of his former staff members: Christina Henderson. This Brooklyn-born candidate has a weighty past in the District, having influenced legislation on a variety of issues, ranging from D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) facilities to reproductive health…
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‘Connor’s Courage’ Hearing Makes Case for Medicinal Cannabis in Schools
Last week, at a hearing for House Bill 331, which would allow medicinal cannabis to be provided to people in public school with legitimate medicinal needs, 15 year-old Connor Sheffield told his devastating story before a room of sympathetic legislators one more time. “My intestines don’t move or absorb properly,” Sheffield, who has the autoimmune…
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2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates’ Views on Cannabis: A Guide
Cannabis, while it is not one of the main topics this election season, is one where most Americans agree. A majority of Americans (66%) now support cannabis legalization, according to a Gallup poll released October 2019. In 2010, Gallup recorded that nationwide support for cannabis legalization was at just 44%. Meanwhile, 91% of U.S. adults…
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House Bill 550 Wants to Increase Maryland Decriminalization Threshold
If legalization of cannabis for adult-use is ostensibly off the table in Maryland during the 2020 legislative session, then a House Bill sponsored by Delegate Nick Mosby will still lead to some incremental change: HB 550 increases the amount of cannabis categorized as a civil offense from 10 grams to one ounce and makes it…
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Pro-Cannabis Legislation in D.C. Worth Keeping an Eye On
In December 2019, all hopes for the possibility of Washington, D.C. passing any bill legalizing or regulating marijuana sales went up in smoke—again. Even so, there are several bills that are currently under review by the D.C. Council that are worth keeping an eye on. The $1.3 trillion federal spending bill that Congress passed late…
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David Grosso Wants D.C. to ‘Go Deeper’ with Cannabis Reform
While Washington D.C. Councilmember David Grosso is not planning on running for reelection, he still has high hopes for the future of the District. Expungement of cannabis-related records and a tax-and-regulate cannabis system are just a few of his plans, though he’s not alone. Mayor Muriel Bowser introduced the Safe Cannabis Sales Act in 2019,…
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How D.C.’s Cannabis Industry Changed in 2019
This article is part of a three-part series that summarizes notable moments in cannabis from 2019 for Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia. Two New Dispensaries 2019 started off with the opening of the first medical dispensary located east of the Anacostia River. In January 2019, Linda Greene is leading the new dispensary, called Anacostia Organics,…
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Maryland Senate Advances Several Weed Bills
“I don’t want another situation like last year where we end up in a stalemate and run out of time. The thought is, this has to happen now, and we have to start having these compromise meeting now to figure out where Dems are going to be and what we want,”…
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Del. Gabriel Acevero Gets A Hearing On His Forward-Looking Weed Legalization Bill, With Little Fanfare
Maryland Del. Gabriel Acevero made his case on Tuesday for a sweeping cannabis legalization bill that would automatically expunge records for many nonviolent drug offenses, as well as allow for the home cultivation of up to 24 mature cannabis plants. But only one other person showed up to testify in favor of it – a…