District of Cannabis: how will Congress respond to marijuana legalization in the nation's capital?

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: Columns

Of the three jurisdictions where voters approved marijuana legalization in November, Washington, D.C., is the smallest but the most symbolically potent. The prospect of legal marijuana in the nation's capital dramatically signals the ongoing collapse of the 78-year-old ban on a much-maligned plant.

The passage of Initiative 71, which voters backed by a 2-to-1 margin, presents a challenge to the Republicans who now control both houses of Congress. Will they respect democracy and local control, or will they insist that Washingtonians toe a prohibitionist line that is steadily disappearing?

Initiative 71 allows adults 21 or older to possess two ounces or less of marijuana, grow up to six plants at home, and transfer up to an ounce at a time to other adults "without remuneration." It does not authorize commercial production and distribution, but the D.C. Council is considering legislation that would. "I see no reason why we wouldn't follow a regime similar to how we regulate and tax alcohol," incoming Mayor Muriel Bowser said after the election.

The initiative does not take effect until after D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson submits it to Congress for review. Congress then has 30 days to pass a joint resolution overriding the initiative.

Congress also can try to stop legalization by barring the D.C. Council from spending money to implement it. For more than a decade, legislators used that technique to block a medical marijuana initiative that voters approved in 1998.

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), who unsuccessfully tried to prevent the D.C. Council from decriminalizing marijuana possession last summer, said he will "consider using all resources available to a member of Congress" to stop legalization. He might have more luck this time, since his earlier amendment passed the House but not the Senate, which now has a Republican majority.

Then again, the House last May approved an amendment introduced by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) that was aimed at stopping the federal government from undermining medical marijuana laws. The amendment, which attracted votes from 49 Republicans in addition to 170 Democrats, explicitly applied to D.C. as well as the 23 states that let patients use...