Good stuff! :horns up :Smokey:

http://www.marijuana.com/news/2015/03/how-d-c-can-still-legalize-marijuana-sales-despite-congress

Top officials in Washington, D.C. are reviewing options for how to move forward with taxing and regulating marijuana sales despite Congressional efforts to stop the city from doing so, Marijuana.com has learned.

The District of Columbia has already defied Congressional attempts to block the implementation of a voter-approved measure to legalize possession of two ounces of marijuana and cultivation of six plants, taking advantage of a loophole in a federal budget bill’s language to put the law into effect last month.

While there’s an ongoing dispute about whether the District violated federal law by enacting that measure, many political commentators have said it’s clear that the nation’s capital is barred from enacting any further marijuana reforms such as a system to legalize, tax and regulate sales.

But recent history shows why they’re wrong.

Under the federal funding bill enacted late last year, the District is prohibited from spending any Fiscal Year 2015 funds "to enact any law, rule, or regulation to legalize or otherwise reduce penalties associated with the possession, use, or distribution" of marijuana.

But what most observers seem to have missed is that D.C. has other funds available which can still be used to pay for further marijuana reforms.

Specifically, the District has several emergency and contingency coffers that can be used for "unforeseen needs that arise during the fiscal year," such as "unexpected obligations created by federal law or new public safety or health needs or requirements that have been identified after the budget process has occurred."

These accounts have already been funded by Congress through appropriations acts in prior years, and thus are not affected by the much-discussed budget rider which only concerns Fiscal Year 2015 funds.

There’s precedent for using these monies to get around Congressional roadblocks. The District tapped its contingency reserve fund to keep local government operating during the 2013 federal government shutdown that happened when Congress couldn’t agree on a budget. Previously, when federal shutdowns occurred, D.C. closed down local services like trash collection because the city didn’t have current-year funds to pay for it. But this time, the District realized it could tap reserve funds set aside in prior years.

According to a memo from D.C’s then-attorney general Irv Nathan about the legality of doing so, the "contingency reserve funds have already been appropriated on a continuing basis," so further Congressional action "would not be necessary to allow the District to spend them."

One could easily make the case that there is a "new public safety or health" need to provide D.C. residents with a regulated avenue to obtain the marijuana they are now allowed to legally possess and use under the voter-passed Initiative 71. The black market from which now-legal users must currently obtain the drug requires no testing and labeling of the product for potency and purity. And if marijuana use rises in D.C. following its legalization, that means the size of the black market will increase, potentially leading to greater profits for violent gangs and drug cartels that often control the supply chain.

Legalizing and regulating sales, on the other hand, would give users the ability to purchase a wide variety of tested and labeled strains from reputable taxpaying businesses.

In an interview with Marijuana.com, District Councilmember Vincent Orange said there are "several options on the table" for moving forward with marijuana regulation, and using the reserve fund "certainly is one of them." While Orange would prefer to see Congress simply remove the marijuana rider language in next year’s budget, barring that, tapping the contingency reserves "would certainly get us around the current restrictions," he said.

The idea of using the contingency reserve fund to pay for marijuana regulation was first floated by Walter Smith of D.C. Appleseed, who also successfully convinced the District use those funds during the 2013 government shutdown.

"We do not think Congress should attempt to dictate how the District spends its own locally-raised tax dollars," Smith wrote in one of several blog posts on the topic. "But when Congress does so, we think District leaders should use all tools at their disposal to protect the will of District voters. Here, the District’s reserves are an available tool to do that."

Robert Marus, communications director for current D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, told Marijuana.com that his office is currently "reviewing this suggestion and any other legal matters connected to the implementation of Initiative 71."

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who was elected on the same day District voters approved the legalization initiative, has said she thinks regulating sales is an important piece of effective marijuana policy. She even went so far as to say at a press conference soon after Election Day that she wouldn’t allow the voter initiative’s legalization of possession and cultivation to be implemented before the District Council got a chance to enact legislation to tax and regulate sales.

But that was before Congress passed its budget rider ostensibly blocking further reforms.

D.C. officials have since taken advantage of a loophole they saw in the Congressional language, which simply bars the city from spending appropriated funds to "enact" a lowering of marijuana penalties. The mayor, the city’s attorney general and councilmembers argued that the measure was self-executing and that, by the time Congress got around to passing the budget bill in December, legalization was already "enacted."

Now advocates are pushing District officials to take advantage of the opportunity to tap the contingency funds to move ahead with additional reforms.

"A few House Republicans are trying to stop [D.C.] elected officials from passing legislation that will improve public safety and eliminate the illicit market," said Malik Burnett of the Drug Policy Alliance. "The Mayor and the D.C. Council should use the options on the table to pass this legislation, the people of the District of Columbia are watching to see if all the talk of Home Rule is just political lip service."

It’s an idea that D.C. officials appear to be seriously considering.

"I am very interested in finding a path forward to regulate the buying and selling of retail marijuana," Councilmember David Grosso told Marijuana.com. "From the very beginning, I did not think that decriminalizing the possession of marijuana went far enough. I’m opening to continuing that dialogue with my colleagues."

It appears to be a dialogue that will indeed continue.

Grosso has introduced a marijuana sales regulation bill that’s cosponsored by three other members of the Council. If and when D.C.’s attorney general officially weighs in on the legality of using contingency reserve funds for tax and regulate, the Grosso legislation will likely be the vehicle the city uses for its next act of defiance against Congress’s marijuana meddling.

:weedspin :weedspin :weedspin