Drug Policy

In 2009, noting that it was "allowing" the voters of Washington, D.C to vote on and implement that city's Legalization of Marijuana for Medical Treatment Law, Congress approved medical marijuana in the federal District of Columbia, over which it has all governmental power. On Dec. 2nd, 2011, in anticipation of the opening of dispensaries and cultivation centers, the District's mayor released final rules for the program.

States with medical marijuana programs should now be free from federal interference since Congress has allowed local control. Congress being the legislative branch of the federal sovereign and the only body that can change these laws has now done so by recognizing the voting rights of Washington, D.C. citizens. Likewise, Californians are equally protected and have the same voting rights in respect to medical marijuana. Speaking for the disabled plaintiffs in the California case Marla James vs. the cities of Costa Mesa and Lake Forest, attorney Matthew Pappas said, "Congress has turned over the area of medical marijuana to state and local governments. Through Congress's duty to equally protect everyone under the law, all patients in states with medical marijuana laws operating in full compliance with those laws should not, from now forward, be subject to previous long standing federal marijuana prohibitions."