Voters in the District of Columbia approved Initiative 59, to legalize the medicinal use of marijuana, with 69% in favor in 1998. The effort was immediately put on hold after the US Congress passed the Barr Amendment, which prohibited Washington from using any of its funds for implementing its medical marijuana program. A decade later, in 2009, Congress finally overturned the amendment and the city could begin to implement the medical marijuana initiative in earnest. About four more years after that, the first sale of cannabis to a licensed medical patient occurred in the District of Columbia this week.
On Monday evening, the first medical patient in the city was able to walking into Capital City Care, a dispensary located on North Capitol Street, and purchase their medicine.
“After a couple of years of hard work, it’s exciting to open our doors and serve the patients our facility is really for,” Scott Morgan, communications director for Capital City Care, said to The Washington Post, “This is a moment we’ve all been looking forward to for a long time.”
Capital City Care is the first of three dispensaries expected to be open and operational in the near future, but despite this landmark moment, there is still work to be done before the system is fully functional and serving the needs of Washington’s patients in a sufficient manner.
Currently only 8 patients have received their approved medical marijuana cards and only about 20 doctors have received the required paperwork from the city to join the program.
NORML will keep you updated as the program moves forward. You can read media coverage from The Washington Post about this event here. You can view Capital City Care’s website here.
I believe medicinal marijuana should be legalized in the State of WI, because it’s alot better than giving people who are chronically ill and suffer with daily pain opiates!!!
Opiates are a heroin substitute that is very addictive even when being monitored on it and those medications have also ruined and takin many lives, whereas marijuana is a plant that grows from the ground n I’ve NEVER heard of anyone dying from it??!!
We need to legalize THC!!
2 words…
Scott Walker
We need to vote out the republicans to get any medical compassion in ths state!
Already ripping off needy patients. $250 for half oz! Street dealers win again. Move to Colorado. $150 oz EVERYWHERE!
All price need to be lower,
Michigan needs to get are dispenary open again
The Barr Amendment always struck me as the most un-American, anti-democratic act I’ve witnessed since the days of segregation.
In response to “growyourown”, you don’t have to go to Colorado for those prices. Oregon is the same, sometimes cheaper. It is the same whether street prices or at the dispensary. Washington state being legal has dropped prices quite a bit lately.
Peace out
Someone needed to be the first to roll in and request medicine. I am proud of said person.
@BlazeNoregon: Great response, expecting patients to pay $900-1000 a month for their medicine is so-Pharma. Especially something that’s so ‘dirt-cheap’ to grow once you’re ‘set-up’. Can’t wait until this ‘War’ is over! Legalization everywhere is our goal. Then we’ll see the many benefits this excellent plant, cannabis, has to offer. Blaze-on Oregon! And Washington State, too! Keep the Peace.
Greed, Power-hunger and ignorance know no political persuasion. Is there a list of Republicans, independents, and/or libertarians who endorse legalization? Starting with William F. Buckley, Jr. and Surgeon General Koop and New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson.
Congradulation, DC
Stoking…the rest of the Country to get ready, get ready! Watch the majority of the other States Flo one by one for Cannabis Prohibition to be Abolished!! Period!
Love ya!
Pray for Maryland…to flow in their bid to Help I’ts Cannabis Patients..including me…HELP!
I can’t wait for DC to legalize for I am so tired of injections to my hip and back. All of the medications are like placebo to me nor. When in the emergency room they have to create a cocktail to inject me with. So HE’LL YEAH!, I am happy about the news of.
We need medical marijuana in Texas. I have MS , and I am sick of taking manmade medicine , when God supplied us with a plant that will take care of all our needs
SICK IN TEXAS
I think this is an important step in the right direction. Prices typically start out high and taper down according to market conditions. Of course, patients deserve low cost, high quality medicine (like Colorado, where I choose to obtain my medicine), and should have government Grant funded / implemented programs to support those who cannot afford their medicinal cannabis. I believe it may take around a decade for the rest of the country to catch up, such as Texas (where I reside, unfortunately) and states like Tennessee where many in power are staunchly opposed to cannabis use whatsoever, although it is a huge part of the culture in that state. It is an incredibly easy commodity to produce, especially when you’ve become acquainted with production conditions, techniques, and other related variables. What everyone needs to understand is that it isn’t this big, bad drug that makes black men rape white women, or any other ridiculous stigma that it’s been very inappropriately branded with. The country is changing (with the help of George Soros) and hopefully these changes will happen sooner rather than later, but I can almost guarantee you that many of those in opposition will turn to cannabis investments when these archaic laws are overturned. Those in power will never let go, and if that means keeping marijuana illegal, they will allow us to believe they’re going to help us while they do the opposite (George Bush, Barak Obama). On this website, norml.org, it is indicated that there have been more than twice as many marijuana related arrests under Obama’s first term than there were under both of Bush’s. Not that Bush wasn’t totally f****** evil, but the data says it all. We need to educate our country, and we need to ensure that the Rand corporation isn’t behind the studies or data, so that we have honest, realistic research, results, hypothesis and conclusion. I think if it is rescheduled, big Pharma, and other big industries will jump on it and regulate it so strictly, that it may as well remain illegal, creating their oh so favorite black market. They (police dept’s, DEA, customs, etc) will continue to get tremendous funding for what they do best; arresting African American and Hispanic individuals so privatized prison stocks will continue to rise. The rich get richer, status quo maintained.