The DC Board of Elections today officially certified for the November ballot an initiative that will legalize the cultivation and possession of small amounts of  marijuana. DC now joins Alaska and Oregon in voting on marijuana legalization this fall.

[image:1 align:right]The board certified Ballot Initiative 71, sponsored by the DC Cannabis Campaign. The campaign needed some 23,800 valid voter signatures to qualify for the ballot. It had turned in more than twice that number of raw signatures.

The initiative will allow adults 21 and older to possess up to two ounces of marijuana and cultivate up to six plants -- with no more than three being mature -- in their private residences. Adults will also be allowed to give away up to an ounce of marijuana, but any sales would still be criminal. The initiative will also remove penalties for using and selling marijuana paraphernalia.

Because DC law forbids taxation through the initiative process, the initiative does not create a system of taxed and regulated marijuana sales. If the initiative passes, it will be up to the DC city council to take the final steps toward full-blown legal marijuana commerce in the nation's capital.

"It is clear from the number of signatures the campaign was able to submit that the citizens of the district would like to have a say in reforming the marijuana laws of the District," said Dr. Malik Burnett, vice-chair of the DC Cannabis Campaign and the DC Policy Manager for Drug Policy Action, the lobbying and campaign arm of the Drug Policy Alliance. "The policies of prohibition in the District have been borne on the backs of black and brown men for decades, by voting YES on 71, District residents can put an end to this failed policy."

"This initiative comes at a great time and in a great place," said Major Neill Franklin (Ret.), executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. "The District has one of the country's highest rates of racial disparities in arrest and is right at Congress's doorstep, where more and more political leaders from both sides of the aisle are beginning to follow their constituents in recognizing that drug policy reform is one of the most effective ways to address the problems of our current criminal justice system."

According to an ACLU report released last year, Washington, DC has the highest arrest rate for marijuana possession in the country, with blacks more than eight times as likely as white to be arrested, despite similar rates of use.

Led by longtime DC political activist Adam Eidinger, the DC Cannabis Campaign counted on support of local citizens, Drug Policy Action, and Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps to come up with the money to make the ballot. Now, it's on to winning in November.