After the success of Colorado and Alaska, Washington DC is the latest place to legalise marijuana in the US. Kind of a big deal considering it’s the capital. You’d imagine that now, a lot of other places are going to follow.
Weed has been in the news a lot recently, what with tripling your risk of psychosis, but also being named the safest of the toxic substances – around 114 times safer than alcohol.
President Obama has already commented that he hopes other states would start ‘looking into’ legalising the drug after Colorado police stated there has been no change in crime since they did so a year back. In fact, they’ve reported that it’s opened up a whole load of new jobs for people.
The new law comes into action at midnight tonight, with residents free to possess or use weed. If they’re over the age of 21, it’ll be fine to possess two ounces of cannabis, and they will be allowed to grow some plants at home. Buying and selling the drug will remain illegal, as will smoking it in public. Which is slightly odd, but hey.
Not everyone was pro the new law, however, and tensions between local officials and Congress have been heightened, with Congress warning mayor Muriel Bowser that she would be breaking the law, considering a national budget bill passed in December prevents the legalisation of marijuana in Washington.
But the mayor insists it’s all above board, because the voters approved the legalisation before Congress passed the budget bill.
Representative Jason Cheffetz told the Washington Post that she ‘can go to prison for this’, but Muriel Bowser’s response was: ‘We do disagree on a matter of law. There are reasonable ways to resolve that without us threatening him, or he us.’
Congress is expected to continue to pressure her into not passing the legalisation, so watch this space. Obama might not be smoking a J in the Oval Office quite as soon as we thought…
Like this? You might also be interested in...
Apparently Alcohol Is 114 Times More Dangerous Than Weed. Sorry, What?
Strong Cannabis Triples Your Risk Of Psychosis, Says New Research
[Digital Drugs Don’t Work, But #ASMR Can Give You Tingles*
*](https://thedebrief.co.uk/2014/11/the-digital-drugs-don-t-work-but-asmr-can-give-you-tingles)
Follow Stevie on Twitter: @5tevieM
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.