Statehood, pot legalization activists march against rider to overturn Initiative 71

On the 10th of December, opponents of a rider to overturn DC's voter-approved Initiative 71 marched from the Dept of Justice to the Heritage Foundation on Capitol Hill. Once in the Capitol Hill area they left the sidewalks and blocked streets the way civil rights protesters have been doing for the past few weeks.

This on the same day that Democrat Harry Reid got a sit-in in his office opposing his agreement with the GOP to sell DC voters down the river in return for GOP acceptance of a budget deal to keep the Federal government running and avoid a shutdown.

Initiative 71 legalized posession of small amounts of marijuana in DC, in part due to the overwhelming racial disparity in pot arrests. Now the Democrats in Congress have agreed with the GOP to overturn this ballot initiative to sweeten the Federal budget deal, once again throwing DC under the bus to avoid a shutdown that would mostly harm the GOP's brand name

If this rider goes through, DC's pot laws will revert to the criminal posession laws of last year and before. It would of course still be possible for the incoming Mayor to order all DC police not to enforce this law or risk being ordered to turn in their badges. The DC Council could vote to cut off all funding for police programs targetting pot-or even to cut off all funding for the War on Drugs entirely. Congress can block DC from spending money, but I don't think they can restore funds cut by the Council. There are a lot of things the DC Government can do to cripple enforcement of a law re-imposed by Congress and meant to be enforced by the DC cops and courts.

The Washington Post reports that incoming mayor Muriel Bowser might repond to this rider by attempting to implement the portion of the initiative that legalizes Marijuana without implementing the portion that would regulate sales, as only the latter requires any funding. It is that funding the Congressional rider would prohibit.

26 sec video-We voted, we counted, you must respect our ballot