The activist group from Washington D.C. who was behind the ballot initiative that made cannabis legal in D.C. – and who also had a “smoke-in” last April and passed out over 4,200 joints to be smoked during President Trump’s inauguration – is planning yet another act of civil protest to bring attention to the need for federal marijuana policy reform. DCMJ has two separate events planned for the month of April; the first taking place on the unofficial stoner holiday 4/20, and the second on the 24th when they expect more lawmakers to be at the country’s capital.
On April 20th the group will be giving away hand-rolled joints of locally grown marijuana just outside of the state capital – where it will be perfectly legal to do so. They are hoping to “destigmatize” cannabis by offering it to lawmakers, staff, journalists and really anyone with a congressional ID who is 21 years of age or older. By the way, this is the same group who managed to sneak marijuana into the office of Attorney General Jeff Sessions while he was still the Senator of Alabama – proceeding to roll a joint and offer it to him on federal grounds.
They will be taking things one step further a few days later on the 24th, when they are expecting more members of Congress to be in D.C. DCMJ is known for using smoke-ins as a tactic for protest, and even if not all pro-legalization groups agree with their approach they continue to use it as their method of getting their point across. This time, they are actually expecting to be arrested when they make the bold move to light up on Capitol building grounds, which is federal land where marijuana is still extremely illegal.
“I fully expect to be arrested that day,” Eidinger said.
The group’s previous attempts to be heard did get them a meeting at the White House – or more specifically, a nearby building – with a couple of officials who didn’t offer much in the way of a promising outlook, or any real idea of what the government was willing to consider at all. Of course, that was during the Obama Administration and the Trump Administration has been taking a much different – and sometimes confusing and contradicting – stance on marijuana legalization and how it should be handled at a federal level.
Considering the fact that the federal laws protecting medical marijuana could expire in the near future, this is a critical time to try and get the support of the federal government when it comes to giving the states the right to choose how to regulate marijuana. Whether or not this is the right way to go about making it happen, it certainly is a way to grab people’s attention, something the activist group is good at. We can only that they have some success with these two planned acts of civil disobedience – maybe even getting some of Congress to accept the gifted joints and hopefully not being arrested when they light up on federal grounds.
