The Washington Post

The compromise legislation, which must go before the full House and Senate and could be voted on by week’s end, would end decades of prohibitions that city officials and activists say increased the number of impoverished children, expanded the number of people infected by HIV and AIDS, and blocked a District referendum 10 years ago that allowed the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

“This is a great triumph for the District,” Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said Wednesday. Although two votes remain, Norton said, “we think it’s over.” The financial services legislation that governs District spending is contained in a large package of bills, “and it will be hard to take this one out,” she said. “We’re almost home free.”

In 1998, D.C. voters overwhelmingly approved a measure to legalize the possession, use, cultivation and distribution of marijuana if recommended by a physician for serious illnesses. Initiative 59 passed with 69 percent of the vote, but before the law could go into effect, the Republican-controlled Congress enacted an amendment that blocked the city from setting its own drug policies.

It has taken a decade to persuade Congress to remove the impediment, said Bruce Mirken, communications director of the Marijuana Policy Project.

“It’s 11 years overdue,” Mirken said. “It’s about time the citizens of the District of Columbia had their own health policies respected.”

If the compromise bill is passed and signed into law by President Obama, the District would join 13 states in legalizing marijuana for medical use.

This is about about allowing DC residents to have the same rights as other US citizens to determine their own future. For too long, Congress has used the District’s budget as a club to enforce their own antiquated and morality-based views. The voting residents of the District have spoken (in the case of medical marijuana, they’ve spoken since 1998); it is time for Congress to step back and let the democratic process work.

UPDATE: THE bill passed Thursday evening 219-208.

The House began debating a bill (The Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Bill) Thursday that dances on almost every nerve in the social conservative body politic, touching on everything from abortion to needle exchange, gay and lesbian rights, charter schools and medical marijuana.

“We strongly oppose these changes,” declares the Republican committee report. “We do not believe increasing the availability of abortions or medical marijuana will improve the District of Columbia.”

Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the non-voting delegate from the District, took GOP members of Congress to task in their presumption to assert authority over D.C. home rule.

“Your lip service to local control, the time for that has run out,” she said. “We have profound disagreements on some issues, from abortion to vouchers. Go home and deal with them there. Allow us to deal with these issues in our own way as a local jurisdiction. I appreciate that the Rules Committee has indeed respected our citizenship and I demand that other members of Congress do so as well.” – The Huffington Post

So, is medical marijuana coming to the District? Stay tuned ..