Politics
Trump Signs Bill Continuing To Block D.C. From Legalizing Recreational Marijuana Sales As Advocates Await Rescheduling Action
As advocates and stakeholders await action on a federal marijuana rescheduling proposal, President Donald Trump has signed large-scale spending legislation that continues a longstanding policy blocking Washington, D.C. from legalizing recreational cannabis sales.
Despite District voters approving adult-use legalization for personal possession and cultivation at the ballot more than a decade ago, local officials have been consistently prevented from allowing commercial sales due to an appropriations rider included in a funding bill covering Financial Services and General Government (FSGG).
That rider, championed by Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), was maintained in the latest version approved by Congress and signed by the president on Wednesay as part of a large-scale funding package.
Here’s the text of the D.C. sales rider:
“SEC. 809. (a) None of the Federal funds contained in this Act may be used to enact or carry out any law, rule, or regulation to legalize or otherwise reduce penalties associated with the possession, use, or distribution of any schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 801 et seq.) or any tetrahydrocannabinols derivative.
(b) No funds available for obligation or expenditure by the District of Columbia government under any authority may be used to enact any law, rule, or regulation to legalize or otherwise reduce penalties associated with the possession, use, or distribution of any schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 801 et seq.) or any tetrahydrocannabinols derivative for recreational purposes.”
For what it’s worth, while the rider was left intact in this latest FSGG bill, its main sponsor, Harris, may be at risk of being unseated in November due to redistricting in his state.
The Maryland House of Delegates on Monday approved a congressional redistricting proposal that would leave anti-cannabis Harris especially vulnerable in the next election, according to analysts, giving Democrats an advantage in the state’s first congressional district for the first time since the last map was drawn in 2011. It remains to be seen whether the Senate will follow the House’s lead to pass the legislation, however.
While the renewal of the rider represents a setback for advocates, congressional analysts say that, if federal officials follow through with moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), that could free up D.C. to create a system of regulated sales.
In a report published in 2024, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) said that while federal cannabis prohibition would still be the law of the land, it “would permit the District government, as a matter of local law, to authorize the commercial sale of recreational marijuana, establish market regulations, and levy marijuana taxes, among other policy options.”
There is a complication, however, because the congressional provision that’s been annually renewed since 2014 also stipulates that the District of Columbia can’t use funds to legalize or reduce penalties for “any tetrahydrocannabinols derivative.”
But that term isn’t clearly defined in the rider or anywhere else in federal law.
“The continued prohibition on legalization of tetrahydrocannabinols derivatives by the District could lead to interpretive questions about whether a particular substance is legally marijuana, hemp, a tetrahydrocannabinols derivative, or something else,” the 2024 CRS report says.
“Certain synthetic tetrahydrocannabinols remain illegal for recreational use under D.C. law, but it is not clear whether these synthetic substances would constitute derivatives,” it says. “In addition, although federal law defines marijuana and hemp to be exclusive of each other, a substance could conceivably be both a tetrahydrocannabinols derivative and marijuana or hemp as a matter of law.”
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One of the nation’s top cannabis advocacy groups, NORML, also posted an analysis in 2024 arguing that rescheduling could “open a door” for D.C. to finally legalize adult-use marijuana sales. The group suggested that the term tetrahydrocannabinols derivative “is unlikely to be interpreted by a court as inclusive of marijuana generally.”
In 2021, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) separately responded to a congressional inquiry and affirmed that, even with the D.C. marijuana sales ban in place, local lawmakers there can still take steps to prepare for the potential creational of a regulated recreational marijuana market.
Medical cannabis sales are already legal in D.C.
Last March, the White House claimed that marijuana reform in Washington, D.C. is an example of a “failed” policy that “opened the door to disorder.”
The Trump administration last year asked a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit from a D.C. hemp business challenging the federal government over the congressional budget restriction preventing cannabis sales.
About three months after Capitol Hemp filed the suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Justice Department in September submitted a motion requesting dismissal of the case, largely on procedural grounds. The court agreed the next month.
