Although
voters in Alaska, Oregon, and Washingtion, D.C.,
approved marijuana legalization on Tuesday, that does not mean
Colorado-style pot shops will be popping up in those jurisdictions
anytime soon. Here is what has to happen
first:
Alaska
Measure
2 takes effect
90 days after the election results are certified, which
according to the
Alaska Dispatch News is expected to happen in “late
November.” Sometime in February, then, the provisions related
to possession (up to an ounce), home cultivation (six plants, three
mature), and transfers (up to an ounce, “without remuneration”)
will kick in. Thanks to a 1975 Alaska Supreme Court ruling,
it is already legal to possess small amounts of marijuana in the
privacy of one’s home. Measure 2 expands that right to other
settings while explicitly protecting the right to grow your own pot
and share it with others.
Under Measure 2, Alaska’s
Alcoholic Beverage Control Board (or a special Marijuana
Control Board if the state legislature decides to create one) is
required to adopt regulations for commercial production and
distribution of marijuana “not later than nine months after the
effective date of this act,” which will be about a year from now.
The board is required to start “accepting and processing
applications” from would-be growers, manufacturers, and merchants
within three months of adopting regulations, and it is supposed to
act on each application within three months. That means the first
“registration” for a marijuana business might not be issued until
the middle of 2016. Allowing time for growing, harvesting, and
processing, marijuana could be available to sell in
state-registered stores by the end of 2016.
Oregon
Under Measure
91, adults 21 or older will be allowed to possess up to an
ounce of marijuana in public, grow up to four plants at home,
possess up to eight ounces at home, and share up to an ounce at a
time with adults “for noncommercial purposes.” Those provisions
take effect on July 1, 2015. The Oregon Liquor Control Commission
is required to adopt regulations for cannabusinesses by January 1,
2016, and start accepting license applications by January 4. There
is no specific time limit on processing applications, but the
initiative says “the commission shall not unreasonably delay”
action. Assuming it takes 90 days (the upper limit in Alaska), the
first marijuana businesses could be licensed in April 2016, so
legal recreational sales could begin a few months earlier in Oregon
than in Alaska, maybe in the fall of 2016. If regulators move
faster on applications, stores could open as early as that
summer.
Washington, D.C.
Initiative
71 does not take effect until after D.C. Council Chairman
Phil Mendelson submits it to Congress for review. For most
legislation, the review period
is 30 days, which is what the initiative itself indicates. For
legislation that changes Title 22, 23, or 24 of the D.C. Code, the review period is 60
days. The initiative does refer to Title 22, but only to say that
the fines listed there “shall be adjusted through implementing or
amending legislation enacted by the Council of the District of
Columbia to the extent necessary to ensure that this Act does not
negate or limit any act of the Council.” The D.C. Cannabis
Campaign, which sponsored the initiative, says that does not amount
to the sort of change that would trigger the 60-day review period.
Either way, if Congress does not pass a joint resolution
overturning Initiative 71 by the end of the review period, the
measure takes effect.
At that point adults 21 or older would be allowed to
possess up to two ounces, grow up to six plants (with no more than
three mature at any given time), keep whatever marijuana those
plants produce at home, and transfer up to an ounce at a time to
other adults “without remuneration.” Exactly when those provisions
take effect depends on when Mendelson officially transmits the
initiative to Congress. Nikolas Schiller,
director of communications for the D.C. Cannabis Campaign, says
Mendelson told the initiative’s backers he plans to treat it like
any other piece of legislation. But at a press conference on
Wednesday, incoming Mayor Muriel Bowser
said she does not want Congress to consider the initiative
under the D.C. Council has approved legislation dealing with
commercial production and distribution, which the initiative does
not address.
If Mendelson follows Bowser’s suggestion, Schiller says,
implementation of Initiative 71 would be delayed at least until the
middle of next year, and marijuana from licensed stores would not
be available until late 2016 or early 2017. The
campaign argues that the D.C. Council should respect the wishes of
the voters who overwhelmingly approved the initiative by letting it
take effect without delay. If the initiative goes to Congress this
year, D.C. residents could be harvesting homegrown marijuana by the
middle of next year instead of waiting for government-licensed
stores that might not open for another year or two.
Even if Congress does not pass a joint resolution rejecting
Initiative 71 or whatever bill the D.C. Council ends up passing, it
can block legalization by barring the District from spending money
to implement it. For years Congress used that technique to prevent
implementation of the medical marijuana initiative that D.C. voters
approved in 1998. Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), who unsuccessfully
tried to stop D.C. from decriminalizing possession of marijuana
this year,
says he will “consider using all resources available to a
member of Congress” to block legalization.
By contrast, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who starting next year is
expected to chair a Senate
committee that oversees the District of Columbia, has
said Congress should not override the will of D.C. voters. “I
think there should be a certain amount of discretion for both
states and territories and the District,” Paul
told reporters on Election Day. “I’m not for having the federal
government get involved. I really haven’t taken a stand on…the
actual legalization…but I’m against the federal government
telling them they can’t.”