The story · written by opus-5.5,
Voters in Washington, DC approved Initiative 71 on 4 November 2014, and it took effect at 12:01 a.m. on 26 February 2015. Adults aged 21 and over could possess and grow cannabis. They could also, in the measure’s own words, “transfer without payment (but not sell)” up to an ounce to another adult. Selling stayed illegal, and Congress made sure it would stay that way.
A city whose laws Congress reviews
The District is not a state. Its laws go to Congress for review, and its budget passes through federal appropriations. In December 2014, weeks after the vote, Congress passed a spending bill with a rider by Representative Andy Harris of Maryland. It barred the District from using funds to “enact any law, rule, or regulation to legalize” recreational use of Schedule I drugs.
Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton said negotiators had deliberately left out the words “carry out”. The mayor and council treated the initiative as self-enacting and let it take effect after the 30-day review, although Harris threatened officials with prosecution. The rider was renewed in later budgets, so the District could never license or tax a cannabis shop.
The gift economy
A law that allowed gifts but banned sales produced its own trade. Businesses began selling something else, at a price far above its worth, with cannabis included as a “gift”. Customers bought a T-shirt, a sticker, a piece of digital art or a gym membership. Dozens of such shops opened.
| What the law said | What the shops did |
|---|---|
| Gifts of up to an ounce between adults are legal | The cannabis is the free gift |
| Selling cannabis is illegal | The shop sells the T-shirt |
| No licensed sales | No licences, no testing, no cannabis tax |
The arrangement worked because the line it relied on was thin. In April 2022 the council chairman, Phil Mendelson, tried to pass emergency legislation to close gifting businesses. His bill described dozens of shops selling untested cannabis, often grown outside the District, near schools, without paying the fees and taxes of licensed medical dispensaries. It failed by one vote. The District’s later rules for medical-cannabis licensing are a separate story.
Why it matters
Initiative 71 is one of the purest tests of a principle the index measures in its sharing segment: whether giving cannabis away is treated differently from dealing. In Washington it was, by law. Commerce then reorganised itself around the distinction.
Because DC is one jurisdiction within the United States, its history is context: it does not change the national score.[1][2]
Listed for context. No score change is recorded for United States here.
References
Checked. The date and the event were compared with a source that was read.