Ahead of Vox‘s favorite day to enjoy nature, D.C. gives us another reason to be glad Georgetown is located in such a liberal city.

A new poll released today by the Drug Policy Alliance and the Marijuana Policy Project found that 63 percent of residents supported enacting Colorado-esque legalization schemes here in the District. A further 78 percent of residents said that they would like to expand D.C.’s medical marijuana law so that doctors could prescribe cannabis to patients for any condition whatsoever. (The current law has quite restrictive limits on what conditions doctors may prescribe marijuana for.)

67 percent would like to see fewer police resources devoted to catching people who smoke weed. More than 4,000 people were arrested for marijuana possession in D.C. last year.

Mike Debonis over at the Post notes that, three years ago, the District was fairly evenly split when it came to the issue: 46 percent in favor to 48 in opposed. D.C. is likely following national trends which now show that a majority, or a near-majority, of Americans support the legalization of marijuana.

This most recent poll, however, has people talking about the possibility of a 2014 ballot initiative either decriminalizing or legalizing marijuana in the District of Columbia. Mason Tvert, the Marijuana Policy Project’s director of communications, told HuffPost D.C. that advocates of legalizing marijunana “will be talking to community leaders and elected officials about various options for adopting a more sensible marijuana policy in D.C., including the possibility of a decriminalization ballot initiative campaign as early as 2014.”

Who knows? If a measure does get sent to the ballot box, we might finally see droves of Georgetown students registering to vote in D.C.

Photo: Zervas via Flickr

Medical Marijuana has been legal for over two years in the District of Columbia, but, until now, the city lacked a regulatory framework for patients to purchase marijuana at licensed dispensaries. The district government recently licensed six facilities to grow cannabis and four dispensaries to sell marijuana and related paraphernalia to patients who are prescribed it by their doctor for specific medical reasons, such as cancer or HIV/AIDS.

Capital City Care on North Capital St. hopes to open by April and become the first legal and operational medical marijuana dispensary in the District, according to WJLA.

General Manager David Guard emphasized how tight the security will be in the shop. Before entering, patients will have to issue a government-issued medical marijuana card to the receptionist who will check names against a database. Inside the shop are biometric locks and security cameras to ensure security of the federally-controlled substance.

Perhaps to the disappointment of Georgetown students, D.C.’s requirements for obtaining a prescription for medical marijuana will be much stricter than Colorado’s, where 94 percent of users obtained their doctor’s notes for “severe pain.”

Critics argue that recreational users will fake illnesses in order to receive a prescription, but the owners of the facility insist that practice won’t happen in D.C. “That’s just not the case,” Guard told WJLA. “Not the case. This is about medicine.” In fact, the list of ailments for which a doctor could prescribe marijuana is quite restrictive: Only patents with HIV/AIDS, cancer, glaucoma, or severe muscle spasms along with people who are “undergoing medical treatments like chemotherapy, radiology, or protease inhibitors” are eligible to purchase marijuana legally.

Although commissioners of Georgetown’s ANC 2E had previously left the door open for open for the prospect of a medical marijuana shop opening in Georgetown, no one has proposed to establish one and having one remains unlikely. “The last I’ve heard, you’re only talking about five licenses for the whole city, so the notion that there would be more than one in Georgetown, I think is unrealistic,” commissioner Charles Eason previously told the Voice.

Marijuana of all sorts, of course, remains illegal on the federal level. At any time, the feds could shut down D.C.’s medical marijuana growers and dispensaries, as they have previously done in California. The Obama administration hasn’t yet indicated how it will proceed for D.C.

Photo: North Cascades National Park via Flickr

Last week, students moaned the unfortunate closure of our beloved Papa Razzi. In a cry of despair, Jane Hoya voiced what many of us were thinking:

THIS IS A TRAGEDY!!

doo$h, as always, provided some helpful insight. And a moment to reflect with Cafe Milano’s lobby-elevator-just plain awful music.

Hey, let’s take a break from crucifying blog editors and get back to the real issue. How am I supposed to get laid without this restaurant? It was great for dates. The food was good, it was pretty cheap but looked nice, and it was kind of loud so if you said anything awkward you could just pretend she misheard you. Now what am I supposed to do? Take a girl to Cafe Milano? Right, I’m going to spend 75 bucks to sit next to a Saudi guy getting assassinated by Pakistan. But it’s either that or go all the way to Texas just to play Super Mario Bros.
Also, check out http://www.cafemilano.net/ for the most ridiculous music

And last but not least, some Californian owner of Palm Desert Marijuana Dispensary apparently found our article on dispensaries in DC pretty useful.

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In the past few weeks, many Advisory Neighborhood Commissions in D.C. voted in favor of placing medical marijuana dispensaries in the city. So far, ANC 2B voted 7-0 in favor of a medical marijuana start-up Herbal Alternatives in West End. ANC 6B approved the Metropolitan Wellness Center’s application for a dispensary in Barracks Row, voting 9-0. ANC 4B voted this past Tuesday 6-2 to approve a dispensary located at 6925 Blair Road NW in Takoma.

However, on the same day that ANC 4B approved a dispensary, ANC 5C voted against an application from Center CityCare to operate one at 1334 N. Capitol Street NW. Six ANCs in 5C voted against the dispensary. The discussion centered on the possibility of increased crime, and the potentially negative effects the dispensary would have on neighboring businesses.

What does this mean for us? Based on the proposal approved by ward 2, a medical dispensary Herbal Alternatives might appear in DuPont. According to the DCist, “if granted licenses, the dispensaries will be able to sell up to two ounces of medical marijuana a month to qualifying patients or their caregivers.” The owner of Herbal Alternatives, Jennifer Brunenkant, submitted a letter of intent which was approved by the DOH last September. The location of the shop will reportedly be between L and M streets on 20th Street, just blocks away from GW and Foggy Bottom.

By the end of this week, the ANCs will submit recommendations to the Department of Health on the four medical dispensaries seeking licenses. The final approval from the DOH will be sent out June 25.

Via DCist

Just like last year, Vox is helping you get on top of “news you can use” with an excessively comprehensive review of last year’s important news stories. Today, we cover the off-campus issues that made headlines; noise, cronyism, and cannabis come after the jump.

We’ve got the campus plan blues

Every ten years, Georgetown must submit a campus plan to the D.C. Zoning Commission detailing proposed construction and land-use on its property.

Before the Zoning Commission approves the plan, it must hold hearings where civic associations in nearby Burleith, West Georgetown, and Foxhall Village can air their many grievances.

Neighborhood associations are irate [PDF] because some Georgetown students are loud and drunken. If the Zoning Commission doesn’t force us on-campus, they say, the neighborhood will become a “student ghetto.” To support this cause, which has gained the endorsement of several D.C. councilmembers, they are putting up yard signs, forming coalitions, and speaking out in public forums.

These activists also have recourse to a unique form of hyper-local government called the advisory neighborhood commission. There are 38 ANC’s throughout the city that provide official community input on everything from liquor licenses to traffic and land-use planning. In keeping with its history, Georgetown and Burleith’s ANC 2E opposes the 2010 Campus Plan. Because of clever gerrymandering of the dorms, there is only one student commissioner, Jake Sticka (COL ’13), on that commission.

The University, for its part, has tried reaching out to neighbors and stumping for support across the city. Georgetown has also ceded to several neighborhood demands, from scrapping graduate housing just off-campus to turning the Leavey Center Hotel into a dorm, in hopes of winning the endorsement of city agencies.

The D.C. Office of Planning didn’t return the love; they recommended a hard cap on undergraduate admissions and 100-percent on-campus residency. The Zoning Commission is due to issue its ruling in November. Depending on the verdict, neighborhood groups or the University will petition the D.C. Court of Appeals to reverse the directive.

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At this morning’s preliminary hearing, charges were dropped without prejudice against Howard Arenstein and Orly Katz, the married pair of journalists caught growing marijuana in Burleith.

According to Washington City Paper, the charges were dropped without prejudice at this morning’s preliminary hearing because prosecutors could not locate their only witness. The charge—possession with intent to sell—may be reinstated after prosecutors track down the witness.

Arenstein, a CBS Radio News correspondent, and Katz were arrested in October after a neighbor’s tip led to the discovery of 11 fully-mature marijuana plants in the backyard of their Burleith home. A single mature plant can produce up to a pound of marijuana. Although the charges implied drug dealing, a source close to the case told City Paper last month that the stash was likely used for medicinal purposes, not sold.

h/t Washington City Paper

Photo: Juliana Brint

According to the Georgetown Current [PDF], a one-time resident hopes to open a medical marijuana dispensary in Georgetown.

The man, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, has not yet filed an application with the D.C. government.

“I spent 6 years in Georgetown (1994-2000) living near the intersection of 31st and Q St. NW, where I ran an operation similar to what the new law proposes without a single problem from anyone except the police, with absolutely no regulation,” he wrote in an email to the Current.

After scoping out a few locations, the man claims he found “a willing landlord” who is interested in leasing space for the dispensary on Wisconsin Avenue near the Georgetown Public Library. However, the Current added, he is “open to direction from the community.”

Last May, the D.C. Council unanimously approved a bill to allow certain people to obtain marijuana from the yet-to-be-opened dispensaries. Those with chronic illnesses, such as cancer, gloucoma, HIV/AIDS, or multiple sclerosis, will be eligible to purchase up to two ounces of marijuana per month with a doctor’s prescription.

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