Trump Signs Bill Continuing To Block D.C. From Legalizing Recreational Marijuana Sales As Advocates Await Rescheduling Action
D.C. marijuana sales ban, still standing like a stubborn old diner that refuses to close, survived another round of congressional budget sausage-making. District voters greenlit adult use years ago—possession and home cultivation—yet the register never rings. Why? A federal appropriations rider, tucked into the Financial Services and General Government package, bars Washington, D.C. from spending its own money to legalize recreational cannabis sales. The president signed the latest spending bill, and with it, the blockade endures. It’s a tidy example of federal overreach meeting local democracy in a dark hallway, where the lights flicker and the bartender eyes the clock. For the cannabis industry impact, it’s the same headache: stalled legal cannabis revenue, deferred cannabis taxation, and a policy paradox that slows marijuana policy reform while the rest of the country keeps hustling forward.
The rider does its work in two strokes. First, no federal funds can be used to legalize or reduce penalties for Schedule I drugs or “any tetrahydrocannabinols derivative.” Second, D.C. can’t spend local funds to do the same for recreational purposes. Two sentences, endless gridlock. The language is as bureaucratic as a basement filing cabinet, and the kicker—“tetrahydrocannabinols derivative”—isn’t even defined in federal law. That vagueness breeds interpretive trouble: What’s marijuana? What’s hemp? What’s a derivative? A 2024 analysis from congressional researchers said if marijuana shifts from Schedule I to Schedule III, the District could, as a matter of local law, authorize sales, regulate the market, and levy taxes. That’s a big if, but it’s a door. The vehicle, for policy nerds, is the FSGG bill itself—yes, the one cataloged on Congress.gov—proof that a single line in an appropriations rider can hold an entire city’s cannabis economy hostage.
Meanwhile, the rider’s patron saint in Congress has his own subplot. Redistricting altered the political maps in his backyard, and analysts have floated that it could make him vulnerable. It’s a reminder that marijuana policy lives and dies not just on ideals but on district lines, committee chairs, and the particular flavor of a primary electorate after a long winter. Across the map, the action never stops. In the Sunshine State, the headlines ping-ponged when the Florida Attorney General Withdraws Supreme Court Marijuana Review Request After State Says Campaign Fell Short On Signatures, a sobering lesson in how close doesn’t count when the law demands precision. In the Midwest, a different beat: the Ohio Attorney General Approves Referendum To Reverse Marijuana And Hemp Restrictions, showing how public pressure can redirect the ship even after lawmakers tighten the screws. Democracy is messy. Cannabis policy more so.
D.C. knows the mess well. Medical cannabis is legal and humming, but adult-use sales remain a gray-market wink-and-nod, with “gifting” workarounds and storefronts that feel like a halfway house between prohibition and regulation. The Government Accountability Office once told Congress that, rider or not, the District could still prepare the scaffolding for a legal market—rules, frameworks, the skeleton of a tax system—so that when the politics catch up, the lights flip on. Yet federal lawyers swatted away a local hemp company’s lawsuit that tried to untangle the rider in court, arguing on procedural grounds until the case went quiet. One administration even pointed to D.C.’s reform period as some cautionary tale of disorder, as if the capital were a morality play rather than a living city. The deeper truth is simpler: without licensing and oversight, you don’t get safety or clarity or taxes. You get improvisation. And improvisation is no way to run a market for the long haul.
So where does this go? If rescheduling happens—if cannabis moves to Schedule III—the District’s legal gears could finally engage, despite the chest-thumping language about THC derivatives. Courts may need to decide what counts as a derivative, and whether that phrase swallows the whole plant or just the fringe chemistry. In the meantime, other states keep writing new chapters. Lawmakers in the Pacific Northwest moved to let adults grow at home, as seen when Washington State Senators Approve Bill To Legalize Marijuana Home Grow For Adults. Out on the Plains, vacancies open and regulators shift chairs, like when the Nebraska Governor Accepts Applications For Medical Cannabis Commission Opening Following Chair’s Resignation. Every step has an echo: market stability, patient access, consumer safety, tax receipts, small-business survival. D.C. waits for permission. The rest of the country keeps cooking. If you’re ready to explore compliant, high-quality options while the policy gods argue, pull up a chair and visit our shop: https://thcaorder.com/shop/.
