D.C. smells like marijuana, and residents don’t really care
The first crop of homegrown pot is harvested inside an apartment in Washington. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)
By Perry Stein November 20 at 11:47 AM
The smell near the Columbia Heights Metro station Wednesday night was unmistakable. A lit joint in hand, Tony Lee stood outside a residence talking with friends as the typical evening bustle passed them by, no one paying the group of men any special attention.
“The community I’m in, everyone engages in smoking,” said Lee, a 34-year-old District resident who runs his own small construction firm. Plus, he said, if he’s not smoking, he smells the remnants of other people getting high throughout the city on a daily basis anyway.
“I’ve grown accustom to it,” he said.
This cavalier attitude toward marijuana — and the distinctive waft that accompanies it — seems to be the new norm in D.C in the year since the city voted to legalize possession of small amounts of pot.
According to a new Washington Post poll, 57 percent of District residents say they smell marijuana at least once a month. And of these residents, 45 percent say the once-illicit scent doesn’t bother them at all, and 17 percent say it doesn’t bother them “too much.” Fewer than 4 in 10 respondents say they are irked at least some by the smell.
This prevalent and very public perfume may be a new feature of the nation’s capital, but these statistics are just building on residents’ long support of laxer marijuana laws.
In November 2014, 70 percent of District residents voted in favor of Initiative 71 — a ballot initiative that legalized the growing and possession of marijuana. Initiative 71 went into effect in February, and since then, support for the law hasn’t lost any steam.
Sixty-nine percent of residents still support the law, according to the poll. The numbers most notably break down along generational lines: Only 41 percent of residents 65 and older support marijuana legalization, but the number jumps to 64 percent among 40-64 year-olds and 82 percent among those younger than 40.
There was also a gap between the rate at which black and white residents support the new law. The poll found that 79 percent of white people were still in favor of the law, and 60 percent of black people were in favor of it. But, while lagging behind white residents, support among black D.C. residents has grown rapidly in recent years. In 2010, a Post poll found that just 37 percent were in favor of legalization.
This persistent support for the law is similar to what played out in Colorado, where 55 percent of voters legalized marijuana in 2012. Since then, support for the law has remained steady there, according to Quinnipiac University polls.
“It continues to be a hot-button issue for the under 40 voter group, and any politician that discounts the influence of this generation in the future won’t be in politics very long,” said Adam Eidinger, the activist who helped lead the political fight to pass Initiative 71 and owns a marijuana paraphernalia store in Adams Morgan. “No one in the local government can take credit for this issue, the only reason why this moved is because the people spoke out.”
Support is relatively even across all wards, but in Wards 1, 7 and 8, residents report smelling marijuana more often. In Ward 1 — including U Street NW, Adams Morgan and parts of Columbia Heights — a whopping 70 percent of residents say they smell it once a month or more. That dips to 62 percent in wards 7 and 8, but frequency stands out east of the river: Thirty-two percent say they smell marijuana “every day.” That compares to wards 2 and 3, where only 8 percent smell weed daily.
“People aren’t as discreet as they were before it was legal,” said Wuan Smith, a 21-year-old who says he smokes on a regular basis in his Ward 8 Congress Heights apartment, and smells marijuana smoke from others in his neighborhood just as frequently.
Smoking in a private home in D.C. is legal under Initiative 71. The law says people can possesses up to two ounces of marijuana, grow plants in their homes and consume it in private —noncommercial — places.
When activists pushed for marijuana to first be decriminalized in July 2014, then later legalized, they framed it as a civil rights issue, citing statistics showing that nine out of 10 people arrested in the District between 2000 and 2010 were black, even though blacks and whites use marijuana at similar rates.
In the first year since the laws have been effect, arrests have predictably plummeted. In 2013, before marijuana was decriminalized or legalized, the police in D.C. arrested 1,215 people for pot possession.
So far this year, all D.C.-based police agencies — including federal agencies — have arrested only seven people, according to statistics from the Metropolitan Police Department.
“I don’t find [the smells] super offensive,” said Lena Amick, a 24-year-old Columbia Heights resident who says she doesn’t smoke, but voted in favor of Initiative 71 because of the unequal arrest rates. “People can choose to do what they want to do.”
Possession of marijuana is legal, but selling it is still prohibited under the law. Because D.C. is not a state, Congress has the power to meddle with the city’s laws. Republican members of Congress tried to prevent Initiative 71 from becoming law but ultimately just blocked the city’s ability to pass laws regulating sales of the drug.
According to the Post poll, 74 percent of residents think the city should be allowed to regulate and tax the sale of marijuana. Even many older residents who oppose marijuana come on board for giving D.C. the authority to regulate marijuana: Sixty-six percent support this, compared with 41 percent who support legalization in general.
“I didn’t vote [to legalize marijuana] because they didn’t have all the ducks in a row. You have street vendors still, you are still promoting illegal sales,” said John, 64, a retired electrician who didn’t want to provide his last name because of the sensitivity of the issue. He and his wife have lived in Ward 5’s Bloomingdale neighborhood for more than 30 years and say they smell marijuana coming from their neighbors’ back yards more than ever before.
“We are not so much bothered,” he said. “It’s just that when people come into our home, they may think it’s ours.”
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