Pubdate: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 Source: Irish Independent (Ireland) Copyright: Independent Newspapers (Ireland) Ltd Contact: http://www.independent.ie/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/213 Author: Raf Sanchez, Daily Telegraph, London Page: 32 WASHINGTON WILL BE ON A NEW HIGH AS MARIJUANA IS SET TO BECOME LEGAL THE fresh air of the White House's rose garden may soon be fragrant with the smell of cannabis. On Tuesday, while other Americans are voting for their senators and congressman - residents of Washington DC are expected to vote overwhelmingly to legalise marijuana. The referendum would go beyond decriminalisation and give the drug full legal status, meaning it may one day be possible to set up a dope shop across the street from the halls of Congress. A yes vote in the US capital would be a hugely symbolic ripple in the wave of marijuana liberalisation sweeping America. Recreational cannabis is already on sale in Colorado and Washington state where the laws are more relaxed than Amsterdam - and may soon be legal in Alaska and Oregon. Medicinal marijuana, meanwhile, is available in half the country and polls show that for the first time a majority of Americans, around 58pc, support full legalisation nationally. The momentum for legal cannabis has come largely from the western United States, where libertarian instincts still run strong. Voters have concluded it is simply not the government's business to stop people smoking weed. But in Washington DC, where half the city's population is black, the case for cannabis is being made in terms of racial justice. Proponents of legal pot argue that existing drug laws are used disproportionately to prosecute young black men and point to police figures to support their case. In 2010, 91pc of all marijuana arrests in DC were of black people. Three-quarters of all civil fines for cannabis use are handed out in the city's black neighbourhoods. "Police use marijuana laws to harass people of colour," said Malik Burnett, a young black doctor helping to lead the legalisation effort. "The way to deal with that is to simply take marijuana out of the equation." Initiative 71, as the marijuana measure is formally known, would allow people to possess up to two ounces of cannabis for personal use and grow six pot plants in their own homes. If there is a yes vote, the city council is expected to move quickly to pass laws regulating how it is sold. Polls suggest Dr Burnett and his colleagues are on course for an easy victory. A September survey by the Washington Post found 65pc of voters back the initiative. Perhaps ironically, it is the African-American community that is the most ambivalent about the prospect of legal pot. While DC's affluent white population is expected to vote in favour of Initiative 71 by a large margin, the city's black residents are more divided. Those divisions were on display in the basement of the Michigan Park Christian Church, a historically black church in the northeast of the city. "I have a lot of fears about what this is going to lead to," said Dr Stephen Tucker, one of several black pastors who gathered at the church to listen to a debate between supporters and opponents of the initiative. "The church is always where people end up at when they've spent all their money, when their health is bad, when they're addicted, when their children have run away," he said. Opponents of legalisation have raised the spectre of a "Big Marijuana" industry which would pursue profits with the same ruthless disregard for public health as cigarette and alcohol companies. Washington DC was also scarred by the crack cocaine epidemic that swept the US in the 1980s and many in the capital's black community are wary of loosening drug laws. "Young guys my age do not need one more way to get high," said Will Jones, a 24-year-old African-American activist spearheading the fight against legal cannabis. "It's not going to help us in our education or our careers." Supporters of legalisation argue that marijuana use is already widespread in Washington and that keeping it in the shadows benefits only criminal drug dealers. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom