Local
First D.C. medical marijuana dispensaries open
AIDS activists hail development; cautious reaction from federal prosecutor
Capital City Care sold its first doctor-approved dose of medical marijuana to an HIV-positive man on July 29. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Advocates for people with AIDS and other serious illnesses breathed a sigh of relief three weeks ago when the first of three dispensaries approved by the D.C. Department of Health to sell medical marijuana opened its doors about a mile north of the U.S. Capitol.
Capital City Care, located in a converted townhouse at 1334 North Capitol St., N.W., sold its first doctor-approved dose of high-grade cannabis to an HIV-positive man on July 29, 15 years after D.C. voters approved a 1998 ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana in the nation’s capital.
Medical marijuana advocates in D.C. said initial concerns that dispensaries could only accept payments in cash for a typical purchase of $250 or more and that the dispensaries would be located in unsafe neighborhoods, subjecting buyers to potential muggings, were largely unfounded.
Although the cultivation centers where the marijuana will be grown are in remote warehouse sections of Northeast D.C., most of the dispensaries are expected to open in safe neighborhoods, according to Ben Young, chief of staff for D.C. Council member David Catania (I-At-Large), who wrote the implementing legislation for the medical marijuana law.
One of the other two dispensaries that have so far been approved for a license, Takoma Park Wellness Center, recently opened in the city’s Takoma Park neighborhood at 6925 Blair Rd., N.W. The other one, Metropolitan Wellness Center, just opened near the Eastern Market Metro station on Capitol Hill at 409 8th St., S.E.
And officials with Capital City Care say they will soon provide a shuttle service to drive patients to and from central locations downtown or to a nearby Metro station. The officials also note that payment for marijuana supplies can be made by bank debit cards, although banks won’t allow patients to pay by credit card or check.
D.C.’s medical marijuana law encountered the first in a series of roadblocks shortly after the 1998 ballot measure passed with nearly 70 percent of the votes cast when Congress intervened by preventing the law from being implemented for more than a decade. When Congress finally lifted its hold on the law in 2009, the City Council and D.C. Department of Health began a laborious process of developing strict rules and procedures for licensing and approving cultivation centers and the dispensaries.
“It’s really gratifying that this 15-year journey has moved to where we are now,” said D.C. attorney Wayne Turner, who, in his role as a gay rights and AIDS activist, was among the leaders of the campaign in support of the 1998 ballot initiative.
“We still have Congress looming over our head,” he said. “And we have an administration that is not that supportive.”
(Photo courtesy of Capital City Care)
With that as a backdrop, both AIDS activists and D.C. government officials have said the additional four years it has taken to get the medical marijuana program up and running appears to have helped the city avoid some of the pitfalls encountered by medical marijuana programs in other states, such as California and Colorado.
Among the problems encountered by states that legalized medical marijuana in the past were threats by federal law enforcement officials to shut down the cultivation centers and dispensaries and arrest the people operating them by invoking federal drug laws under which marijuana remains illegal.
Federal law enforcement officials have backed down from those threats following strong objections raised by elected officials in the states that have legalized medical marijuana. But with the sale of marijuana for medical purposes set to begin in D.C., banks and credit card companies informed the Capital City Care dispensary that they would not approve payment for marijuana by credit card or check.
“They said the reason is the banks may not be able to file suit and go after someone for a bad debt if the sale is not legal under federal law,” said Patricia Hawkins, an official with the D.C. Community AIDS Network, which is partnering with Capital City Care to provide counseling services for its marijuana clients.
Hawkins, the former deputy director of the then Whitman-Walker Clinic, said banks have agreed to allow Capital City Care and other dispensaries expected to open soon to accept payment by bank debit cards, giving patients the option of paying by debit card or cash.
Meanwhile, spokespersons for the U.S. Department of Justice and the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C. told the Blade in separate statements that they don’t expect to go after the city’s medical marijuana dispensaries or cultivation centers for violating federal drug laws.
“The Department of Justice has advised U.S. Attorneys that prosecution of significant drug traffickers, including marijuana, remains a core priority of the Department, but that focusing enforcement efforts on individuals with cancer and other serious illnesses who use marijuana as part of a recommended treatment regimen likely is not an efficient use of federal resources,” DOJ spokesperson Allison Price told the Blade in an email.
Matthew Jones, a spokesperson for Ronald Machen Jr., the U.S. Attorney for D.C. who serves as the city’s chief prosecutor, released a similar statement to the Blade.
“With respect to medical marijuana, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia will abide by the Justice Department guidance issued to prosecutors that it is not an efficient use of resources to focus enforcement efforts on individual patients with cancer or other serious illnesses, or on individual caregivers who are not engaged in the commercial cultivation, sale, or distribution of marijuana,” Jones said.
Scott Morgan, a spokesperson for Capital City Care, said that under rules established by the D.C. DOH anyone seeking to buy marijuana under the city’s medical marijuana program must meet three requirements. They must have been diagnosed with at least one of several specified illnesses or conditions, including HIV/AIDS, cancer, MS, and glaucoma.
Next, they must be approved for marijuana treatment by a doctor licensed to practice in D.C. and who has been approved by the DOH to refer patients for marijuana treatment. And finally, the patient must be a D.C. resident.
A price list available on the Capital City Care website shows that a variety of strains of marijuana are available but all sell for $380 or more for an ounce. Patients can buy smaller quantities for as low as $20 for a gram.
Although the cost of marijuana on the street through the black market is about the same or possibly a little less, medical marijuana advocates such as Turner caution patients against buying their supplies on the street.
“You don’t know what you’re getting on the street,” Turner said. “Some impurities are mold and mildew. And that is harmful to people with an impaired immune system.”
Morgan said Capital City Care’s cultivation center is operated like a pharmaceutical factory where strict standards of cleanliness and organic growing conditions are employed to ensure that the marijuana is pure and free of contaminants.
District of Columbia
Bowser appoints first nonbinary person to Cabinet-level position
Peter Stephan named Office of Disability Rights interim director
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bower has named longtime disability rights advocate Peter L. Stephan, who identifies as nonbinary, as interim director of the D.C. Office of Disability Rights.
The local transgender and nonbinary advocacy group Our Trans Capital and the LGBTQ group Capital Stonewall Democrats issued a joint statement calling Stephan’s appointment an historic development as the first-ever appointment of a nonbinary person to a Cabinet-level D.C. government position.
“This milestone appointment recognizes Stephan’s extensive expertise in disability rights advocacy and marks a historic advancement for transgender and nonbinary representation in District government leadership,” the statement says.
The statement notes that Stephan, an attorney, held the position of general counsel at the Office of Disability Rights immediately prior to the mayor’s decision to name him interim director.
The mayor’s office didn’t immediately respond to a question from the Washington Blade asking if Bowser plans to name Stephan as the permanent director of the Office of Disability Rights. John Fanning, a spokesperson for D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large), said the office’s director position requires confirmation by the Council.
Stephan couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
“At a time when trans and nonbinary people ae under attack across the country, D.C. continues to lead by example,” said Stevie McCarty, president of Capital Stonewall Democrats. “This appointment reflects what we have always believed that our community is always strongest when every voice is represented in government,” he said.
“This is a historic step forward,” said Vida Rengel, founder of Our Trans Capital. “Interim Director Stephan’s career and accomplishments are a shining example of the positive impact that trans and nonbinary public servants can have on our communities,” according to Rangel.
District of Columbia
Capital Stonewall Democrats set to celebrate 50th anniversary
Mayor Bowser expected to attend March 20 event
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, members of the D.C. Council, and local and national Democratic Party officials are expected to join more than 150 LGBTQ advocates and supporters on March 20 for the 50th anniversary celebration of the city’s Capital Stonewall Democrats.
A statement released by the organization says the event is scheduled to be held at the Pepco Edison Place Gallery building at 702 8th St., N.W. in D.C.
“The evening will honor the people who built Capital Stonewall Democrats across five decades – activists who fought for rights when the odds were against them, public servants who opened doors and refused to let them close, and a new generation of leaders ready to carry the work forward,” the statement says.
Founded in 1976 as the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the organization’s members voted in 2021 to change its name to the Capital Stonewall Democrats.
Among those planning to attend the anniversary event is longtime D.C. gay Democratic activist Paul Kuntzler, 84, who is one of the two co-founders of the then-Gertrude Stein Democratic Club. Kuntzler told the Washington Blade that he and co-founder Richard Maulsby were joined by about a dozen others in the living room of his Southwest D.C. home at the group’s founding meeting in January 1976.
He said that among the reasons for forming a local LGBTQ Democratic group at the time was to arrange for a then “gay” presence at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, at which Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination for U.S. president and later won election as president.
Maulsby, who served as the Stein Club president for its first three years and who now lives in Sarasota, Fla., said he would not be attending the March 20 anniversary event, but he fully supports the organization’s continuing work as an LGBTQ organization associated with the Democratic Party.
Steven McCarty, Capital Stonewall Democrats’ current president, said in the statement that the anniversary celebration will highlight the organization’s work since the time of its founding.
“Capital Stonewall Democrats has been fighting for LGBTQ+ political power in this city for 50 years, electing people, training organizers, holding this community together through some really hard moments,” he said. “And right now, with everything going on, that work has never mattered more. This gala is the first moment of our next chapter, and I want the community to be a part of it.”
The statement says among the special guests attending the event will be Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta, who became the first openly gay LGBTQ person of color to win election to the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 2018.
Other guests of honor, according to the statement, include Mayor Bowser; D.C. Council member Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5, the Council’s only gay member; D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large); Earl Fowlkes, founder of the International Federation of Black Prides; Vita Rangel, a transgender woman who serves as Deputy Director of the D.C. Mayor’s Office of Talent and Appointments; Heidi Ellis, director of the D.C. LGBTQ Budget Coalition; Rayceen Pendarvis, longtime D.C. LGBTQ civic activist; and Phillip Pannell, longtime D.C. LGBTQ Democratic activist and Ward 8 civic activist.
Information about ticket availability for the Capital Stonewall Democrats anniversary gala can be accessed here: capitalstonewalldemocrats.com/50th
Maryland
Md. Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus outlines 2026 priorities
Expanded PrEP access among objectives
Maryland’s Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus outlined legislative priorities for the remainder of the General Assembly’s 2026 term during a press conference on March 5.
State Del. Kris Fair (D-Fredrick County) led the press conference. State Del. Ashanti Martinez (D-Prince George’s County) and other caucus members also spoke.
Caucus members are sponsoring 12 bills and supporting four others.
Martinez is sponsoring House Bill 1114, which would expand PrEP access in Maryland.
“PrEP is 99 percent effective in preventing HIV transmission,” he explained, noting PrEP’s cost often turns away potential users.
The bill aims to extend insurance coverage and expand pharmacists’ ability to prescribe PrEP along with other HIV treatments and testing. Martinez is working with state Sen. Clarence Lam (D-Anne Arundel and Howard Counties) and FreeState Justice on the bill.
The House Health Committee had a hearing last week that included HB1114.
“Ending the HIV epidemic is about expanding access and providing these life-saving tools to all persons in Maryland,” Martinez said.
Several other pieces of legislation were highlighted during the press conferences. They included measures focused on youth and education, birth certificate markers, so-called conversion therapy, and hormone medications.
State Sen. Cheryl Kagan (D-Montgomery County) is cosponsoring Senate Bill 950, which would update and strengthen conversion therapy laws. State Del. Bonnie Cullison (D-Montgomery County) has introduced an identical bill that would extend the statute of limitations on individuals who facilitate conversion therapy.
Kagan explained the bill would allow conversion therapy victims to come to terms with their experience undergoing the widely discredited practice that “creates shame and it silences survivors.”
When questioned, Fair explained the press conference happened late into the legislative session because “we [the caucus] are constantly having to respond in real time to what’s happening in Washington” while drafting and considering pieces of legislation.
The Frederick County Democrat described this session’s bills as the “most ambitious list of priorities to date.” Fair also described the caucus’s goals.
“It’s decency, it’s dignity, and its humanity,” he said.
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