WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Almost a year has passed since it became legal to smoke, but not sell, marijuana in Washington, D.C., and pot enthusiasts and opponents alike are chafing under a compromise that leaves smokers in a haze over how to obtain their weed.

Sales of equipment to grow the plants indoors are booming, bartenders are getting joints as tips and the city council is deliberating whether to license cannabis clubs.

Both smokers and police complain that the city's ban on sales, imposed by congressional conservatives, are leaving residents to bump up against legal limits around the drug.

We’re nearly a year into the District’s experiment with legal marijuana. But the rules on the books in the nation’s capital are very different from the ones in places like Colorado, where full-scale legalization is in place.

D.C. Council votes to create task force to study issue of marijuana in businesses - Washington Business Journal

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Tina Reed Staff Reporter Washington Business Journal

D.C. Council to consider permanent ban on marijuana clubs

Task force to study legal use of marijuana outside homes

Lawmakers in the nation's capital opened the door to allowing people to smoke marijuana in clubs that charge a membership fee.

The D.C. Council voted unanimously Tuesday to establish a task force to study how the city could allow pot smoking in places other than people's homes.

Possession of up to 2 ounces of pot for personal use has been legal in the District of Columbia since early last year. Congress has blocked local officials from any further liberalization of the city's pot laws.

A majority of the Council appears ready to broaden the law, but wants to avoid interference by Congress.

In a surprising turnaround, the D.C. Council is rethinking a ban on private marijuana-smoking clubs, as pot advocates press for places for residents to light up outside of their homes.

The council on Tuesday approved the formation of a task force to examine the feasibility of clubs for marijuana smokers, and postponed action on a bill that would permanently ban such establishments.

“Democracy and common sense prevailed in the District today,” said Kaitlyn Boecker, a policy analyst for the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA). “Today’s withdrawal of the permanent ban shows that elected officials have finally begun to heed their constituents’ wishes, but the fight for the creation of regulated places where adults can legally consume marijuana is far from over.”

When aging Grateful Dead members and their fans broke into song at Verizon Center late last year, a cloud of marijuana smoke rose from the audience. Under D.C. law, the collective exhale constituted more than enough for Mayor Muriel E. Bowser to swoop in and shut down the city’s marquee sports arena — not just for the night, but permanently.

Bad news for supporters of legal marijuana: One state's highest court recently announced it was voiding a decriminalization ordinance that passed last April.

Ready or not, here comes marijuana!

The past two decades have featured a fairly steady expansion in the legal uses of marijuana across the United States. Since 1996, when California passed Proposition 215, which allowed marijuana to be medically prescribed to treat select ailments, a total of 23 states, along with Washington D.C., have legalized the use of marijuana for specific approved conditions.

A months-long shortage of medical marijuana in the District has been eased in recent weeks by new growers moving into the city and a change in the law that doubled the number of plants producers can cultivate, according to buyers and suppliers.

The boost in supply has ended rationing and cut the price of cannabis for the 3,500 city residents legally allowed to buy it. During the shortage, some patients said they were forced buy marijuana from street users or turn to ad hoc networks of unsanctioned growers willing to provide it at low or no cost.

On Wednesday, it only took five minutes for the District of Columbia’s Judiciary Committee to be overpowered by the vote of the Chairman, Phil Mendelson (D), to move forward a bill to permanently ban the social use of cannabis in the District.

This means B21-0701, the “Marijuana Decriminalization Possession Clarification Amendment Act of 2016” will be scheduled for a second reading at another legislative meeting, as outlined in the legislation process on DCNA.org.

The D.C. Judiciary Committee voted to table the measure (3 – 2) but with the ‘yes’ vote from the Chairman of the Full Committee who was sitting in for Councilmember LaRuby May (D-Ward 8), the vote tipped in favor of passing the bill.