The nation's capital may be the next state to legalize marijuana, if D.C. councilman David Grosso gets his way.
Grosso announced intentions to put forward a bill proposing the legalization of recreational marijuana use in Washington D.C. during a council meeting scheduled for Sept. 17.
"If we're going to have alcohol legal in this country, I don't see any reason why we couldn't have marijuana legal," Grosso told the Washington Times.
The proposed legislation will reportedly detail a plan that regulates and taxes pot sales while simultaneously making licensing requirements for the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration.
The bill also will reportedly allow smokers to grow a limited number of cannabis plants in their homes.
Grosso said he didn't think the bill would pass right off the bat, but is sure that, at the very least, discussion can open up surrounding the possible legalization of weed.
Ten out of the 13 council members in Grosso's district have voiced support for prospective legislation that decriminalizes carrying a bit of pot. But D.C. Council member Tommy Wells, one of the supporters of the bill, stated that just because someone is in favor of decriminalization doesn't mean they'll back legalization.
"The motivation for decriminalization simply has been the issue of the war on drugs and the disproportionate impact on African-American youths getting criminal records," Wells said.
According to statistics collected by the American Civil Liberties Union, black people are almost four times as likely to get handcuffed for holding marijuana as white people, despite the fact that white and black Americans smoke pot at around the same rate.
Mandatory minimums that come with laws surrounding the war on drugs land first-time marijuana offenders in the clink for years, even for a small amount of weed.
According to communications manager for the Marijuana Police Project reform group Morgan Fox, D.C. is one of the worst offenders for arresting a disproportionate amount of black people when compared to the number of whites taken in for marijuana possession.
"We need to start concentrating on actual violent crimes," Fox told the New York Daily News. "By arresting people for something that is safer than alcohol, you are slapping them with a criminal record...which is related to cycles of poverty."