President Trump has signed a brand new government order launching a sweeping crackdown on crime in Washington DC, a transfer which might have main implications for the state’s hashish market.
Central to the order is the creation of the oddly-named ‘DC Protected and Lovely Activity Power’, tasked with ‘stopping crime, punishing criminals, preserving order… and selling the beautification’ within the state.
Whereas the chief order doesn’t introduce new laws particularly focusing on hashish, the accompanying reality sheet makes clear that the decriminalization of marijuana in DC is a degree of concern for the Trump administration.
Citing what it describes as failed native insurance policies, together with leniency on hashish and different low-level offenses, the administration hyperlinks DC’s method to a broader breakdown in public security and prosecutorial enforcement.
The actual fact sheet states that ‘DC’s failed insurance policies opened the door to dysfunction,’ explicitly itemizing hashish decriminalization alongside ‘catch-and-release’ pretrial insurance policies and rioter leniency.
Washington DC formally legalized adult-use hashish in 2017, however on account of its distinctive standing as a ‘federal district’, it’s straight ruled by the federal authorities relatively than having its personal unbiased legislature,
As a result of hashish stays federally unlawful Congress has largely blocked the implementation of its hashish programme, driving a booming gray market through which companies exploit a provision permitting the gifting of as much as two ounces to a pal with out fee.
The order empowers federal businesses, together with the Division of Justice, the FBI, and the US Lawyer’s Workplace, to coordinate with native regulation enforcement and pursue stricter enforcement of drug possession, use, and sale legal guidelines, notably on federal lands.
This may increasingly result in elevated crackdowns on cannabis-related exercise in federally managed areas just like the Nationwide Mall, Lafayette Park, and Rock Creek Park.
It comes as a crackdown on these grey-market shops continues at tempo. In response to The Outlaw Report, 41 previously unlicensed hashish storefronts have efficiently transitioned into the authorized medical hashish market, simply forward of the March 31, 2025 deadline set by metropolis regulators.
This marks a 170% enhance in transformed unlicensed shops in comparison with the earlier week and practically doubles the variety of operational medical dispensaries within the District.
The swift transition represents slightly below 50% of all unlicensed candidates tracked during the last 12 months by The Outlaw Report. As of April 1, 55 dispensaries are actually registered on METRC, the hashish monitoring system utilized by regulators, greater than a 50% growth within the authorized dispensary market in beneath a month.
