A pro-marijuana advocacy group in the United States is planning to hand out thousands of free joints during the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump in Washington on Jan. 20, in what the group says is part of a campaign of support for nationwide cannabis legalization.
RELATED:
Marijuana Worse Than Murder, Heroin Deserves Death: US
“You are cordially invited to join DCMJ for the inaugural #Trump420 taking place on January 20, 2017 in Washington, DC!” DCMJ, a Washington.-based group which focuses on marijuana laws and “equal rights for DC cannabis users, growers, and their families,” said in a statement on their website.
“We will gather on the west side of Dupont Circle at 8 a.m. for coffee and tea and parade down to the National Mall at 10 a.m. Along the way, we’ll hand out 4,200 joints of legally grown cannabis! At 4 minutes and 20 seconds into President Trump’s speech we’ll light up! (unless President Trump comes out now in support of full cannabis legalization in all 50 States and DC!)”
Washington passed Initiative 71 in February 2015 which allows the legal possession of small amounts of marijuana with certain restrictions related to age.
But the group says the action is not a protest against Trump or his policies but a chance to spread awareness on the issue of legalization.
“The main thing is to show that cannabis reform is not a partisan issue,” Nikolas Schiller, co-founder of DCMJ, told The Independent Wednesday.
“This is not a protest against Trump at all. It’s an awareness building activity. We’re going to hand out joints. It doesn’t matter what political affiliation you are.”
RELATED:
Why Almost Nobody Wants to Sell Uruguay's Legal Marijuana
But Adam Eidinger, the other founder of the group, told CNN Wednesday that his group would cancel the event if Trump reaches out to them and holds a dialogue on the issue of legalization.
Trump’s opinion on the legalization of weed remains unclear. However, many of his Cabinet members and Republican allies are not in favor of legalizing the drug.
The group said they are particularly worried about Trump’s pick for attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who had previously said, "Good people don't smoke marijuana."
For him, “grown-ups” do not smoke marijuana because it is not “the kind of thing that ought to be legalized, it ought not to be minimized, that it is, in fact, a very real danger."
DCMJ is worried that Sessions would seek to overturn gains made locally in Washington and other states in the country. “We also want to educate Trump supporters that we can do this legally," Eidinger argued.