Medical marijuana townhall at All Souls Unitarian Church in Columbia Heights.

As the weeks tick by with the District’s medical marijuana program in limbo, advocates are starting to get understandably impatient. The rules governing the program were debated and revised late last year, but have still not been approved by Mayor Vince Gray. The later Gray approves them, the longer it will take to seat the board that will regulate the program and the panel that will award licenses for the city’s five permitted dispensaries and 10 cultivation centers.

At a town hall meeting last night in Columbia Heights, a number of the program’s most dedicated supporters answered questions about where the program stood, and said they would be willing to backtrack on changes they pushed for if only to get medical marijuana flowing to the estimated 300 patients that will qualify for it in the program’s first year.

Adam Eidinger, a board member of the D.C. Patients’ Cooperative, told DCist that the group would now be fine if regulation of the medical marijuana program were left to the Alcoholic Beverage Control Administration (ABRA), instead of the Department of Health as they had requested.

“Yes, initially we always felt that the Department of Health should be monitoring this program and should be accountable for this program, because in other cities and other jurisdictions, health departments are who do it. However, in Colorado, the Office of Tax and Revenue, which also regulates alcohol, is regulating it [medical marijuana],” Eidinger said.