At last, some movement from the D.C. Council on the medical marijuana front. David Catania (I-At-large), along with nine of his colleagues, has introduced a bill that would establish a total of five medical marijuana dispensaries inside the District, as the Post reports. The bill is designed to put a 1998 voter initiative that legalized medical marijuana in D.C. finally into place; the law was never allowed to be implemented thanks to intervention by Congress, but those restrictions were lifted late last year.

So, what exactly is a medical marijuana dispensary, and how might five of them operate in D.C.? They’re basically government-approved and monitored clinics where patients with prescriptions can purchase weed legally. Typically they are run by private contractors, and they’re usually limited in how much pot they can sell you at one time, kind of like a pharmacy. In this case, Catania’s bill would only allow for a patient or a registered caregiver to get up to a 30-day supply at a time.

It looks like this bill has the votes to pass, but we expect there will be plenty of changes to the particulars while it makes its way through two committees. For instance, will doctors be totally in charge of deciding which patients can get medical pot, or will D.C. ultimately only allow certain kinds of medical problems to be treated with weed? Not to mention, who is going to be allowed to grow the stuff, and where?