A Mayor’s Order published in today’s D.C. Register would allow a special committee to increase the amount of marijuana permitted per patient from two ounces to just under four ounces a month. The committee would also be able to add medical conditions to the list that would allow a patient to qualify for medical marijuana and increase the number of dispensaries in the city from five to eight. The number of cultivation centers, now pegged at 10, could also grow.

The powers granted to the seven-person Medical Marijuana Advisory Committee is included in a set of rules further outlining how exactly the program will operate. Last week, Mayor Vince Gray published long-awaited rules governing the city’s medical marijuana program; this week, he’s laid out who will be in charge of enforcing them and making the program work.

The Department of Health will be in charge of setting out exactly how medical marijuana will be recommended by physicians, doling out registration cards for patients, registering cultivation centers and dispensaries (and conducting unannounced inspections thereafter), and destroying or disposing of unused or surplus medical marijuana. The Metropolitan Police Department, on the other hand, will persecute any possible violations of the rules that may result in criminal prosecution, assess security plans for cultivation centers and dispensaries and conduct background checks on managers and employees.

The advisory committee — made up of members appointed by the director of the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, the chief of police and the City Administrator, as well as four members appointed by the director of the Department of Health — will basically run the program and tweak it as needed. (In an interview with TBD’s Bruce DePuyt today, Dr. Mohammad Akhter, who leads the D.C. Department of Health, estimated that the program should be fully operational by October; some advocates contend it will take longer.)

The powers granted to the committee are likely to make medical marijuana advocates happy — they’ve long pushed for an increase in the monthly ration a patient could claim, and they’ve also wanted to see more medical conditions added to the list that currently only includes HIV, AIDS, multiple sclerosis and glaucoma. The only thing the committee won’t discuss is whether or not to allow home cultivation, nor where the marijuana will come from to kick start the program.