NBC4 reported last night that Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr. (D-Ward 5) will introduce emergency legislation limiting the number of cultivation centers that can end up in his ward.

As we reported last month, 26 of 28 applicants for the 10 cultivation center licenses found spots in Ward 5, almost all of them in a single ANC. The news provoked heated debate at a meeting of a Ward 5 civic association, where residents angrily decried the plans to cluster cultivation centers on their neighborhood. At the meeting, Thomas hinted that he would help local activists put a brake on the cultivation centers in their ward, and a proposed cap would do just that.

Ward 5’s complaints have deep roots. Some residents have long complained that the ward has been a breeding ground for strip clubs, and that cultivation centers would only further entrench the ward’s reputation as the place to put things that no one else in the city wants. Others have fresh memories of deadly drug feuds, and fear that any cultivation center or dispensary will only make crime in the ward worse.

But as the City Paper’s Lydia DePillis ably reported this week, potential cultivators haven’t selected Ward 5 because anyone thinks it’s the worst ward in the city — rather, it’s one of the few parts of the city where zoning regulations and real estate prices are exactly what the budding entrepreneurs want, need and are required to have.

This reality taps into the biggest problem that cultivators and dispensers will face moving forward — few residents understand the scope and regulations of the program. At the Ward 5 civic association meeting I attended, very few people even seemed to remember that 69 percent of D.C. voters approved a medical marijuana initiative 13 years ago. (In Ward 5, 63.7 percent of voters sided with the initiative.)

Moreover, explaining the ins and outs of the program’s regulations was left to the people applying for licenses to get into it. No one from the city was on hand to stress one simple point — the District’s medical marijuana program is the complete opposite of what has been set up in California. Those Ward 5 cultivation centers won’t look like head shops, much less will many people able to tell them apart from the other industrial spaces that dot part of the ward’s landscape. (According to the regulations, no one but employees and managers will even be able to walk into them.)

Fortunately, while the concerns of Ward 5 residents may well make it difficult for potential cultivators, it won’t make it impossible for them to set up shop. ANCs are given a voice in who wins one of the 10 cultivation and five dispensing licenses, but NBC4’s report quotes D.C. Department of Health Director Dr. Mohammed Akhter as stressing that they won’t have veto power.

Still, should Thomas’ legislation pass — he would need nine votes, which he might not be able to scrape together — the District would be left in the awkward position of having less than 10 cultivation centers for the program. Without those, the five dispensaries won’t have much marijuana to dole out to qualifying patients, likely pushing prices up higher than they’re already expected to be. If medical marijuana is substantially more expensive in a dispensary than it is on the street, well, it’s safe to say that free market economics will shape where people get their dosage.

There’s little doubt that marijuana remains a toxic public brand. As much as many people agree that it should be legalized or at least decriminalized, no one wants it in their own neighborhood. To ease any concerns in Ward 5, the District should take a more active role in explaining how the nascent medical marijuana program will work. Without that information available and clear to all, misconception will continue to drive much of the current opposition to the cultivation centers in Ward 5. The city should also consider loosening up some of the zoning restrictions so that potential cultivators have other places to go. Growing opposition in Ward 5 shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone in the District’s government — it was them, after all, that crafted the regulations that made Ward 5 one of the few places to set up shop.

Finally, the media — yes, NBC4, I’m looking at you — should probably refrain from using terms like “pot factories” or “pot farms.” Each cultivator will be limited to 95 plants, keeping their operations small. Calling that sort or scale a “factory” or “farm” needlessly overblows what will be an extremely regulated and limited program.