A new bill in the D.C. Council would legalize and regulate the sales of recreational marijuana in the city, while also creating a novel reparations fund that would offer payments of up to $80,000 to people arrested, convicted, or incarcerated for marijuana-related offenses.

The legislation from Council Chairman Phil Mendelson and six of his colleagues is similar to a measure introduced two years ago, and for now is likely to suffer the same fate as its predecessor: legislative limbo. While most city officials have wanted to legalize marijuana sales for years, their efforts have been stymied by a seven-year-old congressional ban that Democrats failed to lift when they held the majority in the House of Representatives.

Still, lawmakers have introduced the bills as possible stand-ins in case the ban is lifted; the council even held its first-ever public hearing on legalizing recreational sales in Nov. 2021, where advocates offered input and guidance on how the city’s legal regime could look if it ever comes to pass. “We’ve improved [the bill],” said Mendelson on Tuesday. “I think the document should be out there for the public to look at. We want to be ready if and when the [ban] is lifted.”

Much like its predecessor, the new bill would broadly legalize, tax, and regulate the sale of recreational marijuana at dispensaries, like more than a dozen states have already done. (In Nov. 2022 Maryland residents voted to legalize possession of recreational marijuana, but allowing sales requires further action from the General Assembly this year.)

With an emphasis on what advocates call social equity — working to provide redress for the reality that the war on drugs disproportionately impacted Black, Latino, and low-income people — Mendelson’s bill would also expunge marijuana-related arrests and convictions and create a Cannabis Equity and Opportunity Fund to help fund marijuana businesses run by residents who were arrested for drug offenses or live in high-poverty areas. And it sets aside business licenses for people previously convicted of marijuana-related offenses or who have lived in low-income neighborhoods, and steers a percentage of tax revenue from sales to homeless services, economic development, and other programs in low-income neighborhoods.

In a novel addition, Mendelson’s bill would create a Reparations for Victims of the War on Cannabis Fund, which would absorb 40% of all tax revenues from the sales of recreational marijuana for 10 years and offer payments of between $5,000 and $80,000 to people arrested, convicted, or incarcerated for a marijuana-related offense prior to March 27, 2015. (That’s when Initiative 71, which legalized the possession, personal use, home cultivation, and gifting of small amounts of marijuana took effect.) Payments would also be offered to families of those people.

Advocates say that while some states that have legalized marijuana sales have taken steps to set aside licenses for minority applicants and otherwise ensure that communities impacted by the war on drugs can benefit from newfound business opportunities, none have proposed direct cash payments the way Mendelson’s bill does. Evanston, Illinois came close with a program that takes marijuana sales revenue and funds a $10 million grant program for housing for Black residents.

“I’m looking at it as a strategy to reverse the inequitable impacts of the war on drugs,” explained Mendelson. “How can we use this opportunity for [revenue] to the government, if we can tax and regulate cannabis, to do more to help with regard to the income disparities that were exacerbated by the war on drugs? I think it’s an interesting idea. Let’s see how it plays out in terms of reaction, suggestions for improvement, or criticisms.”

Much like in many other cities and states, arrests for marijuana-related offenses prior to the passage of Initiative 71 disproportionately targeted Black residents, despite the fact that marijuana usage rates were no higher than they were for white residents. In 2010, according to a report from the ACLU of D.C., 91% of all arrests were of Black residents, even as they only accounted for just over half of the city’s population. There is also a glaring racial wealth gap in D.C., which has prompted calls for lawmakers to ensure that when marijuana sales are fully legalized, Black and Latino residents are given the chance to enter the new market.

While Mendelson’s bill to legalize recreational sales will have to await congressional action on the ban, late last year the council did give approval to a separate measure that will dramatically increase the number of dispensers and cultivators of medical marijuana. That bill also includes a number of social equity provisions, including setting aside licenses for minority applicants, and makes permanent an emergency measure that allows people to self-certify for medical marijuana — a doctor’s prescription is no longer needed.