The D.C. Board of Elections gave a green light Wednesday for campaigners to begin collecting signatures to put a marijuana legalization initiative on November ballots.

“I just want to thank board members,” D.C. Cannabis Campaign organizer Adam Eidinger said during a well-attended meeting packed with supporters. “I am very thankful we are making it to this day.”

About two dozen eager canvassers promptly fanned out across the city with petition forms.

The legalization campaign must turn in approximately 22,373 valid signatures by July 7 to score a spot on the November ballot, said Karen Brooks, D.C's voter registrar, citing current registration statistics. More than 5 percent of registered voters in five of the eight city wards must sign the petition.

The board previously approved the initiative’s language in March, ending months of uncertainty about that major hurdle to ballot access. Since D.C. initiatives cannot appropriate funds, campaigners floated a trial balloon last year to feel out how to best write an initiative that could win approval. That resulted, in part, in a delay that shortened the petitioning window from the maximum 180 days allowed to just 75 days.

Despite the jubilation of legalization advocates, a critic stirred some concern Wednesday among board members.

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Dorothy Brizill of D.C. Watch said a pro-pot activist told her outside a primary voting location April 1 that he was collecting signatures for ballot access.

“I believe you have a situation today,” she said. “I do not believe they have a great deal of experience.”

Eidinger told board members about 60 campaign supporters were canvassing April 1 to identify supporters in anticipation of petitioning.

One volunteer was “extremely overzealous with their outreach,” Eidinger said. The man skipped a two-hour training session, begged to help and then did not read the instructions on a clipboard he was given, Eidinger said.

“We learned a lesson,” the organizer assured board members. “We’re not just handing [petition forms] out to whoever wants them.”











After the first week, Schiller says, the campaign will develop a game plan for more targeted collection and begin verifying the initial pool of signatures.

Grant Smith, policy manager of the Drug Policy Alliance, showed up to cheer on the activists.

“We are enthusiastic about the opportunity for D.C. residents to weigh in on this important issue,” he says. Thousands of arrests can be avoided with legalization, he points out.

D.C. had a higher per capita arrest rate for marijuana possession than any American state in 2010, according a June report from the American Civil Liberties Union. Police arrested 5,115 people in the city for marijuana possession that year, nearly 91 percent of whom were black, according to the ACLU.

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Paige McCormick, who writes thank you cards to the campaign’s donors, says a lawyer, a lobbyist and a personal trainer were among those writing checks.

“It’s not just your college stoner looking to get marijuana legalized,” McCormick says. “It’s an issue that is affecting everyone.”

Polls suggest city residents favor legalization by a wide margin. A Washington Post poll released Jan. 15 found 63 percent support for legalizing the drug for personal use. An April 2013 poll conducted by Public Policy Polling found 63 percent support for regulating pot like alcohol.

The D.C. initiative proposes legalizing possession of 2 ounces of marijuana for adults over age 21 and allowing cultivation of six plants at home – three of which may be mature and flowering. It also has a provision for the non-commercial transfer of marijuana.

The initiative does not authorize a regulated recreational marijuana industry because of the fund-allocation restriction. The city council is charged with implementing the spirit of the initiative if it’s approved by voters.

The D.C. Council approved one of the nation’s most liberal decriminalization bills in a 10-1 vote March 4 that would reduce the penalty for possession of 1 ounce of marijuana to a $25 fine. It’s currently on ice pending completion of a 60-day congressional review period.

Congress has the power to block legislation in D.C. and did so for years after city voters approved medical marijuana in 1998 (the city's first medical marijuana facilities opened in July 2013).

Councilman David Grosso, an independent, introduced a legalization bill in September. He told U.S. News he doesn’t think Congress would block an effort to legalize marijuana in the nation’s capital.

Councilwoman Muriel Bowser, the Democratic mayoral nominee, endorsed marijuana legalization in a March 21 tweet.

Colorado and Washington are currently the only U.S. jurisdictions that have legalized possession of small amounts of marijuana. An Alaska legalization initiative will appear on November ballots (it was originally slated for the state's August primary election) and Oregon voters are likely to also weigh legalization in November.