Activists behind some of the nation’s most attention-grabbing recent cannabis activism plan to give about a pound of marijuana – rolled into 1,227 joints – to congressional staff Thursday to urge reform on the annual 4/20 marijuana holiday.

That is, if anyone shows up to get it near the corner of 1st Street NE and Constitution Avenue, a stone's throw from Senate office buildings and the Supreme Court.

Organizers aren’t sure many congressional ID-holders will accept their two free joints between “high noon” and 6:20 p.m. – despite an effort to distribute fliers to every lawmaker’s Capitol Hill office and the fact it's legal under local law.

“We’re curious, will there even be a line to take it? We may have only one customer an hour, who knows,” says D.C. Cannabis Campaign co-founder Adam Eidinger. “It would be a shame if it’s 6 o’clock and there are 600 joints we haven’t handed out.”

If that happens, “it would show they are very out of touch with the average American – average Americans when you say there’s free cannabis line up in droves,” Eidinger says.

The planned giveaway – and an announced smoke-in on the steps of Congress on Monday – has divided cannabis reform advocates at a sensitive time, with the community fearful that Attorney General Jeff Sessions will crack down on a multibillion-dollar state-legal industry allowed to grow during the Obama administration.

Sessions has created a crime-reduction task force with a marijuana subcommittee reviewing the 2013 Cole memo that allowed states to regulate recreational sales, with recommendations due by July 27. The review process is opaque, and its effects possibly far-reaching. A Justice Department spokesman was unable to share any updates on the subcommittee or its membership.

Marijuana possession remains a federal crime, and a congressional spending measure that protects state medical marijuana programs expires April 28, with some uncertainty about whether it will be reincorporated into a large spending package.

“It’s not something that I would suggest that we do,” Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said about the local activism on a Wednesday conference call.

“I don’t think it is the best way forward,” says Blumenauer, a longtime cannabis reform advocate. “We’re going to have many advocates and business people on Capitol Hill making the case in a calm, thoughtful, rational basis – the business case, the science case, the law enforcement case.”

Eidinger bristles at the criticism, saying a more buttoned-up approach hasn't worked and that activists looking to create momentum have been “thrown under the bus.”

“I think they see this as showing them up a little. They don’t want to hear complaints that it’s gone too slow,” Eidinger says, recalling an unfavorable reaction to the giveaway invite from a staffer in the office of Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., another leading reformer.

“When they act like we’re out of line for pushing hard, it’s really because they’re looking at themselves and realized they’ve failed up until now to accomplish what they set out to do – to end the war on marijuana users,” he says.

There will be 1,227 joints on hand Thursday to signify support for legislation, H.R. 1227, that would end federal marijuana prohibition. Blumenauer and Polis are co-sponsors.

The Thursday joint giveaway was extended two hours to allow congressional staff to stop by after work, and the plan is to comply with local law on non-federal property, making arrests unlikely.

The original end time of 4:20 p.m. would force staffers to choose between stashing joints in a car, handing them off to a friend or risking possible federal charges by sneaking them back into their workplaces.

The congressional ID rule will be strictly enforced, at least that’s the plan. After giving away an estimated $60,000 worth of marijuana during President Donald Trump's inauguration, Eidinger says it was harder to “raise the marijuana" from home-growers this time.

One donor to the cause was Mark Perry, who owns a local organic landscaping business. Unlike Eidinger, he’s not so sure low attendance would signify Capitol Hill staffers are out of touch, pointing out they may risk professional consequences if photographed.

Perry, who coordinated two pot-growing competitions at the D.C. state fair, will be handing out more joints across town, expecting 50 or so people to meet at the Takoma Park Metro station for a "hashing"-style walk. Attendees will smoke, ideally on private property, and hike a charted route. One stop will feature cannabis-infused liquor.

Though the walk starts around 4 p.m., latecomers are welcome. “We’re not going to be moving all that fast,” Perry says.

Perry doesn't plan to participate in the Monday smoke-in, which will intentionally flout federal law and test the U.S. Capitol Police. But Eidinger says he knows of about two dozen people who currently plan to light up.

Predictably, opposition to the pair of events comes from legalization foes, too. Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., says he wants police to arrest the local activists if they step onto federal land.

"I hope the parents of American teenagers and children realize how dangerous such foolish, headline-grabbing stunts like these ‘giveaways’ are," Harris says. "If such events occur on federal property, for the sake of our children I urge federal law enforcement officials to fully prosecute this egregious violation of federal drug law.”

Eight states and the nation's capital currently have laws allowing recreational marijuana. More than half allow the drug's medical use. Eidinger’s group wrote and passed a legalization measure in the nation’s capital in 2014 that allows possession of 2 ounces, non-commercial gifting and home-growing. Sales in the nation's capital were blocked by a budget amendment written by Harris.

Though it operates independent of national groups, the local activist coalition knows how to attract attention, responding to Harris' budget rider with massive seed shares before staging a largely unpunished smoke-in outside the White House last April pleading in vain for President Barack Obama to reschedule marijuana before leaving office.