Yes, Virginia, You Put Your Weed In There: In the near future, Virginia may no longer just be the place to buy legal guns and cheap tobacco. It'll also be the place to go buy pot! Legislators in the Old Dominion are studying whether to allow marijuana sales at state-owned liquor stores. Prediction: This won't happen. But if it does, it'll generate a lot more cash than lotto does. +3

Trent Franks For D.C. Council: Election year abortion politics are complicated. Conservative lawmakers want to show they're fighting the culture wars, but they don't really want to deal with a backlash from constituents who—reasonably—don't want their own rights restricted. Fortunately for Arizona Republican Rep. Trent Franks, there's always the District! Franks will introduce legislation next week to ban abortions after 20 weeks of a pregnancy—never mind that D.C. is overwhelmingly more pro-choice than his own state is. The National Right to Life Committee is a big fan; they say there's no need to consult District officials about the bill because, hey, Congress can do whatever it wants. -4

Whose Court? Our Court: The Supreme Court became the latest seat of national power to be occupied today, as Occupy D.C. protesters marched, sang, and chanted outside to protest the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling that more or less ended any pretense that big corporations don't run politics in this country. Police arrested 12 demonstrators. Had the protest managed to actually take over the building, we presume the court would have been renamed (a la the People's Pentagon) the People's Court. Chief Justice Joseph Wapner presiding? +2

Let It Mix: Is there any weather term drearier than "wintry mix?" None of the excitement of a blizzard, none of the beauty of a clear day, not even the sheer terror of, say, a hurricane. That's what's in store for the District and environs tonight through early tomorrow afternoon. On the plus side, it's Friday night, so most people's commutes won't be ruined. On the minus side, your Saturday may be. -1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 41 Today's score: 0 Friday bonus: +2 Today's Needle rating: 42

Such antipathy makes no sense. Concentrating marijuana production (and even sales, although that's not what these applications are for) in Ward 5 would be a boon to the area, not a blight—they're employment centers, after all, that will pour capital back into the communities they inhabit. Cannabis greenhouses would celebrate and compliment the presence of the neighboring National Arboretum. They're heavily regulated enough that any leakage of product to people who shouldn't have it would get them shut down in a jiffy.

Furthermore, there's no evidence that marijuana operations increase crime—in fact, experience points the other way. The Denver police department foundthat pot dispensaries aren't robbed any more than banks or liquor stores. And last year, when Los Angeles abruptly closed 70 percent of the 638 dispensaries operating in the city, the RAND Corporation reported an increase in crime over the ten days following the crackdown. "Despite its plausibility, we know of no systemic evaluation of the claim that dispensaries themselves attract or cause crime," the authors wrote.

Sure, logically, the signs point to pot dispensaries being a good thing in neighborhoods. But decades of pot-is-a-gateway-drug training are hard to undo. And for longstanding black residents who saw drugs destroy communities, it's not a surprise that they're less willing to draw a distinction between pot and other drugs.

Besides, the pillars of Ward 5, like those in every other ward, often don't want anything new, be it a pizza joint or a pot disepensary. Like NIMBYs everywhere, they fear traffic, noise, new people walking around. And in the case of a dispensary, they have this extra armament to fight against the proposal by demonizing drugs.

While I agree with Lydia, I'm not surprised at all that people reflexively don't want weed, legally or illegally, being sold in their backyards.

Photo from flickr user erissiva under a Creative Commons attribution license.

Legalize, Or At Least Discount, It: The District's medicinal marijuana program is moving along, albeit not as quickly as some might like. But what about those of us who don't qualify under the strict regulations? Turns out we're overpaying for pot. A study by Floating Sheep published in Wired this month found D.C. pays, on average, $460.70 per ounce of the non-medical stuff—more than anyone in any state. The lowest prices were in Oregon, at $255.80 per ounce. In the area, Maryland paid $436.30, and Virginia $411.90. Somehow we don't suspect Gov. Bob McDonell will be attributing that stat to his allegedly pro-business policies. -2

Bumper For Life: Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry has had his fair share of problems with cars, from registering to parking. Now his ride has more existential trouble. Barry drove up to the Wilson Building today with the bumper on his Jaguar hanging off the car. He told reporters he'd been hit a few weeks ago by a stolen car making a quick getaway, and that "when you live in the ghetto, all this happens." At least the car isn't leased by the D.C. government, in which case we'd all be on the hook for the repairs. -1

Power To The People: There's a reason they don't build massive coal-burning power plants in the middle of densely populated neighborhoods anymore. Admittedly, that reason is that the land the power plants might occupy is more valuable as the site of condos and luxury boutiques than as a place to generate electricity. But burning coal isn't the healthiest thing you can do for the people nearby, either, so the news that Alexandria's Mirant facility, operated by GenOn Energy, will close next October is welcome for anyone sick of breathing ash. No word yet on what price the condos that will, inevitably, wind up in the building will fetch. +3

Canned Food Frenzy: Spooked by the earthquake, many Washingtonians decided disaster preparedness was no laughing matter as Hurricane Irene approached, as anyone who made the mistake of setting foot anywhere near a grocery store (or Costco) Friday or Saturday can testify. But since the storm's fury was a little softer than expected, most of the stockpiled food people bought up wasn't needed. No need to binge on sardines or potato chips, though; area food banks say they'll happily accept your non-perishables. +2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 55 Today's score: +2 Today's Needle rating: 57

99 Problems But a Motorcade Ain't One: Turns out the list of celebrities who've gotten police escorts through the District doesn't begin and end with Charlie Sheen and Fran Drescher. Internal Metropolitan Police Department records show Jay-Z and Bill Gates have also sped through D.C. with flashing lights. Gates' escort cost $445.68, and Jay-Z's cost $1,114.20. Both zoomed between Dulles and destinations in the District. No matter what else, Gates should certainly have to wait for red lights; it's payback for every time a Washingtonian's copy of Microsoft Word has frozen. -2

USA Today Gets Results: Back in the day, people used to mock USA Today for being an unserious newspaper. Now, any newspaper that's still got enough readers to be worth publishing daily gets some automatic respect. USAT ought to get a little more now: A District investigation following up on the paper's story about cheating on standardized tests found that, indeed, there was cheating, and the results from three classrooms have been thrown out. Prediction: This will not calm the ongoing battles in town about what kind of legacy Michelle Rhee left behind when she split for California. -2

Weeded Out: Worries that medical marijuana would mean a huge influx of pot to the District (which, really, wouldn't have been so bad) seem to have been completely misplaced. So far, only 11 applicants have put in to run "cultivation centers" to grow the, uh, medicine, and only nine have applied to sell it. (The Rabbi of Pot is one of them.) Two would be in Northeast, and one would be near Eastern Market along Pennsylvania Avenue SE. One would be somewhere in Ward 2. Not exactly Amsterdam-esque. You've got another month or so if you want to get in on the action. +1

100 Percent Chance of Weather: May and June in D.C. tend to mean one thing: Thunderstorms. Okay, two things: Thunderstorms, and lots of 'em. Today is no exception. A serious storm front is rolling through the area; a tornado was already spotted on the Eastern Shore, and the D.C. area is under a severe thunderstorm watch until 9 p.m., with a chance of winds up to 70 m.p.h. Maybe the end of the world guy was only a few days off? -1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 65 Today's score: -4 Today's Needle rating: 61

Oh, sure, patients and doctors would register with the Department of Health, but the growers and sellers would instead be subject to the city's Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Board and its administrative arm, the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration (ABRA), just as if your neighborhood dispensary were a bar; call it a hash bar for the sick. It seemed an unusual approach, somewhat unique among the many other states regulating medical cannabis, but practical, as the existing ABC Board/ABRA apparatus has extensive experience vetting the venues that distribute a controlled substance to qualified consumers.

Supporters espousing marijuana's legitimacy as medicine, however, balked at the idea. In an Aug. 15 letter to the Post, Wayne Turner, sponsor of D.C.'s original 1998 medical marijuana ballot initiative, fumed, "Having the [Alcoholic Beverage Control] Board in charge bolsters the false accusation that D.C.'s medical marijuana effort is not about helping patients but is instead a 'stalking horse' for the legalization of recreational marijuana."

The controversy appears to have prompted a few tweaks to the city's pot planning. Revised rules published in the D.C. Register today bear no mention of the ABC Board or ABRA. The booze police, it seems, have been written out of the program entirely.

In fact, the word "alcohol" appears just once in the entire 87-page rulemaking:

5402.5             A registration application for a cultivation center or dispensary shall not be approved for any location that also sells alcoholic beverages.

In place of the liquor authorities, the mayor will appoint a new hearing board "to conduct registration, licensing, and enforcement proceedings involving cultivation centers and dispensaries."

Just like the ABC Board, it would seem. Only called something different. And with all new members—because what's the point of passing new laws if you can't build a whole new bureaucracy to go along with them?

5401.2 A four member panel shall be convened consisting of one representative from the Department [of Health], MPD, OAG, and a staff person designated by the Board to evaluate and score each application.

Photo by Coaster420/Creative Commons Attribution License

City Desk has spoken to a person snagged in a recent pot sting that netted some 20 District residents, and the individual supplies some interesting info. First off, the pot delivery service that Metropolitan Police Department officers took over following the arrest of an alleged drug dealer involved with it had a great name: Mindy's Muffins.

According to the source, the number to Mindy's Muffins was passed on by word of mouth, and ordering was simple. You just called up the number and said, "I need some muffins."  The caller was then asked for an address. "A guy would show up at your house and sell you something," says the source.

"The guy" would be carrying a backpack full of containers which held about two-and-a-half grams of weed each. The containers were nice, and said "Mindy's Muffins" on them, but that's not all: "The containers were labeled with detailed information about where the marijuana was from." The containers ran about $50 each.

"They were pretty well organized," the source says.

But not organized enough. When cops took over the delivery service, they began selling fake pot to customers around the city. (City Desk is trying to get more information from MPD on what, exactly, the fake pot was.) The source is still kicking himself  for falling for the ruse. He knew something was wrong: Mindy's usually comes in to customers' homes, but the guys who showed up the night he was busted didn't do that: "They told me to go out to their car, instead." Also, the containers they handed him didn't look right. They were label-less and "opaque."

After the deal was done, about eight uniformed cops surrounded the car. When the surprised pot smoker hesitated, one of the cops "put up his hands and said, 'Motherfucker, get out the car!'"

Taken to the police station, the source passed the time talking with others who'd been apprehended for ordering from Mindy's:"It was mainly young, white sort of college-aged kids and interns," he says. Perhaps not coincidentally, prosecutors didn't end up pursuing charges against the group.

"I'm not a victim," says the source, who admits he was doing something illegal. But he still wasn't that pleased with the way he got busted. "MPD gets to run around and do things like this?"

Photo by katherine_hitt via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license

If you have a certain Adams Morgan-area pot delivery guy on speed dial and you haven't been able to get through lately, stop calling—and count yourself lucky you didn't get busted.

A police source tells City Desk vice officers recently served a warrant on an alleged drug dealer's house in the 3rd District, after interrupting a street buy. Besides finding weed at the guy's place, they found a cell phone that rang "every 90 seconds." "He was making deliveries," says the source, "like he was a pizza delivery guy." So the cops decided to start answering the phone, executing what they later referred to in court papers as an "undercover reverse drug buy."

The vice squad began taking pot orders and making deliveries to residences and meet-up spots around the city, eventually arresting about 20 people. Those busted, says the source, were very diverse demographically, ranging from professionals to college kids. (The sting is now over.)

Reviewing records, City Desk found that on July 20, 11  people were cited for an attempt to possess marijuana. Another person was cited for the same charge on July 23. Since the police source could not say how long the sting had been going, it's possible there were more District residents caught in the trap. Court papers related to the ruse reveal that cops showed up and sold callers "counterfeit marijuana." Following the hand-off, they gave a signal for an arrest team to swoop in.

But despite all that elaborate police work, no one's going to jail—or facing any consequences—as a result. Everyone was "no-papered," meaning the charges were dropped before trial. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney's office, William Miller, says via e-mail that to the best of his knowledge "we did not prosecute any of the cases resulting from this investigation." Miller says he can't say why: "We typically do not comment on the reasons behind these decisions."

The end result, though, only underscores the disparity in the way D.C. handles pot smoking. Recently, Washington City Paper reported on statistics showing African American pot smokers are arrested about eight times as often as white pot smokers in the District. The explanation, experts say, has to do with where police try to make busts. In this case, though, police tracked potheads all across the city and ended up with a diverse haul that included a George Washington University grad student. And the prosecutors didn't bother with the cases. One former D.C. prosecutor says that generally, when it comes to marijuana cases, authorities aren't interested in going after "end users."  If that's the case, no one seems to have told the cops—who must have expended a chunk of resources on their sting.

Whether authorities should bother making any arrests for pot, of course, is subject to some debate; after all, D.C. recently approved medical marijuana, and California is voting this fall on whether to legalize the drug altogether. But if the law makes weed illegal, and it's going to be enforced, it ought to be enforced against everyone, no matter who they are, where they live or how they buy. It's still not clear that's what happens in the District.

Photo by Torben Bjørn Hansen via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license

Neon pot-leaf signs like this are a no-no at D.C. dispensaries.

Rabbi Jeffrey Kahn and wife Stephanie Kahn have a simple plan for bankrolling their controversial proposed medical-marijuana facility on Blair Road NW. "We plan on financing this from our personal life savings," he says.

How much are we talking? Well, that's a bit, um, hazy at the moment.

The biggest expense will likely be the price of the herbal remedy itself, according to Stephen DeAngelo, executive director of Harborside Health Center in Oakland, Calif., which both Rabbi Kahn and fellow aspiring dispensary operators with the nonprofit District of Columbia Patients' Cooperative have toured in preparation for creating their own facilities. DeAngelo tells City Desk, "Out of every dollar we take in, about 62 percent of that goes to paying for the actual medicine. The balance of that goes towards paying our rent, our payroll, our insurance—all the other typical expenses that a business has."

While not a single legal pot plant is yet in production in the District, thus making the budgeting process quite difficult for would-be sellers, we can safely assume that all other costs aren't even the half of it. That said, Mayor Adrian Fenty's proposed medical-marijuana regulations at least provide specifics about some of the other start-up costs:

• The annual fee for a medical marijuana dispensary registration shall be ten thousand dollars ($10,000) + an initial application processing fee of five thousand dollars ($5,000)

If you plan on growing your own, tack on an additional ten grand:

• The annual fee for a cultivation center registration shall be five thousand dollars ($5,000) + an initial application processing fee of five thousand dollars ($5,000)

Next, you'll need to register all your corporate partners...

• The annual fee for each director, officer, member, incorporator, or agent registration shall be two hundred dollars ($200)

And every "bud-tender" on staff:

• The annual fee for an employee registration shall be seventy five dollars ($75)
• The annual fee for a Manager's license shall be one hundred and fifty dollars ($150)

You may also need a permit for moving the medicine between manufacturing and distributing facilities:

• The fee for a transport permit shall be twenty-five dollars ($25)

Not included in the regs: your necessary certificate of occupancy ($33 application fee).

Then there's the whole matter of rent. According to real estate analysts Delta Associates, the average retail rent in D.C. (as of the end of 2009) is about $35 per square foot annually. For a modest 1,500-square-foot dispensary, such as the one the Kahns are proposing, that works out to roughly $4,375 each month, or $52,500 for the whole year. (Add on an additional month's rent for the probable security deposit.)

Next up, payroll. The proposed regs specify that each dispensary "shall be staffed with at least two persons during its hours of operation," with those hours of operation being anytime between 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week. Let's say you open on a more limited basis, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. A dispensary employing two staffers at all times (minimum wage: $8.25 per hour) would thus run up at least $1,155 in weekly payroll (or, $60,060 annually).

Then there's security to think about. The Kahns, for instance, are planning to hire an off-duty cop to monitor the premises, beginning from a half hour before opening until a half hour after closing. A police officer working "reimburseable detail," as it's called, runs about $55 an hour—roughly three times the price of your average security guard. Let's say you go the cheaper route ($18 per hour); that's $1,386 per week (or, $72,072 annually).

Already, we're looking at well over $200,000, without even factoring in the cost of the required video cameras and alarm system, insurance, a good licensing lawyer—and, most importantly, the pot itself. If we accept DeAngelo's 62-percent figure on the cost of product, then we're talking around half a million dollars (if my math is correct).

In its own financial impact statement, the District predicted the average cost of marijuana sold at dispensaries at about $350 per ounce. Therefore, a dispensary would need to sell about 1,429 ounces of herb annually to cover its basic costs.  That's about 119 ounces per month. Patients, meanwhile, are limited to just two ounces per month, and the District expects to register only 300 patients citywide in the first year. Which means dispensary owners may need to dip into their own inventory to make the math look right.

The piece notes that Kahn's venture won't be quite as easy as just, say, selling drugs: The city's legal-pot regs are strict, the neighbors are wary, and the competition could include some of well-funded players who've built up fortunes in better-established medical-marijuana markets like California.

Shott also pored through the lengthy rules proposed last week by the Adrian Fenty administration, which spell out everything from where dispensaries may be located to just what information must be included on the prescription pot labels. Below, our illustrator's best guess as to what those regulated labels will look like when actually affixed to your prescription:

But it all seriousness, keep your pot plots on your own land, please. Apparently these growing operations often involve booby traps with fish hooks and explosives. Think of the children. We can already see little Jimmy skipping into the woods to grab his baseball only to be blown up in a cloud of marijuana leaves.

So what are the pot-cops looking for? Straight lines and fencing marks the spot. Growers often use snow fencing and branches for camouflage. When police find the sites, they are usually equipped with systems to tip off the growers on their discovery.

From NBC Washington:

“A lot of these grow sites are booby trapped because they want to tell if they’ve been discovered. They also want to give themselves warning and they want to keep other people away from them,” Smith said. "So this could be potentially dangerous to park patrons and their pets.”

Police said the fields are usually planted in groups of threes — one for the planters to keep for their personal use, another that they want police to find and a third for street sale.

What happens when they find the plants? These hard-working cops run stakeouts for days until the public planters are dumb enough to show up.

Photo by jasonawhite, Flickr.

Well, gangs and violence, anyway.

A City Desk reader captured this sight with a cell phone cam yesterday morning, around 10:30 a.m., on the 1500 block of Marion Street NW:

The reader explains: 'Took some photos yesterday of 6 kids from the Mayor's Conservation Corps rolling [a] joint and smoking pot....I did call the police but they didn't show up before the kids finished up. You can see a lighter and smoke in the photos. You can tell what he's smoking from how he's holding it. :-) I could smell it...(don't ask me how I know what it smells like).'

(Because the alleged tokers are likely minors, City Desk has blurred their faces.)

Wilbon's piece attempts to slam the bong-sucking swimmer.

Wilbon's been the hardest-working superstar in sports newspapering for a while now. But if his latest column were a Goofus and Gallant panel, Wilbon would own the Goofus role the way Olivier did Hamlet.

Wilbon compares pot smokers to dog killers and stop-sign running drunks.

Even with the occasional caveats Wilbon throws into his paragraphs, his argument is beyond laughable. Given Wilbon's profile and credibility, his argument's downright dangerous, since it's based on the same insincerity and/or stupidity that allows SWAT teams to go unpunished for terrorizing innocent families.

Good morning, City Desk readers. I hope you all had a happy [insert holiday here].  My household celebrated the day by lounging around in tall tees, eating ice cream out of the carton, and watching the entire fourth season of Weeds (OMG! The ending so totally threw me off. Deets later–don't want to spoil the show for n00bz!)

And now some news:

• New Columbia Heights reports on a new gang cruising 14th St. called the "Whipsters"–not what you think, trust me. (Unless the first thing that came to your mind was a variation on "hipsters," in which case you're kind of right.) The Whipsters have open membership on Facebook! (Keep your eyes open for gang signs painted in raw breast milk and crushed berries from local berry collectives.)
• On Dec. 15, Christmas Eve (aka, Dec. 24) developers broke ground for the new Anacostia library. And Now, Anacostia has more info and some floor plans.
• The folks at Congress Heights on the Rise have the final 2008 numbers from the MPD's All Hands on Deck initiative: "MPD officers made 462 arrests, recovered nine firearms, and seized $35,925 worth of drugs. All five AHOD’s netted more than 2,300 arrests. Overall, assaults involving a gun are down 13 percent and robberies committed with the use of a gun are down 12 percent compared to this time last year."

$35k worth of drugs yet only nine illegal firearms? Ya'll know what that means, dontcha? The price of pot is going up, up, up! So much for catching an after-Christmas fire sale on qp's of purple haze...

Btw: Every single one of those 2,300 arrests that was drug-related translates to an adult, teen, or pre-teen, who–for the rest of his or her life–will be ineligible to receive federal financial aid for higher education. Two thumbs up, Cathy Lanier, for perpetuating the urban-poverty cycle!

Photo courtesy of Flickr user indi.ca