DC Marijuana Advocacy Group Hands Out 8000 Joints At Trump’s Inauguration

In celebration (or protest) of the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, thousands of people decided to light up during his inaugural address.

A marijuana advocacy group, called the District of Columbia Cannabis Coalition (DCMJ), announced ahead of the event that they would be rolling and giving away thousands of joints at the event.

DCMJ was founded back in 2013 in a successful attempt to change the laws in DC around marijuana.  Thanks to activists within their group, it’s now legal to possess small amounts of marijuana in Washington DC.  It is not, however, legal to smoke in public, but founder Nikolas Schiller publicly encouraged people to light these joints up during the address.

“[We told them to] light them up if they want to engage in non-violent civil disobedience.”

Of course, it was up to people themselves whether they participated, but the group suggested everyone light up their joints 4 minutes and 20 seconds into Trump’s address.  Plenty of the takers did participate, and the smells and sights of marijuana smoke were prevalent in the crowd.

They ended up giving away around 8,000 joints early on Friday morning, spurring hundreds of people to line up at Dupont Circle where the joints were being distributed.  Many of the volunteers, the group said, also brought their own product to the event.  The occasion, according to the organizers, was meant to be a protest not of the president, but of the President’s nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions as Attorney General.

Mr. Schiller explained the advocacy group’s concerns with Jeff Sessions, saying they did not trust him to uphold laws in states who have relaxed restrictions on marijuana:

“He’s said that good people don’t smoke marijuana.  We found that to be insulting to the millions of Americans that do.”

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