With D.C. police officers looking on, hundreds of city residents lined up and then walked away from an Adams Morgan restaurant carrying baggies containing marijuana seeds.
Taking advantage of a ballot measure approved last fall by voters that legalized possession of the plant, the unprecedented giveaway scattered what organizers said were thousands of pot seeds to cultivate in homes and apartments across the nation’s capital.
Depending on how many D.C. residents have green thumbs, a homegrown crop of pot could be ready for legal consumption by late summer.
The District is unique among the handful of jurisdictions that have legalized pot for recreational use; under a prohibition by Congress, buying and selling marijuana remains against the law. That made Thursday’s giveaway — and not the opening of stores for legal sales, as has happened in Colorado and Washington state — the highest-profile event to date marking the reality of legalization.
