Could drug offenders work in D.C. medical pot dispensaries?
Is the District Human Rights Act so progressive that it protects the rights of drug offenders to work in the city’s proposed medical marijuana dispensaries? Nikolas Schiller, a local medical marijuana activist, thinks so. Schiller, who lives in Ward 1, fired off a mass e-mail to numerous city officials this afternoon questioning whether the medical marijuana bill approved by the council Tuesday can withstand judicial scrutiny. Under that legislation, which is now pending before Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), a “director, officer, member, incorporator, agent, or employee of a dispensary or cultivation center who has access to the medical marijuana at the dispensary or cultivation center ” cannot have a felony or misdemeanor conviction for a drug-related offense. But Schiller says the District’s Human Rights Act, which sets policies to prevent discrimination, states “it’s an unlawful act for any person to require the production of any arrest record” that is more than 10 years old. “Therefore
