07/22/2025
hmmm ... why not so much Cannabis at the National Cannabis Festival this year ?
🌿 Every year, the National Cannabis Festival feels more like home to me.
Although I've been a D.C. resident for 35 years, this was only my third time attending and so I was soaking up everything the weekend had to offer –- the policy panels, the swag, the hangs with friends, colleagues and former students, even the heat of the cement parking lot.
Led by Black women, built by a community and fueled by love for the plant – NCF is a joyful, rooted and peaceful space. Not just an event, it speaks to what this movement can be when it’s about the people most impacted.
🔥🎶 And of course the music was fire. As expected, the place was packed for the headliners.
So while the sense of belonging and the energy was still there for many of us, behind the scenes, something else was also going on.
My client, a federally legal h**p vendor, pulled out of the Festival at the last minute after receiving credible warnings that the District of Columbia planned to enforce cannabis laws at the event — including against legal h**p.
The threats were second and third hand — but they were serious and credible. Arrests were mentioned. With no clarification from regulators despite our outreach, my client made the painful call to withdraw.
In the end, no enforcement happened. It was a bluff. But the damage was done.
That might not have been obvious if this was your first fest, but for those who’d been there in years past – they knew this year felt different.
Way smaller for sure.
🚫 But mostly? Not as much Cannabis.
This isn’t just about the huge hit my client took – fees paid to the fest, lost profits and reputation, plus significant time sunk into preparing staff and product.
It's about all of us.
After eight straight years of federal non-interference and in fact, the federal government last year formally ceding the land to the District, ABCA and other D.C. agencies arbitrarily suggested there might be confusion over the jurisdiction. What's worse, ABCA communicated its final position – that ownership and legal jurisdiction over the stadium site was shared between the City and the federal government and therefore, D.C. would prohibit the sale of all Cannabis, including federally-legal h**p – less than 48 hours before the gates were to open.
For federally-legal h**p, whether ABCA has authority to prohibit retail sales is at the heart of a lawsuit Capitol H**p filed last month because this situation – in which the D.C. Tax Office extends federal 280E deductions to Capitol H**p at the same time ABCA deems the store federally illegal – is not sustainable.
But wherever you come down on h**p, what ABCA did to its own medical licensees might be the clearest tell of all.
After designing and directing a complicated remote sales model — where products would be couriered from dispensary storefronts to customers who placed orders at the Fest — ABCA reversed course just days before the event.
ABCA's whiplash wasn’t just regulatory confusion -- the Agency extracted operators time, money, and trust — its conduct and attitude reveals how little regard it holds for business investment in its own medical program, for D.C.’s special cannabis community, and for the culture more broadly.
ABCA left the festival organizer — someone who has been building this event for nearly a decade — in an impossible position. How are you supposed to run a legal cannabis festival when the government can't say what’s legal?
And in the end? There was no enforcement presence whatsoever. No raids. No citations. No seizures.
Meanwhile, unlicensed vendors and non-cannabis controlled substances were available throughout the festival grounds and parking lots. The only thing shut down was the legal market.
⚖️ What is the law on h**p in the District? Who decides? And who will be protected?
If your business was affected, if you sat out this year, if you’re still unsure what’s legal and what’s not; if you feel threatened, confused, chilled, or harmed by inconsistent enforcement of cannabis and h**p laws; if you demand more accountability from regulators; if you want to see Cannabis sensibly regulated; if you want to see a thriving, innovative, adult use Cannabis market in this City; if you want safe, tested, and consistently labeled products, now is the time to add your voice. Reach out. Learn more. For links to key documents and events -- beginning with the passage of Ballot Initiative 71 in 2014 through to Capitol H**p's lawsuits -- visit www.wexleresq.com/h**p.
Who else is looking forward to ? I know I am.
Because even in the midst of this mess, I had a superb fest, meeting and learning from a ton of fantastic folks. I have high hopes for NCF 2026, with my client Capitol H**p back – and better.
pillars
plant
**p
&Testing
