“Ant’s College Fund” brownies, as Alvarez called them, launched her venture into the city’s growing “gifting” market — a network of shops in D.C. that operate through a legal loophole that allows businesses to gift customers small amounts of cannabis with the purchase of another item, such as apparel, art or motivational speeches.
Shortly after voters legalized marijuana in 2014, Congress, which has oversight of D.C., introduced a budget rider that prevented the city from commercializing the drug. So for years, Alvarez, and dozens of other gifting shops — sometimes called i-71 compliant, after the number of the ballot initiative that legalized cannabis — have functioned as the de facto recreational market in the nation’s capital, operating in a legal gray area with little recognition, or regulation, from the government.
Last week, the D.C. Council passed legislation to overhaul that model by creating a path for gifting shops to apply for medical marijuana licenses, expanding the regulated market. The bill still has to be signed…
