D.C. set to vote on medical marijuana

Just after 11 one morning last week, two men and two women, all in their early 20s, sat on a basketball court behind Dunbar High School in Northwest Washington and filled an empty cigar with marijuana -- their first hit of the day.

Also that day, at a picnic table by the Oxon Run stream, east of the Anacostia River, five men played dominoes and passed a joint.

And at an Adams Morgan park, as dog walkers and bicyclists wandered by, a 23-year-old man in a Pittsburgh Pirates cap rolled a thick joint using cherry-flavored paper. "This is hitting nice," he said moments later, forecasting that he would smoke five or six more before day's end.

The D.C. Council is set to vote Tuesday on legalizing medical marijuana, thereby allowing the chronically ill -- including those with HIV, glaucoma or cancer -- to buy pot from dispensaries in Washington.

Yet marijuana is already ubiquitous in many parts of the city, as demonstrated by federal surveys showing that Washingtonians' fondness for weed is among the strongest in the country -- and growing.

The popular image of the nation's capital leans toward the straight and narrow, a town of over-achieving, button-down bureaucrats, lawyers and lobbyists. But meander through any neighborhood from Congress Heights to Friendship Heights, and Washingtonians across race and class lines can be found lighting up.

"It's absolutely pervasive and accepted," said a 44-year-old sales manager who lives with his wife and three children in the city's Chevy Chase section. He estimates he spends $3,000 a year on pot. After a recent pickup hockey game, he found himself sharing a joint with a beer distributor and the vice president of a technology company.

"Everywhere you go, you meet someone who gets high or, if they don't, knows someone who does," he said.