Hundreds Inhale at Surreal White House Pot Protest

When the smoke cleared, nobody was arrested for participating in a large and blatantly illegal marijuana smoke-in outside the White House.

Attendees of the Saturday event, billed as “Reschedule 420” by the D.C. Cannabis Campaign, urged President Barack Obama to take action in his remaining months in office to reschedule marijuana -- to allow greater research into its medicinal value -- and to pardon jailed pot offenders.

Though many were willing to get arrested, it appeared that just two people, seemingly chosen at random from a smoke-filled crowd, were detained by police. One of them, Lauren Dove, who recently moved to the nation’s capital from Colorado, said both received $25 public consumption tickets.

Dove says the police, who were from the local Metropolitan Police Department, not the also on-site U.S. Secret Service or U.S. Park Police, emptied her ceramic bowl of marijuana, which she says they took as evidence. But they allowed her to keep the bowl.

A light-handed approach to protesters is characteristic of police in the nation’s capital, but Saturday’s restraint surprised attendees well-aware that nearly one million Americans are arrested every year for marijuana.

It’s unclear why law enforcement agencies were so lenient, but participants were grateful.

“Thank you police!” several protesters shouted as a large group marched away.

Others remained behind to clean up litter. “Clean up your f-cking trash, nobody got arrested today!” a gleeful reform advocate, black plastic bag in hand, said. Others happily pitched in.

Residents of the nation’s capital voted overwhelming in 2014 to legalize personal possession of marijuana under local law, but public consumption remains an arrestable offense. And federal law enforcement officers can arrest people anywhere in the city on federal charges.

Earlier in the afternoon, the fate of demonstrators appeared uncertain. Many wrote numbers for a legal aid hotline on their arms.

The first test of officers’ intentions came when protesters, about a half hour before the designated smoking time of 4:20 p.m., ignored Secret Service demands that a giant 51-foot inflatable “joint” not be filled with air near the White House. Protesters unfurled what essentially was a long plastic bag and flipped on a portable cattle fan to loud cheers as dozens of people paraded the painted prop through Lafayette Park north to H St. NW.

The inflated joint caused many law enforcement officers to chase after the defiant splinter procession, and left the main event less thoroughly policed ahead of mass public smoking at 4:20 p.m.

Many seasoned cannabis reformers spoke ahead of the main draw, along with minor party political candidates and members of Rhode Island’s Healing Church, which claims the First Amendment protects their right to consume cannabis -- a matter not legally settled.

The situation briefly looked hairy for protesters. When Dove and her friend were detained, a police radio broadcast overheard by this reporter said officers were “executing the plan we discussed, coming in from east and west.” What that plan was remains unclear.

Though he was the target of the protest, President Obama -- an admitted past marijuana user and a reported member of a pot-smoking “Choom Gang” in his youth -- did not appear as protesters lit up.

Some members of the marijuana reform movement, such as Tom Angell of the group Marijuana Majority, had expressed unease with plans to smoke marijuana, and no major national cannabis reform group endorsed the protest.

Though dozens, perhaps hundreds, of people smoked marijuana in public, there did not appear to be complaints about unwitting tourists or children inhaling the smoke. A Segway tour slowly waded through the gathering early on, but hardly anyone then was consuming marijuana.

To anyone nearby, large marijuana-leaf flags and signs on stakes made clear the nature of the event, which swelled with young adults as the time to smoke approached.

A Baptist street preacher who appeared primarily concerned with abortion promoted salvation nearby and when questioned said he disapproved of marijuana and alcohol use, but his solicited criticism aside there was no counter-protest.

One teenager on a rented city bike did mock the attendees. “They are smoking straight schwag, I hate these people,” he sneered. “They should have just stayed home."

The quality of the marijuana, however, made little difference to protesters who reveled in their acts of civil disobedience. “Smells like freedom!” one crowed.

At the end of the day, freedom is what everyone did appear to retain. Dove, one of the two unlucky attendees to be cited, said she likely will pay her $25 ticket rather than fight it in court.

The day ended with a sizable number of protesters, led by D.C. Cannabis Campaign organizer Adam Eidinger, marching down K St with a police escort, blasting “Twist and Shout” and waving pot flags in a scene as unbelievable as Ferris Bueller’s day-off parade.