After more than a decade of trying, the District of Columbia City Council voted today in support of medical marijuana for residents of the nation’s capital. If it is signed, this will make 14 states and one district in the union that allow its residents to access cannabis for medicinal purposes, and one step closer, I say, towards ending the catastrophic War on Drugs.

From the Marijuana Policy Project today:

“A well-working medical marijuana program in the nation’s capital will also provide members of Congress who have never seen such programs up close with a unique opportunity to do so,” [Karen] O’Keefe [Director of MPP policy] said. “Once they see for themselves that these laws do nothing but provide compassionate care for seriously ill patients, hopefully they will understand the need to create a federal policy that no longer criminalizes patients in any state who could benefit from this legitimate treatment option.”

Under the District’s law, physicians will be able to give medical marijuana recommendations to patients suffering from HIV/AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, and other serious conditions that can be alleviated through marijuana. Qualified patients will have safe access to their medicine through a limited number of dispensaries within the District.

The group also notes that South Dakotans and Arizonans will be voting on similar bills in the fall, and that 81 percent of Americans support medical marijuana, according to the most recent Washington Post/ABC News poll. Mayor Adrian Fenty is expected to sign the measure, and then it goes to Congress, which has 30 days to review it. Not sure what will happen there (but MPP tells me they do not expect a veto). Congress thwarted a voter referendum approving medical marijuana in 1998. Ironically, it was then-Georgia Rep. Bob Barr, still a Republican, who put the brakes on it that time with what is now referred to as the Barr Amendment. Since then, he has renounced his party, gone Libertarian and actually worked with the Marijuana Policy Project to get his own amendment lifted after he left congress. That amendment was lifted last year, which is why MPP doesn’t expect a big fight in congress — though it will be interesting to see if the usual Republican Drug Warriors like Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK.,  and Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., will want to put up any roadblocks.