Thursday marked the District’s official crackdown on so-called marijuana gifting shops which sell items or services such as clothing or massages and then “gifts” marijuana.

These owners say the D.C. Joint Cannabis Task Force will be targeting them unfairly while Mayor Muriel Bowser and police brass say this is a safety issue and that these shops lead an increase in crime. Dispensary owners simply call them “illegals.”

But advocates of these marijuana gifting shops say they are managed or owned by people of color who can’t afford to compete for a dispensary license.

City officials say the estimated 75 to 100 shops have been getting around the 2014 law which legalized the small use of marijuana which is illegal to buy or sell in Washington D.C.

It was D.C.’s Initiative 71 passed in 2014 that legalized possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use. That’s two ounces or less and only on private property.

But in the years since, gifting shops began to sprout up all around the city, some with creative names that would tease the cannabis experience. Even a lobbying committee was created to protect their interests.

All of this, advocates of these shops say, while they were dealing with police raids or their storefronts. [Read more at DC News Now]