This is almost right -- as someone else said, Initiative 71 makes possession, use, cultivation and non-commercial transfer of small amounts of marijuana legal (

This is almost right -- as someone else said, Initiative 71 makes possession, use, cultivation and non-commercial transfer of small amounts of marijuana legal (not just decriminalized) in DC for adults 21 and up. So the regulatory workaround is as you say. I'm not a lawyer either, but this pattern probably wouldn't hold up in court; dealers' inventories need to be bigger than the legal limit for possession, and the "gift" thing is a pretty thin veil around what everyone knows is actually an illegal commercial transaction. But there's a general understanding that cracking down on small-time "I-71 compliant" businesses is not a police priority, although it does happen from time to time. Overall, I'm a pretty big fan of this approach to legalization; it allows for a competitive market without the risks of Big Cannabis advertising or of licensing schemes giving all the legalization profits to upper-class white people and cutting the economic victims of the drug war out.