Clarification appended.
This story originally appeared as the cover story of the printed Oct. 16 special edition of The Eagle.
Psychedelic bongs, grinders and rolling kits line the walls of Adams Morgan’s resurrected Capitol Hemp, a store that specializes in marijuana paraphernalia and hemp products. AU alumnus Adam Eidinger opened his smoker sanctuary this past August in between advocating for relaxed marijuana laws and challenging House Republicans.
Eidinger graduated from the School of Public Affairs in 1996. Since then, he has worked as a political activist and small business owner, which ultimately led him to the forefront of Initiative 71, a proposition that legalized recreational marijuana use in the District last November.
Initiative 71 may have never taken off if the city hadn’t shut down Capitol Hemp’s previous two locations. In 2011, police raided one of Eidinger’s stores due to suspicion of selling marijuana and illegal paraphernalia. The raid and the subsequent closing of his stores in 2012 inspired Eidinger to begin collecting signatures for Initiative 71, he said.
With recreational marijuana now legal, Capitol Hemp openly sells marijuana paraphernalia and no longer needs to pretend to ignore that its customers use bongs to smoke weed, not tobacco.
Capitol Hemp does not actually sell marijuana — it is still illegal to do so in D.C.—but the store houses marijuana equipment and hemp products. In the back of the store sits paraphernalia, including pipes, bong cleaning materials and a large assortment of rolling papers. On the front end of the shop, the store features hemp-made clothing, candles, books, energy drinks and pretzels. Despite a full space of products, Eidinger keeps his store surprisingly neat.
“Any small business is a challenge, if you don’t give it constant attention it can fail,” Eidinger said. “I’ve already got through five years of owning a small business or retail store before it was raided, and, during that time, a lot of lessons were learned.”
Alan Amsterdam helped Eidinger open his original store and is a co-owner of Capitol Hemp. Matthew von Fricken also joined the team this past spring.
Students may think Eidinger is living the dream, but he said he continues to worry about the future of the marijuana industry and the public’s access to cannabis.
As recreational marijuana continues to become legal in more states, Eidinger said he already knows of “snakes in the grass,” who are slithering their way into the marijuana paraphernalia industry to make a quick buck.
In addition to his theories on the marijuana paraphernalia industry, Eidinger also believes the local D.C. cannabis laws need to change to give licenses out to stores like his or dispensaries. The District has only five medical marijuana dispensaries, according to Weedmaps.com.
“There are more than a 1,000 liquor licenses in the city, does anyone think that’s too many?” Eidinger asked. “Maybe we should make people drive five blocks to get alcohol instead of one block.”
Eidinger expressed his disbelief for the city’s failure to implement sales and property tax for legalizing marijuana and said as long as weed remains legal, the city should encourage it. Unfortunately for D.C., House Republicans attached a provision in the federal budget last summer that prohibits legal sale of marijuana until 2017.
Eidinger said he was first exposed to marijuana during his freshman year at AU while living in Anderson Hall.
“I must say, when I went to American University, I smoked marijuana in the dorms almost every night,” Eidinger said. “It was a ritual. Our whole floor would get together.”
Although Eidinger’s college days were filled with late nights of writing papers, smoking pot in the dorms and even streaking in the Letts-Anderson Quad, he said he took the time to learn marijuana self control from his freshman roommate and continues that discipline today.
Currently, the use, sale or possession of marijuana or marijuana paraphernalia on school grounds violates the University’s alcohol and drug policy. Students breaking this agreement may face punishment, including expulsion. The nearby apartment complex Avalon at Foxhall shares a similar policy, banning the smoking of cannabis in any unit of the building. A manager from The Berkshire refused to comment regarding its marijuana policy.
Despite the rebirth of Capitol Hemp, the issue of selling marijuana continues. Nearly 65 percent of voters in the District supported Initiative 71 last year, and the topic contributes to the broader discussion of D.C. statehood.
With a right to the city’s own sovereignty, D.C. would have the power to create and regulate its own laws without congressional approval.
“The fact that we are standing here is sort of surreal for me, from what I’ve been through,” Eidinger said. “To come all full circle, here we are with the same color walls, same store name, [a] resurrected third store. And we are still talking about getting these laws right. They’re not right!”
Clarification: A former version of this story suggested that Adam Eidinger was the sole owner of Capitol Hemp. Alan Amsterdam also owns the store with Eidinger, and a third co-owner, Matthew von Fricken, also joined the team in 2015.
