The District is already ready to fight whoever in next year’s Republican Congress tries to block the city’s new voter-approved initiative to legalize small amounts of marijuana. D.C. Cannabis Campaign Chair Adam Eidinger has said he would “raise hell like you wouldn’t believe” if anyone tries to stop it.

And now, newly reelected D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton says anyone who tries to meddle with the initiative “would get the fight of their lives.”

“The people have spoken,” Norton said in a release tonight. “And D.C. residents can rest assured that when a mandate comes directly from the people, they haven’t seen a fight like the fight I’m preparing to make against Rep. Andy Harris and any other member of Congress who attempts to undo our democratic process. “

Well then, it looks like Harris, a Republic Congressman from Maryland, will be getting the fight of his life. Harris, who unsuccessfully tried to block D.C.’s decriminalization law through the appropriations process earlier this year, has already vowed to do what he can to block the law.

“The federal government should enforce federal law regardless of whether local citizens try to legalize marijuana,” he said in a statement earlier today. “If legalization passes, I will consider using all resources available to a member of Congress to stop this action, so that drug use among teens does not increase.”

Council Chair Phil Mendelson and Eidinger, however, both feel confident that the initiative will emerge unscathed from a new GOP House and Senate. As Norton mentioned in her release, Sen. Rand Paul, who’s in line to chair the Senate subcommittee that oversees the District, said today he would be against the federal government getting involved in marijuana legalization.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery