The Marijuana Policy Project reports that the medical marijuana initiative will be on the D.C. ballot this November .

"The District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics (BOEE) today notified proponents of Initiative 63, the medical marijuana initiative, that the initiative would appear on the November general election ballot. The written notice from BOEE wraps up an arduous, 14-month battle that included several lawsuits and hundreds of wrongfully invalidated signatures."

"Initiative 63 would protect from arrest seriously ill people who use marijuana under the advice of their physicians. In July 2001, the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), a D.C.-based non-profit advocacy group, filed with the BOEE a request to circulate petitions for the initiative. The BOEE denied that request in December 2001, because the so-called "Barr Amendment," a rider to the D.C. Appropriations bill named after its sponsor, U.S. Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA), prevented the city from spending any money to process the initiative."

"MPP then filed suit against the federal and District governments in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, on the grounds that the Barr Amendment was an unconstitutional abridgment of political speech. On March 28, 2002, federal judge Emmet G. Sullivan ruled in favor of MPP."

After that there were more challenges and more lawsuits.

"We faced incredible odds to put this initiative on the November ballot," said Robert Kampia, MPP's executive director. "Because a vast majority of voters approved a similar initiative in 1998, we never imagined that this campaign would turn into a journey reminiscent of Homer's Odyssey. The real winners, though, are the seriously ill people who will now have legal access to medical marijuana."