Lead photo via Twitter user Natalie Fertig
If you didn’t have party plans or children to take trick-or-treating for Halloween yesterday, your holiday celebration probably looked a lot like ours, with too much candy, a whole lot of weed, and a Stranger Things binge session. But for the millions of Americans living in public housing, getting high at home comes with its own set of downright terrifying consequences.
Despite cannabis legalization taking hold in over half the country, a 2014 memo from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) clearly states that the housing authority recognizes only federal law and the marijuana prohibition it enforces, with punishments as harsh as the ability to “terminate the tenancy of the household,” or evict residents to homelessness if tenants even carry marijuana into public housing complexes.
Criminalizing cannabis in public housing, evicting in DC, is racist/classist, says DC activist David Thurston. #LegalizeIt #HauntedbyHUD pic.twitter.com/Q1EJ5KSyHm
— Lacy MacAuley (@lacymacauley) October 31, 2017
In Washington D.C., where recreational cannabis use is legal but strictly limited to private homes and…