A group of activists plans to cause a literal stink at the presidential inauguration -- in support of marijuana reform.
The group, called DCMJ, has announced their plans to hand out upwards of 4,200 marijuana cigarettes near Dupont Circle the morning of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration and then march towards the National Mall.
It is legal to possess a small amount of marijuana in the District of Columbia, but illegal to smoke it in public.
DCMJ’s leader, Adam Eidinger, told ABC News they will be giving out the free joints, which is legal. They will not tell people to break the law by smoking in public. But, he added, he thought the idea of smoking them publicly would be "a great act of civil disobedience in light of the silence [on marijuana reform] coming from the Trump administration."
"We would love not to do this," Eidinger said. "We feel compelled to do it and if we heard any sign from Donald Trump that he was serious about reform and Jeff Sessions was serious about reform ... we would call it off."
The group is strongly opposed to the selection of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) as Trump’s Attorney General, since Sessions has been an outspoken opponent of marijuana. At a Senate hearing in April 2016, Sessions said "good people don’t smoke marijuana" and the drug is "not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized."
The Metropolitan Police Department are "aware of the situation and [are] monitoring it," said MPD public relations spokesperson Karimah Bilal.
Bilal said that anyone caught smoking marijuana in public could receive a citation, which could include a fine of typically $25 or possibly be summoned to court.
Eidinger told ABC News that he has offered to pay the fine for anyone who is arrested as a result of their plans, but he expects that police are "going to take a tolerance policy."
The group is calling on supporters and marijuana enthusiasts to meet outside of Dupont Circle –- as opposed to in the park at the center of the circle, since that is federally owned land –- starting as early as 7:00 a.m. on Friday Jan. 20 for coffee, tea and to distribute the joints.
"We’re not judging people who come and get weed and go home and watch the inauguration," Eidinger said.
The group also plans to work within the confines of the law, they said. They are asking supporters to bring up to two ounces of prepared joints each to distribute -- but no more. Group members plan to hold rolling parties in preparation for the big day and, Eidinger said, the participants are able to take home whatever they roll so that they will have enough to distribute on Inauguration Day. When they do distribute joints that morning, they will be checking IDs to make sure that any recipients are more than 21 years old, as mandated by the District’s law.
"We're going to show the public how it can be done safely without giving it away to kids," Eidinger said.
So far, Eidinger said that he has 25 people committed to distributing the joints on inauguration day and, based on his group’s previous rallies and events, he is prepared for a much larger turnout -- as many as 5,000 people.
"We’ll run out," he said.
Even if the recipients go back to their apartments or homes to smoke and then return for the inauguration, rather than smoking in public, he said, it will still be a presence.
"You will smell it and it should be really interesting to see how it goes down," Eidinger said.
The inauguration is not the only upcoming political event that DCMJ plans to attend: Eidinger said that they will be "sitting in line for three days" to make sure that they get seats in the audience of Session’s confirmation hearing, which is scheduled for Jan. 10 and 11.
"It’s going to smell like marijuana in that hearing because we smell like marijuana because we're going to smoke legally before it," he said.
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