Capitol Police answered a call after pro-marijuana demonstrators attempted to barge their way into a Republican Congressman’s office to protest.
Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) was confronted by demonstrators from the “DC Cannabis Campaign” who accused him of working with “big pharma.” Harris walked by the protestors quickly and straight into his office, where he was chased by some of the protesters.
Harris was chased by protesters but managed to close the door quickly enough despite their attempts at holding it open. The demonstrators then chose to try another door and opened it, but it was blocked by an aide. One of the demonstrators attempted to prevent the door from closing by holding her foot in the doorway.
She claimed that she could not move her foot, as it was stuck, but a man (presumably a Harris aide) came by and helped her remove her foot. After the protesters yelled accusations about Harris, the man told the protestors that he would gladly meet with them later, but had a schedule to keep at this moment.
This angered the protesters who then began laying down in the hallway, pretending to have overdosed on opioids. One protester claimed she was there to “overdose” on behalf of a friend of hers who had overdosed on opioids.
At this time, Capitol Police arrived and attempted to ask the demonstrators to leave peacefully, but were eventually forced to escort the demonstrators out, especially after one of the demonstrators began to smoke marijuana in front of them.
The full Periscope video can be seen here.
Below is footage of the police dealing with the protesters.
2 arrested in Longworth for opioid overdose crisis die-in and smoke-in outside Andy Harris DC office. Andy refused to meet constituents about cannabis. @DCMJ2014 @MDMJ2018 @aeidinger pic.twitter.com/VMF29aHaB1
— @rvltn (@rvltn) October 2, 2018
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