Pubdate: Tue, 12 Nov 2013
Source: Gloucester Daily Times (MA)
Copyright: 2013 Eagle Tribune Publishing Company
Contact: http://www.gloucestertimes.com/contactus/local_story_015132144.html
Website: http://www.gloucestertimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/169

ACTIVISTS EYE BALLOTS FOR FULL POT LEGALIZATION

BOSTON - Having won decriminalization and the legalization of 
marijuana for medical use through the use of the ballot, activists 
are now planning to put a full legalization referendum before 
Massachusetts voters during the next presidential election, in 2016.

"We won't have to have it on the ballot again after we've finally 
repealed the prohibition," said William Downing, who has been 
involved in marijuana activism since 1989 and is the treasurer of a 
newly registered ballot committee called Bay State Repeal.

Last November, as Massachusetts approved medical marijuana, voters in 
Washington and Colorado fully legalized and regulated the drug.

In Massachusetts, voters passed the medical marijuana referendum 
emphatically, with the legislation gaining sweeping approval in all 
four Cape Ann communities - and, in fact, across the state, with the 
exceptions of Lawrence and Wrentham.

A number of cities and towns, however, are still wrestling with how 
or where to place potential cultivation or dispensary facilities, 
given that the law allows for at least one but no more than five 
dispensaries to be allowed in each of the state's counties.

In Gloucester, the City Council was poised last night to revisit a 
proposed ordinance that would regulate the placement of any potential 
medical marijuana facility through zoning, with any dispensary 
blocked from locating within 500 feet of the property line of any 
residentially zoned property, within 1,500 feet of any school or 
child-care facility or religious building, and also within 1,500 feet 
of any bars, breweries, taverns, hotels or restaurants with liquor 
licenses - or another medical pot facility.

In Essex, town officials have crafted a tentative bylaw that would 
simply place the approval of any potential medical marijuana facility 
in the hands of the Planning Board, on a case-by-case basis through a 
special permit process. That proposal is heading to voters for the 
Special town Meeting set for next Monday night.

Both opponents and proponents of the full legalization initiative 
said they will be watching how the new medical marijuana policy fares 
in Massachusetts and in other states to make their case to voters in 2016.

Downing noted that Massachusetts was the first state in the nation to 
restrict marijuana, prohibiting doctors from prescribing it in 1913, 
well before it was outlawed federally in 1937. Downing also sees 
parallels between the legal marijuana movement and the people who 
successfully repealed alcohol prohibition - which, unlike the 
marijuana measures, was enshrined in a constitutional amendment.

"They were referred to back then as the wets. The drys and the wets. 
And the wets did almost exactly what we're doing right here right 
now," said Downing.

The Bay State Repeal group plans to put nonbinding public policy 
questions about whether to legalize marijuana before voters in 2014, 
before making a push for binding language - which would be reviewed 
by the Legislature first - on the 2016 ballot as an initiative petition.

"A lot more people vote generally when there's a presidential 
election, and we do better when a lot more people vote because this 
is a populist issue," said Downing, whose advocacy began by calling 
for the use of hemp, a fibrous plant that is used in textiles and 
paper and is nearly identical to marijuana.

Not all agree.

"I think that we can make a clear case on the effects of marijuana 
that have been proven," Massachusetts Family Institute President Kris 
Mineau told the State House News Service. He said, "We will 
vehemently oppose any such effort" to legalize marijuana.

The Family Institute has been on the losing side of recent marijuana 
ballot questions, dating back to 2008 when voters decriminalized 
possession of less than an ounce of the drug.

Mineau, who described the legalization proposal as "a slippery slope 
of a gateway drug," said the opposition would hope to "muster a more 
effective campaign."

"Is crack cocaine going to be next on the legislation list?" Mineau asked.

Asked if he thought any other drugs should be legal, Downing said, "I 
don't really know much about other drugs. ... Those aren't our issue."

Downing said the illegality of marijuana does not prevent people from 
smoking it, fosters distrust of the police, allows for an unregulated 
system of drug dealers and "weakens the moral impact of the term 'illegal.'"

A Melrose resident, Downing said the Department of Public Health's 
regulations around the medical use of marijuana are "absolutely 
ridiculous and "based on 'Reefer Madness' logic," while Mineau said 
the state has taken a strange turn over the past few years.

But Mineau questioned that sentiment.

"We're rational people. Is this really what we want for our 
commonwealth?" asked Mineau, describing the past decade as a 
"horrific slope" in terms of "sexuality" and "gambling," in addition 
to marijuana.

"What are we?" he added. "Are we Copenhagen all of a sudden? I hope not."

 From Wire and Staff Reports
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom