Pubdate: Wed, 08 Apr 2015
Source: Boston Herald (MA)
Copyright: 2015 The Boston Herald, Inc
Contact:  http://news.bostonherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/53
Note: Prints only very short LTEs.
Author: Owen Boss

ROSENBERG: POT LAW 'A TOTAL MESS'

Senate Prez Frets Over Recreational Concept

Bringing medical marijuana to the Bay State has turned into a "total 
mess," Senate President Stanley Rosenberg declared yesterday, and 
state officials need to make sure any ballot question to legalize 
recreational marijuana is carefully worded to avoid more of the same.

"The ballot question had a lot of problems in it, it's been very 
difficult to implement and doing 30 or so licenses across the 
commonwealth, it has been very, very hard and it is not good that it 
has taken this long," Rosenberg said yesterday during an appearance 
on Boston Herald Radio's "Morning Meeting" program.

Noting that some medical marijuana dispensaries in Massachusetts are 
"about ready to open," Rosenberg slammed the medical marijuana ballot 
question that was approved by voters in 2012 as an "awkwardly written law."

"It's taken too long, but we're about to have some openings and they 
just have to keep working at it," Rosenberg told hosts Jaclyn Cashman 
and Hillary Chabot. "This is a very awkwardly written law, which 
ended up with conflicts in it and contradictions - so it ended up 
being a real problem to implement."

Medical marijuana dispensaries were supposed to open last summer, but 
the licensing and inspection process has been plagued with delays and 
Gov. Charlie Baker recently said he couldn't predict when the first 
one would open.

Bay State Repeal is seeking to put a recreational marijuana question 
on the 2016 ballot and Rosenberg said he does not expect lawmakers to 
take up the issue themselves.

Baker, House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, Attorney General Maura Healey 
and law enforcement groups all have said they oppose legalizing 
recreational marijuana use.

"There's been conversations and there seems to be no appetite in the 
Legislature to take up ... recreational marijuana, so you should 
expect to see it on the ballot in 2016," Rosenberg said.

He added that he has assigned Sen. Jason Lewis, who is chairman of 
the Joint Committee on Public Health, to research recreational 
marijuana and make recommendations in advance of a likely ballot question.

"We need to drill down so we know more and do a better job on that 
one than we did on medical marijuana," Rosenberg said. "We should be 
more like the casino effort than the medical marijuana effort, 
because we really understood what we were doing with the casinos."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom