Pubdate: Fri, 15 May 2015
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2015 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact: http://services.bostonglobe.com/news/opeds/letter.aspx?id=6340
Website: http://bostonglobe.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Joshua Miller
MEET MR. MARIJUANA, DICK EVANS
NORTHAMPTON - The response to Dick Evans at the State House was not warm.
The lawyer had drafted a bill legalizing, regulating, and taxing
marijuana, and it was among the topics of a public hearing.
Evans made his case in a short speech. "Antidrug crusader types," of
whom there were many, also had their say, he recalled. Then, a
legislator asked those in the big crowd who opposed legalization to
make themselves known.
"The building shook," Evans said, laughing. "They are still talking
about the roar that was heard."
The hearing was gaveled to a close, and Evans said, "that was it for
about 35 years."
It was 1981.
Evans, 71, with a shock of white hair, has been involved in pressing
for the legalization of marijuana in Massachusetts as long as just
about anyone. Now, as chairman of a group pushing to legalize
recreational marijuana use by popular vote in 2016, he is poised to
be a key player in an effort that could successfully conclude his
nearly four decades of advocacy.
The group, the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol in
Massachusetts, is backed by the national, well-funded Marijuana
Policy Project, and he is currently working with others on crafting
the specific parameters of a ballot initiative for 2016 - from how
marijuana would be regulated to the rate of a tax on the drug.
After robust Massachusetts majorities approved measures that
decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana in 2008 and
allowed its use for medical purposes in 2012, political analysts
predict a legalization measure will probably garner the tens of
thousands of signatures necessary to get on the ballot and enough
votes to pass into law.
But the journey to the precipice of legalization has been a long one.
Barry Smith, a friend who traveled with him to the 1981 hearing, said
the reaction to Evans's bill was not "the least bit respectful" -
though not negative enough for Evans to call it quits.
"Dick is a very, very ebullient fellow, and his spirits weren't
permanently damaged," Smith said, "but it wasn't an easy experience."
Sporting a cannabis-green tie in a recent interview at his small law
office, Evans recalled the genesis of his advocacy.
The youngest of three boys, he grew up in Tampa. His father was a
federal probation officer, his mother a school teacher. All the
brothers became lawyers and, Evans said chuckling, one a drug court judge.
After four years in the military, including some time in the Pioneer
Valley, he returned to Florida for law school, where he said he
struggled squaring the constitutional law he was reading with the
country's drug statutes.
Evans moved to Massachusetts and was admitted to the state's bar in 1973.
A few years later, he was hanging out with a colleague on a Saturday,
"passing a joint," talking about how "wrong-headed" the marijuana
laws were, he remembered. The colleague encouraged him to get
involved, and Evans joined NORML, the National Organization for the
Reform of Marijuana Laws.
After some years in the movement, he said, he began to think that
perhaps the reason no one was seriously talking about legalizing
marijuana is that no one had shown how it could be done.
"I said, 'Someone needs to write a comprehensive statute,' " Evans
said in the interview, "So I did!"
He leapt up on a chair to grab his original legalization bill from a shelf.
Of course, the 1981 effort did not work out as planned, and Evans
said he gave up on Beacon Hill, but not on the issue.
"The notion of prohibiting all use of marijuana by all persons in all
circumstances, and punishing violators severely," he said, "runs
counter to the very notion of freedom."
Eric E. Sterling, president of the Criminal Justice Policy
Foundation, a drug law reform group, recalled meeting Evans for the
first time at a NORML conference in the early 1980s.
"I was tremendously impressed with him. I remember he gave a very
articulate, well-constructed argument for marijuana legalization,"
Sterling said, adding that, at that time, there were not that many
people advocating for the idea.
Evans's paper trail of advocacy is long. Among his many appearances
in print, a 1980 op-ed in The New York Times ("The principle that
government does not belong on people's backs cannot be tortured to
justify the arrest and prosecution of people for what they smoke.");
and quotes in a 1996 issue of Time magazine about what he told his
son about drugs ("Don't believe much of what they tell you in school
about drugs. For example, don't buy into the notion that drug 'abuse'
is the same as drug 'use.' ")
Evans's life is not all marijuana advocacy. His primary legal
practice focuses on land conservation. He's a Northampton resident,
he plays trumpet, and he is involved with a nearby pumpkin festival.
But he said he has felt a sense of duty to press on the legalization issue.
"My job, over the last couple of decades, has been to try and keep
the issue alive in Massachusetts - I and other people," he said.
Others in the push to legalize see Evans as both influential and a
good team player.
He is "a mover and shaker in the activist movement," not shy about
speaking his mind, but "doesn't try and steal the spotlight," said
Bill Downing, a fellow legalization activist who has known Evans for 25 years.
But Evans says his advocacy won't last forever: Once marijuana is
legal, he plans to retire.
So for all his talk, is Evans himself a user?
He said he has avoided speaking about his own use of marijuana
publicly because he has not wanted to give probable cause for his
arrest or, these days, for a civil infraction.
"I'll tell you what," Evans said leaning in toward a reporter, "when
you and I can share a joint and neither of us has to worry about our
job" - he slapped the table for emphasis - "I'll talk about it."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom