Pubdate: Wed, 09 Mar 2016 Source: Boston Herald (MA) Copyright: 2016 The Boston Herald, Inc Contact: http://www.bostonherald.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/53 Note: Prints only very short LTEs. THE POT PREDICAMENT The state senators who traveled to Colorado on a marijuana field trip were the butt of some jokes (including in this space). But the special Senate committee has produced some helpful research. Normalizing the cultivation, sale and use of marijuana in Massachusetts would, of course, still be in conflict with federal law. That's the first knock against the campaign to get a legalization question on the November ballot, but it's certainly not the last. As the senators discovered, a mile-high stack of legal complications would proceed from a vote in favor of legalization. As just one example, the Senate report notes there is "no well-accepted standard for determining driver impairment from driver intoxication [from marijuana]." Even if there were, thanks to a series of rulings from the state's highest court after voters made the possession of small amounts of marijuana a civil infraction, no cop can stop a vehicle simply because he smells burning marijuana or, presumably, even if he sees a driver cruising along with a joint hanging out of his mouth. The same can't be said for a driver sending a text message or one who is holding an open container of alcohol, but there you have it. Meanwhile, as the Senate report notes, scientific studies are clear that youthful marijuana users "face serious health and brain development risks," and those risks increase "the younger the individual and the more intensely that marijuana is consumed." In Colorado, legalization has led to increased pot use by younger users (big surprise). The easy answer would be to forbid marijuana use by individuals who are under 21. But the ballot question doesn't do that. There are a million other knocks against this campaign, including the increased potency of the pot in circulation today, and the sheer lunacy of promoting increased use of a drug that so often leads to abuse of harder drugs, including the opiates that are killing young people in incredible numbers in this state. The Senate committee doesn't take a position on legalization, but simply lays out guidelines for future regulations. The easiest way to avoid the inevitable chaos is for the question never to get to the ballot in the first place. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom