Pubdate: Mon, 21 Mar 2016
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2016 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

MARIJUANA STUDY LEADER IS AGAINST LEGALIZATION PUSH

For a year, state Senator Jason M. Lewis maintained strict neutrality 
as he studied marijuana legalization - interviewing 50-plus experts, 
scouring the research, and observing firsthand a state where it is 
legal. But now he is speaking out against the expected November 
referendum in Massachusetts.

His position carries special weight. Lewis chairs the special 
legislative committee on marijuana.

His concerns, voiced just after his committee submitted its report on 
the topic, arise from his role as both a father and a public official, he said.

"I am opposed to the likely ballot question because this is the wrong 
time for Massachusetts to go down this road, and a commercial, 
profit-driven market is the wrong approach to take," the Winchester 
Democrat said.

Lewis, a onetime McKinsey & Co. consultant, laid out a wide-ranging 
case against the measure, arguments that could serve as a template 
for the opposition. And, as the debate heats up, it could vault the 
professorial legislator to a much more public role.

In November, Massachusetts voters are likely to consider a ballot 
question legalizing recreational marijuana.

The proposed law would make possessing, using, and giving away 1 
ounce or less of recreational marijuana legal for adults 21 and older 
as of Dec. 15, and it would allow retail sales to commence in January 2018.

Advocates say it would quickly begin to phase out the black market: 
ending more than a century of failed prohibition that has ensnared 
otherwise law-abiding citizens in the criminal justice system; 
diverting money from criminal syndicates to companies operating on 
the up and up; filling the state's coffers with new tax dollars; and 
improving the health and safety of children by moving marijuana sales 
from the street to licensed stores that check IDs.

"We're proposing a comprehensive, tightly regulated solution to the 
vast criminal enterprise that has flourished under a system that bans 
a substance less toxic, less addictive and less dangerous than 
alcohol," said Jim Borghesani, a spokesman for the Campaign to 
Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol in Massachusetts, which is backing 
the ballot effort.

"Our opponents are offering stale, alarmist arguments that 
essentially preserve that failed system," he added.

But Lewis, 47, said legalization may boost the accessibility of 
marijuana for youth and increase the perception among kids that pot 
is safe to use.

And he indicated that some worries about the Massachusetts criminal 
justice system are unfounded. He said criminal penalties for 
marijuana possession of an ounce or less have already been replaced 
with a system of civil penalties. And for most adults who use pot 
casually, there aren't any criminal sanctions.

"Virtually nobody is actually being arrested and going to jail for 
marijuana use," he said, adding that as best as his staff can tell, 
fewer than 10 people a year are incarcerated for possession of more 
than an ounce of pot, and most of those people are getting locked up 
for another offense.

The special Senate committee's report did not explicitly endorse or 
reject the legalization proposal. But it did raise numerous concerns 
about how it would play out in Massachusetts, and suggested ways for 
the Legislature to temper the question, should it become law.

While emphasizing that he's not opposed to legalization in theory, 
Lewis laid out five reasons why Massachusetts is not ready.

First, the senator said in a State House interview, there has been a 
"most alarming" decline in young people's perception of the harm of 
marijuana. He cited data from a federally funded study. It shows a 
national drop in the percentage of 12th-graders who think people 
greatly risk harming themselves physically or in other ways if they 
smoke marijuana regularly: from 65 percent in 1994 to 36 percent in 2014.

Lewis said that before legalization, there must be a strong and 
sustained statewide public education campaign that lets young people 
know marijuana is not safe for them to use.

Second, the state doesn't have a clear metric or clear protocols for 
when someone is too impaired by marijuana to drive safely, he said. 
There is no marijuana equivalent to the legal prohibition of driving 
with a blood alcohol level of 0.08 or greater. That should change 
before legalization, to ensure police have the tools to keep the 
public safe, Lewis posited.

Third, after years of troubled state oversight, Massachusetts has, 
more or less, just finished implementing a 2012 referendum that 
legalized marijuana for medical use.

Lewis said the state should "get medical right first," before 
legalizing recreational use. The first medical marijuana dispensary 
opened in June 2015. And while there are six medical dispensaries 
open now, some have run into supply problems.

Fourth, before legalization, the state should gather detailed 
baseline data on marijuana use so that changes after legalization 
could be accurately measured, Lewis said.

And fifth, he said, Massachusetts should wait for federal law to be 
eased. Marijuana remains prohibited under federal statute, creating a 
raft of complications for the legal marijuana industry in places like Colorado.

The proposed Massachusetts law would create a "Cannabis Control 
Commission," with members appointed by the state treasurer to oversee 
marijuana stores, cultivation facilities, testing facilities, and 
manufacturers of edible products like pot-infused cookies.

The measure would impose a 3.75 percent excise tax on retail 
marijuana sales, in addition to the state's 6.25 percent sales tax - 
and it would allow cities and towns to levy an additional 2 percent 
tax that the municipalities could keep.

One of the ideas behind the measure backed by the Campaign to 
Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol in Massachusetts is to create a 
framework for a regulated and taxed industry to safely blossom.

But Lewis, who described himself as a "Harvard Business School grad 
and someone who is a capitalist," said that the incentives of the US 
economic system don't work when it comes to a recreational marijuana industry.

"The fiduciary responsibility for a for-profit company is to generate 
as much profit as possible for a company's shareholders, whether 
that's a private company, for the owners, or whether it's a public 
company," Lewis said.

"The problem is: That is in direct conflict with, overall, what's 
best for society in terms of public health and public safety when 
you're talking about things like marijuana."

Lewis argued that the marijuana industry, like the tobacco industry 
before it, will seek to expand its business by getting new customers 
and increasing how much product existing customers use - to the 
detriment of the public good.

The senator floated the idea of other potential systems - setting up 
state-run shops similar to New Hampshire's liquor stores, for 
instance, which he said would not have the same intensity of profit incentive.

Lewis, who is married and has 13- and 16-year-old daughters, said 
being a father plays into his views:

"Their health, their safety, their happiness - there's nothing more important."

And there are signs that Lewis could play a bigger role in the public 
discussion of the ballot push, which is opposed by major state 
political figures such as Governor Charlie Baker, Attorney General 
Maura Healey, and Mayor Martin J. Walsh of Boston.

Baker, a Republican, said in a prepared statement that he is grateful 
to Lewis and his colleagues for their work on the issue.

"I look forward," Baker said, "to supporting the senator and others 
in their public education efforts."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom