Marijuana may soon be coming to your neighborhood. You may smell its aroma wafting over from the deck next door or from a backyard party down the block. Why, it's even possible that a cannabis cafe could open on Main Street. A question proposed for the fall ballot would make marijuana a legal recreational drug and regulate it like alcohol. Although that initiative petition faces a long-shot legal challenge and needs a second round of certified signatures, Massachusetts citizens will likely get to vote on the question in November. [continues 560 words]
Matt Allen, the man behind the state's medical marijuana law, is all done holding his tongue. Almost two years after voters passed that ballot question, Allen notes, this state isn't even close to having, in his felicitously turned phrase, "seeds in the ground." The law envisioned up to 35 nonprofit medical marijuana dispensaries, with at least one in each county, ready to go - or grow - by the end of 2013. Almost nine months into 2014, after a process full of, um, potholes, 11 marijuana dispensaries have been provisionally certified, with half the counties uncovered. Even by the administration's estimate, the first of those won't make it through the final review and start operating until early next year. [continues 661 words]
Let's look at the fears that cloud the issue of medical marijuana. On Tuesday, Massachusetts voters must decide whether to let doctors prescribe medical marijuana for established patients who suffer from debilitating conditions. To hear some opponents tell it, if Question 3 prevails, it's likely to lead to an overall increase in marijuana use, particularly among teenagers. That argument really doesn't withstand close scrutiny. Here's why. In 2008, possession of less than an ounce of marijuana was reduced to a civil offense in this state, punishable only by a $100 fine. That being so, Question 3 wouldn't offer sudden opportunities for schemers to obtain a drug that is otherwise unavailable or that carries harsh legal penalties. [continues 643 words]
THE HYPOCRISY that surrounds the typical politician's approach to drugs was driven home to me one evening more than a decade ago during a trade trip to Asia. As we walked through an outdoor restaurant, the smell of smoldering hemp came wafting on the night wind. "That smells like cannabis, " observed a certain insouciant prosecutor-turned-politician with a penchant for duck-hunting, fly-fishing, and a curious sport he called "deer drinking." "Or at least," the same red-headed figure hastened to add, in a puckish bow to political caution, "what I'm told cannabis smells like." [continues 632 words]
