Advocates for legalizing pot invoked "Reefer Madness" to mock opposition by top elected leaders - prompting Mayor Martin J. Walsh to fire back there is nothing funny about a detox ward. Walsh, Gov. Charlie Baker and House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo joined forces yesterday in a public appeal yesterday against legalizing marijuana, warning, "We've learned from the recent experience of other states - legal marijuana leads to higher rates of addiction, lower academic success, and significant health consequences for our kids." Bill Downing of Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition countered, "Unfortunately, our governor and the mayor of Boston suffer from a mental disorder, it's called 'Reefer Madness.' " He was referring to the much-lampooned 1930s film that depicts dire consequences for marijuana use. [continues 311 words]
Medical Marijuana Entrepreneurs Seek Out Unusual Backers Shut out of traditional bank loans, budding entrepreneurs who want to sell medical marijuana in Massachusetts have been forced to get seed money from a host of unconventional sources - from restaurant and nightclub owners to friends and family, landscapers and even former legislators. A Herald review of the 181 applications for 35 licenses to sell marijuana reveals financial commitments from a hodgepodge of sources. Marijuana is still illegal in the eyes of the federal government, meaning banks can't issue small business loans, which are federally backed, to pot store owners. [continues 357 words]
QUINCY - A city councilor has proposed an ordinance restricting where in Quincy medical-marijuana dispensaries can open, a response to the passage of a state ballot initiative that is expected to be echoed in communities across the state. The ordinance, drafted by Brian Palmucci, does not allow dispensaries within 1,500 feet of a residential district, school, child care facility or business that serves alcohol. It is being reviewed by the city's legal department. "While Quincy overwhelmingly supported that ballot initiative, I don't think residents would support a medical marijuana dispensary being established in their neighborhood," Palmucci said. "This isn't to say: You can't come to Quincy. This is to say we want to set some community standards." [continues 413 words]
The group pushing to legalize marijuana for medicinal uses in Massachusetts says that if the ballot question is approved, the state will become a national model for how to allow access to the drug without it being abused. The Committee for Compassionate Medicine touts the initiative's limit on the number of marijuana dispensaries allowed in the state - 35 - and its felony charge for those caught defrauding the system to obtain marijuana. The crime would be punishable by up to five years in prison. [continues 466 words]
Prosecution and Jail No Longer Seen As Effective Deterrents QUINCY - On a blackboard in the drug unit's office at Quincy police headquarters, detectives have scribbled a grid of license plate numbers, vehicle types and names. These are the people the unit is building cases against for dealing drugs, mostly heroin and OxyContin. Their stated goal is to make it as difficult as possible for these people to deal in Quincy. Eradicating them altogether is beyond what the eight-person team can be expected to achieve on its own, unit head Lt. Patrick Glynn said. [continues 375 words]
DEATH CERTIFICATES SAY HEROIN, OXYCODONE AND OTHER DRUGS KILLED 46 MEN AND 53 WOMEN IN QUINCY, WEYMOUTH AND BRAINTREE IN TWO YEARS QUINCY - They're about about evenly split between men and women. More than 80 percent are over 30; the median age is 41. About a quarter of the men work trade union jobs or in construction. The women are likely to be homemakers, secretaries or workers in the medical field. They are the 99 people who died of drug overdoses in the past two years in Quincy, Braintree and Weymouth, largely from opiates like heroin and oxycodone, the pricey prescription painkiller most cited as the gateway drug to heroin. [continues 847 words]
One Police Department Responds By Seizing Items Linked To Drugs A police raid targeting the sale of bongs, scales and pipes from a Pembroke smoke shop may be the first in a countywide crackdown on paraphernalia that authorities say is clearly used for doing illegal drugs. Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz said he recently told every police department in the county to get serious about charging store owners who sell blunt wrappers, pipes or other products that are commonly used to smoke marijuana and use other drugs. [continues 679 words]
Keith Saunders had expected to use a microphone yesterday to address tens of thousands who support the decriminalization of marijuana. Instead, he needed only a megaphone to be heard by the several hundred who showed up at the gathering, the 15th annual Boston Freedom Rally. "You folks came out in a hurricane because you believe in this so much," Saunders said to the cheers of enthusiasts, who were jammed into small tents on a corner of the Boston Common, many of whose feet were buried in mud. Saunders and other organizers of what is normally one of the nation's largest annual marijuana culture festivals didn't get the 40,000 people they had expected. Only about 400 showed up in the driving rain, and only four of the expected 50 vendors turned out to hawk T-shirts, posters, and CDs. [continues 202 words]
