With Election Day just a month away, polls show strong public support in Massachusetts for a referendum that would legalize marijuana for medical use, joining 17 other states.
But prosecutors and police are sounding alarms about the initiative, saying it is ripe for exploitation and would lead to more drug addiction and crime.
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Police officials put up a brave front but the fact of the matter is that they lost the "war" on marijuana a long time ago. Continuing this fight is a waste of time and resources. It is as available as cigarettes at the convenience store. It is grown in closets, basements and utility rooms everywhere. Yes, right in your neighborhood. Get stoned and fall asleep. Or kick back a bottle of booze and possibly kill someone. If marijuana can help some poor soul with debilitating illness, what's the problem?
I can't wait for this to pass and all of these stupid police officers and politcians to be proven wrong. Notice whenever they claim crime will go up if marijuana is legalized they never site any stats or studies to back that up? There's only one statistic that matters in this debate: Number of people to die by smoking marijuana? ZERO
If you favor personal freedom over government-defined freedoms and reject the idea that police have special rights above privacy, vote yes. If medical marijuana has been a ruse in other states it is not a reason to keep it illegal in MA. Just do it better. Or just make it legal, commercialize it, control the sale like A & T and reap the tax benefits.
It is the police & DA's job to enforce laws NOT influence them.
“I don’t think there are any safeguards you can put on this to prevent abuse,” There are people that will abuse whatever is available. we are currently seeing millions who abuse food. Look at all the harm and health problems obesity causes. Are we going to hire more police to ration food? There are many more things that are more harmful than marijuana that are used every day. Waste of resources and money.
Well, seems we have the drugs far more powerful than pot, such as Ambien. Anybody out there NOT heard an Ambien story? It's a very powerful drug that should be illegal for people operating equipment...but factions, such as AMA (?) and drug companies lobby for it, so it sticks. Medical pot may not lead to an increased effort for law enforcement, but a different type of enforcement. "Pvalen's" point about obesity being an indication of another addiction is true, and it seems in NY, food IS rationed as government keeps us from those 32oz. drinks. Pot represents a means in which the state can prosper from another business, and maybe what's to follow will be urine tests for employment...and the public will be altered again by employers needing to regulate prescription drug allowance. Is this all "Reefer-Madness?" Might be. But anybody with a teenager who steals the pain killers from the medicine cabinet, buys/sells Ritalin at school, or takes booze from the family liquor cabinet knows that morality and moderation are the keys to a maturity we all have to assume to survive, just like 1000 other morality challenges among us. We have to grow up and accept responsibility for ourselves, humanity's greatest challenge. The state needs to help good parents and good citizens in general do that. That would help.
Where I live the police won't even arrest you for discretely smoking pot. People here already smoke it we just want to legalize it for medical uses. The prosecutors & police will find plenty to do anyway. And yes prosecutors & the police are supposed to enforce laws not try to influence them.
If the police and prosecutors are dissatisfied with our current form of government then they should seek other careers. The prosecutors can chase ambulances and cops can learn or trade or take advantages of openings in fast food. There will be plenty of people coming forward to fill their shoes.
Otherwise they need to shut up and do their jobs enforcing laws enacted by the people of MA
Marijuana is much less dangerous than alcohol and should be legal. It is illogical to have alcohol legal and marijuana not. The "drug war" has been lost and has cost a ridiculous amout of money, both to prosecute the "war" and to jail non-violent drug users and dealers. When money is spent in unproductive measures it is, in effect, "burned" instead of being invested in ways that would grow the economy and our standard of living and quality of life. The focus of government and the security forces is to keep us safe, not to chose sides on moral issues.
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If all of the most conservative voices in Boston are for outright legalization, much less the legalization of medical marijuana, then who exactly is against this, nanny-state Democrats??!?!?!? Anyone who has had the flu, the REAL flu where the hair on your arm hurts and where you take a tiny sip of water and vomit 20 seconds later, anyone who has had the real flu should understand the benefits to sick people of taking a single puff and being able to eat and drink water for an hour before resuming vomiting. Now imagine a cancer patient. Anyone who has significant back injuries and nerve damage who has found the pain pills are less and less effective over time as they take more and more control of your life should understand the benefits of marijuana over the pain pills! They can control the pain and still lead productive lives!! Legalized pot, much less legalized medical pot, should be a non-issue, especially in this state, where self-declared 'liberals' are supposedly so enlightened...
Prohibition didn't work in the 1920's and it doesn't work now. To prevent most of the problems cited by law enforcement, marijuana should be fully legalized for adults and regulated like alcohol.
Just legaliize it.
I find it fascinating that the moonbats forbid smoking tobacco...but demand legalization of pot.
That's because tobacco is a politically incorrect drug while marijuana is a politically correct drug in the world of situationally and subjectively based liberalism. The reverse is also true of Republican initiators of the "war on drugs" (Bill Bennett and Nancy Reagan). The truly consistent position on these issues is the libertarian-conservative position -- let adults choose for themselves whether to smoke tobacco or marijuana. Government's only concern should be the public safety aspects (no DUI, keep away from minors, etc).
There's no valid comparison. They're different products and not related. Marijuana is not physically addicting, but tobacco is. Death rate from marijuana = 0. Death rate from cigarettes = millions.
Anyway, the Department of Public Health already has its hands full with the Jamaica Plain drug testing lab scandal and the fact that the breakdown in oversight was due to management problems (ie, was a systemic problem with the management hierarchy) and, therefore, has implications for the other drug testing labs that are also under their management. And, add to that the scandal with the compounding pharmacy that they also regulate and where people in are contracting and dying from Meningitis at a rate of approximately 1 in 10 affected, and where the drug was shipped to some subset of at most 23 states.
We've heard this hand wringing before when decriminalization was on the ballot. Some people, especially those in law enforcement, find it very difficult to face a changing world.
To those who try to compare marijuana to tobacco, you apparently purposely ignore the big difference in order to make a *very* weak case. Tobacco KILLS; marijuana does not. Tobacco has no medicinal uses; Marijuana does. There is no valid comparison beyond the fact that they both can be smoked.
who-cares-1940, actually, everyone fiinds it difficult to face a hanging work, not just those in law enforcement -- it's Human Nature. It's just that people have different interests, responsibilities, and things that have become habits and so are automatic (don't involve much thought) and therefore their responses to a changing world are different.
You're right that most people have a little trouble adjusting to change, but that's considerably different than resisting it. Most of us cope with it very well.
I think when it comes to law enforcement, resistance to change is endemic. It's one of my major gripes. haha. Police departments are organized and run very much like they were 100 years ago. I believe we need a different approach, which I won't detail here, but which would be virtually impossible to implement because law enforcement would resist by all means at their disposal.
Whoops, I meant "changing world" not "hanging work" (I guess you could say I choked on that one). Close enough for government work?
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When this passes, does that mean there will soon be a proliferation of $45 buck-a-vist, strip mall 'doctors' writing out pot prescriptions all day? Why does this miracle drug have to be sold at a head shop instead of a real pharmacy? Medical pot is a joke. Look at the names of the varieties that are offered in other states. They don't even PRETEND to sound medicinal! And to the wishful thinking folks: Pot will not be covered by your health insurance. Either legalize it outright, or stick with the decrim already in place.
Some states handle it well and California does not. Educate yourself before making silly statements.
Most of this news story didn't make sense, the issue seemed straightforward enough until people started listing all the things that could go wrong because of the law of unintended results. You could say the same thing about the invention of the wheel. Then I read petard's question, and thought Yeah! why wouldn't the pot prescription be filled at our local pharmacy like our other prescriptions? Anyone out there know?
I think it's preparation for the day that marijuana is legalized, but it's unnecessary.
I grew up in Florida in the days before CVS and Walgreens divided up the drugstore world. Many pharmacies had attached liquor stores -- remnants of prohibition when only pharmacies could sell alcohol.
who-cares-1940, Many pharmacies had soda fountains too. What's your point?
Now you're going to de-regulate how and where prescription medicine should be dispensed?
Think before you make silly statements.
Just legalize it! It's far less destructive than alcohol!
Law enforcement stands to lose some funding and certain liberties (like illegal searches based on the smell of marijuana). The pharmaceutical/biotech business stand to lose money. This has nothing to do with dangers or crime. This is about money and power, nothing more.
Never mind, I think I found out what medical marijuana can't just be dispensed through local pharmacies. Since it would remain illegal with the federal government, there are probably reasons the pharmacies, if they handle Medicare prescriptions, would be forbidden to dispense med.marijuana.
Good point! I didn't think of that.