A measure to legalize medical marijuana in Massachusetts may have won decisive support at the ballot box this election, but communities across the Boston area are rushing to craft zoning regulations to limit where the drug dispensaries can be located, or in some cases ban them altogether, before the new law takes effect in January.
Two suburbs north of Boston, Wakefield and Reading, have approved local bans, and nearby Melrose and Peabody are considering similar steps. Many other communities, including Framingham, Quincy, and Boston, are studying restrictions.
Comments
why does this drug get to be sold at boutiques by girls in mini skirts while the rest of the drugs are sold by people in white lab coats at CVS?
Two reasons: it's easier to control, surveil, and investigate if it's at a mom and pop place. There, people are either customers or employees, and not mixed in with those just buying some milk, or picking up a regular drug. CVS has a lot more power and clout than a mom and pop shop (in case the local authorities want to influence things). Also, the people at CVS in the white lab coats have some amount of pharmacy training and you would not want to see most of them in mini skirts. (If the boutiques are to have girls in mini skirts I may just have to do some "window shopping", so as to be prepared, as I get older, for that sad time when seeing a girl in a mini skirt, that is, I mean, using medical marijuana is necessary to stop the pain.)
CVS would be in violation of federal law if they were to sell marijuana. The government could seize their entire assets, prosecute the CEO, etc. selling marijuana would be corporates suicide. The same would be applied to the owner of a building, office park, or hospital that rented space to a marijuana boutique.
Why can't this be distributed in local pharamcies like any other drug, with the same reporting and prescription restrictions?
right, geoff, the landslide that voted for this thought any dispensaries would be located in the most inconvenient places, perhaps like in Boston Harbor.
these clowns apparently have forgotten that they are subject to popular votes, as well. the fear mongers are out, baying at the moon and it is as pathetic now as it has been since Nixon commenced the War on Drugs, decades and billions of dollars and millions of convicts ago.
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“Certainly, no one voted for this thinking it would bring a dispensary to their neighborhood.” Oh? Don't be so sure, bud. I bet you'd be surprised. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Put up a moratorium for six months, if need be. The process is inevitable, and stopping it will be impossible. So, put the "dispensaries" in office parks and watch work productivity plummet -- ha-ha-ha! Put 'em out in some nowhere part of town and watch the teen population increase in that part of town, overnight. Or, put 'em right inside town senior centers, where the baby boomers can get immediate access to the "medication". >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Yeah, welcome back,my friends, to the show that NEVER ends. Midnight showings of "Reefer Madness" for law enforcement officials, as reminders?
Yep, it sounds like Geoff Beckwith has no respect for the voters. He thinks they're all stupid. He's the one who's incompetent and should be in another line of work.
Aren't there restrictions already in place? Don't the medical users have to have authorization from their doctors. As for placing the dispensaries in inconvenient places, could not the dispensary deliver the drug by mail or by hand? Why won'r this nation get it? The war on drugs is a losing cause and a vast waste of money. Legalize it and the crooks go away and the killings stop. Don't we remember prohibition?
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Too many people in positions of power have been knee-jerk anti-drug to appeal to various conservative and/or religious groups that think drugs are a giant communist conspiracy. The public is leading here and these officials are very confused and so filled with fear that they're practically in panic. "Is this for real," your local councilman or selectman is saying over and over, while he guzzles Pepto-Bismol.