Both Mayor Marty Walsh and Governor-Elect Charlie Baker rubbed some of the more green-minded the wrong way when they both expressed their intentions to combat attempts to legalize marijuana for recreational use in Massachusetts. Though Mayor Walsh is known to be on the wagon, and has been for almost 20 years,* the governor-elect is no stranger throwing one or two back, even spending the night after his hairline gubernatorial win with Dorchester townies at the Eire Pub.
But to some, Governor-Elect Baker’s willingness to to tip the elbow and staunch opposition to legalized marijuana is pure hypocrisy. So impassioned by the governor-elect’s apparently contradictory nature is Mike Crawford (known colloquially as Mike Cann), who hosts a radio show called The Young Jurks on WEMF and contributes to a column called Blunt Truth for DigBoston.
Crawford challenged the new governor to a blunt-beer blitz: For every beer Governor-Elect Baker drinks, Crawford will smoke a blunt in an attempt to show that the former’s idea that marijuana is more dangerous than alcohol is complete blasphemy.
As Abraham Lincoln once told his Union General Henry Halleck, “put up or shut up.”
The call was put on over an online video, shown above, saying “We’ll do it on a Sunday. We’ll see who makes it to work on Monday.”
As a measure of good faith, Crawford also pledged to donate $1,000 to a charity of Governor-Elect Baker’s choosing. There’s been no mention whether Baker has responded to the challenge yet.
To date the states of Washington, Colorado, Oregon and Alaska have all repealed marijuana prohibition and Washington D.C. has allowed for its possession and restricted growth, though not recreational sale.
Massachusetts, which is currently two years removed from planting the seeds of a medicinal marijuana program that has yet to bear any fruit, is being eyed by activists and proponents for a 2016 ballot initiative also repealing prohibition.
Though Baker has gone on record saying he’ll move forward with the medicinal marijuana process, it’s unclear with how much speed and conviction he’ll do so, especially given his distaste for the recreational variety.
Mayor Walsh, at least, has made it known that while he’d prefer to lead a city without any marijuana, both recreational or medicinal, it is the vote of the people that he’ll abide by. Governor-Elect Baker, though, said he plans to “oppose that and I’m going to oppose that vigorously … with a lot of help from a lot of other people in the addiction community.”
*Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story mis-stated the length of Boston Mayor Marty Walsh’s commitment to sobriety. It reportedly began in 1995.
