Now that the year is 2014 and recreational marijuana is legal in Colorado, however abstract the current laws pertaining to such are at this point in time, advocates hoping to continue the trend nationwide are setting their eyes on the Bay State. Weed of the medicinal variety has recently been allowed by law but the question remains whether a full-fledged legalization will gain favor with commonwealth residents.
“In 2016, Massachusetts will find itself in the crosshairs for cannabis reform,” said Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of NORML, a national group that favors the legalization of marijuana, to the Boston Globe.
And while organizations like NORML, which claims on its website to want “to legalize the responsible use of marijuana by adults,” are in the fight to protect the individual liberties of people in the country as well as generate revenue for state and federal governments in a safe manner, they simply don’t go far enough.
What ends up being overlooked is that marijuana legalization still creates social inequalities and could potentially perpetuate the war on drugs. Advocacy groups have a tendency to not to address that issue, one that was strikingly missing from the Globe‘s interview with NORML, often keeping the focus on the other green: money.
BostInno spoke with the executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) – a group of police, judges, prosecutors and other law enforcement officials opposed to the war on drugs – who essentially told us that legalization of marijuana is fine as long as it does more than just raise governmental capital.
Said Major Neill Franklin (Ret.),
Legalizing medical marijuana was a great first step but does nothing to reduce the profits marijuana provides for street gangs, the discriminatory application of marijuana laws against our communities of color or the tremendous waste of law enforcement time and effort that has ensured that as drug laws have been more strenuously enforced the rate at which we solve violent crimes has declined precipitously.
Franklin contends that legalizing pot is not enough to cease the war on drugs, which is the true issue of the matter, not the amount of money it can produce. “There is no level of law enforcement commitment, skill or courage that can ever eliminate obscenely profitable, tax-free drug markets that deliver prized commodities to millions of people,” wrote Franklin, a notion that still rings true to him today.
One person in staunch opposition marijuana legalization and now wields significantly more political clout is the new Mayor of Boston, Marty Walsh. The Mayor’s press secretary, Kate Norton, told BostInno in an email, “Mayor Walsh has been consistently opposed to the legalization of marijuana. Medicinal marijuana dispensaries are now the law in Massachusetts, and Mayor Walsh’s focus is on mitigating any potential public safety consequences as these dispensaries are put in place.”
Massachusetts has already taken steps to allow its citizens to blaze without fear of legal retribution. In 2008, a favorable ballot initiative allowed for those caught with less than an ounce of marijuana, hash, hash oil, or smoking in public are to be punished by a civil fine of no more than $100. Similarly, in 2012, Massachusetts voted to sign the allowable use of medicinal marijuana and subsequently eliminate state criminal and civil penalties for the use of such.
With 35 medicinal marijuana dispensary applications expected to be announced by the state at the end of the month, the sentiments towards recreational marijuana is softening significantly. Last Monday, a CNN/ORC poll noted that of 1,010 adult Americans surveyed over the phone, a solid 55 percent were in favor of legalization.
