Reefer Madness Continues
November 4 can not come soon enough for us. Not only will it put an end to the back and forth between Barack Obama and John McCain, but it will stop the circular argument Massachusetts district attorneys make against decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana, even though several of them admit to trying pot in their younger days.
As a student at Stonehill College, Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley found himself in a room with guys passing around a bong. “When it came to me, I inhaled so hard that it burned my lungs,” he says. “I don’t want to sound Clintonesque; I inhaled, but I couldn’t handle it.”
So let’s get this straight. Because Conley was lucky enough not to get caught with that bong in his hand, he didn’t have that on his record. This allowed him to become the DA, and now he wants to prosecute kids who are experimenting the way he did in his youth?
The district attorneys say decriminalizing small amounts of pot is as dangerous as repealing the state income tax, but we’ve yet to hear a truly compelling reason why. Surely Martha Coakley has some good evidence.
“There are a lot of reasons why I think this is a bad idea,” said state Attorney General Martha Coakley.
Finally, some facts! Statistics! Hard evidence that civil fines for possessing small amounts of weed will unravel the very fabric of our society!
“The bottom line is that this sends a message that it’s OK to use marijuana . . . but to pretend it’s not a public safety issue is disingenuous.”
. . .Or not.
It’s interesting—there were two accidents in which police officers were struck or nearly struck by drivers operating under the influence of alcohol this weekend. And yet nobody wants to make it illegal to carry a six-pack. (We hope.)
Most of the arguments we’ve heard for keeping the criminal penalties for small amounts of pot boil down to “because we said so” or “drugs are bad.” This isn’t enough to convince us that we’ll be hit by a droopy-eyed driver come Nov. 5 if the measure passes. But good attempt at fear-mongering, DAs.
October 20th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
87% of responders to the 2002 Time Magazine Poll favored legalizing marijuana. That’s out of 228,000 voters. 95% of responders to the 2008 Miami Herald Poll favored the legalization of medical marijuana. only 11.2% of Americans believe the ‘War on Drugs’ is working (Sept 2008 Zogby Poll). These few true believers probably make a living from keeping cannabis illegal. Like Cops, criminals and taxpayer supported prohibition groups. The American people have had enough fear mongering. It’s time to take the control of cannabis away from drug cartels. We must regulate cannabis via legalization.
October 20th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Thank you as somebody who was arrested in MA for nothing more than a joint with a CORI record for life.
October 20th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
It takes a special kind of law and order person to be a prosecutor and make hypocritical arguments like these. I tried my hand at prosecuting and didn’t like it, especially when it came to prosecuting people for stupid things like smoking marijuana, something I had done myself. If the laws didn’t deter these prosecutors when they were younger, they aren’t deterring young people today. Massachusetts already has among the highest per capita marijuana use numbers in the country. People that want to smoke marijuana already smoke it. They are not deterred by the remote possibility of getting caught. Decriminalizing isn’t going to have any impact on the percentage of people who smoke marijuana. It will free up police time and court time and save us a lot of money, and that’s about it.