The TAB’s Jim Morrison has posted a story about last night’s historic 21-2 vote by Newton Aldermen Monday in favor of approving a special permit for Garden Remedies, the medical marijuana dispensary to be located on Washington Street.
Jim’s article quotes the two aldermen who voted no on what could conceivably be the first medical marijana clinic in the state, following overwhelming votes in support of the clinics both statewide and in Newton in 2012.
Alderman Lisle Baker voted against the special permit for several reasons, including discrepancies between information Garden Remedies submitted to the state and information it submitted to the city, traffic concerns, plus the fact that buying, selling and using marijuana remains a federal crime.
“In good conscience,” Baker said, “I cannot support the item.”
Alderman Jim Cote, who voted in favor of the special permit as a member on the Land Use Committee, voted against it as a member of the full board.
“It’s a new law, but it doesn’t mean we have to support the law,” Cote said. “As a parent of 10, I can’t support the introduction of a substance to a community that isn’t legal in the country.”
This law enables people in great pain to get a doctor’s prescription for a drug that provides relief, just as they can get a prescription for other forms of pain relievers that are often ineffective and highly addictive. Selling many drugs without a doctor’s prescription is illegal. It’s hard to understand why this is hard to understand.
Same here- I don’t understand the “it’s illegal” argument, when in this instance and application it is clearly not. Curious what the discrepancies that Baker mentioned are. As far as the traffic concerns, well, it’s on Washington St. How many customers do you think this place will have on a given day (serious question)?
Alderman Cote frequently comments on Village 14 and Alderman Baker has commented here as well over the years. I respectfully encourage them to join the conversation.
In particular, I’d be interested in knowing why they would stand in the way of providing relief to patients who are suffering and who have doctors who support this as part of their treatment.
How many lives have been ruined because of law enforcement decisions based on fear based lies and distortions about marijuana that were so forcefully promoted when I was growing up? How many terminally ill patients could have been far more comfortable if they had access to what will now be available on Washington Street?
I’ve never used marijuana and never intend to use it unless my doctors tell me it would help relieve severe end of life pain. It’s ironic that Marty’s Liquors and this dispensary are located a short walking distance from each other, but it’s clear that alcohol does far more damage.
For two years back in the early 60’s, I was stationed at a naval base in Morocco There was constant fear by the higher ups that junior officers like me would trip off to the Rif Mountains to smoke a a form of readily available marijuana. This was at the same time we were selling tons of Heineken for a dime a bottle at the BOQ Mess. At one point, the base medical officer came to give us a lecture about the ills of marijuana. He readily admitted that it didn’t cause many of the serious health problems that alcohol did and was in general far less harmful; but he advised we refrain from all use because we’d lose our commissions and security clearances if we were caught smoking it. Go figure.
Perhaps Jim can explain why, if he sees a legal issue here, he’d vote yes at the Land use level?
Jim’s concern,though, has been also raised by lenders, who are having difficulty lending to these dispensaries because the fear a backlash from federal regulators.
I am fully in support of the medical marijuana law, but it doesn’t go far enough. And in states like CA my understanding is that it is a simple matter for practically anyone to obtain the necessary doctor note, even where there is no medical issue at stake. Will MA operate that same way?
Dan Fahey — It is already operating that way. There are no “prescriptions” — they are called certificates (doctor’s note). The “patient” doesn’t need to appear before the certifying doctor — it can be done by Skype, etc. A patient just needs to say a few key words — for example, “I’ve been self medicating with pot for years. I don’t have a doctor. What I found is that it gets be through the day well enough that I can work and enjoy life. I’d like to continue with this legally.”. Done.
Dan – Listen here (it’s 6 minutes long) http://www.wbur.org/2014/02/27/medical-marijuana-clinics
While I’m actually in favor of making marijuana legal, I don’t like this “wink-wink” approach to doing sp. And it seems the legislators actually tacitly decided on that approach. It makes a mockery of the law.
The examples cited in the article are not a good testament to legalization. “I take my pot before heading off to work.” Think about that same line if she were talking about alcohol.
Thank God for Baker’s and Cote’s vote on this facility. It suggests that there is still some conscience left in the governance of this community.
If marijuana is such a valuable agent in the treatment of illness let it become a legal prescriptive drug that you obtain at Walgreens or CVS.
My wife was taken by breast cancer after a 8 year battle and was never at a loss for remedial help pharmaceutically in her treatment for pain, nausea, depression etc. Trust the medical world, we do for most everything else,.. thats what they are getting the big bucks for.
The Controlled Substances Act does not distinguish between medical marijuana and recreational use, and the federal sentencing guidelines have some pretty hefty sentences and fines based upon quantity. The DOJ issued guidelines to U.S. Attorneys last year addressing crackdowns on medical marijuana operations and whether there will be federal enforcement is tied to how well the state regulates the dispensaries. State regulation is not a safe harbor though as I read of a raid on a California facility just 6 days ago. While sending a message to the State of California to get its regulatory act together, the crackdown certainly left those growers in some hefty legal jeopardy.
@blueprinthill,
I don’t agree that there are no situations where a seriously ill and in-pain person couldn’t and shouldn’t benefit from medical marijuana.
I do think the case can be made that the way the legislation is apparently being applied raises questions.
While i support marijuana being legalized, I think a law should be passed doing so, rather than this “wink-wink” approach.
Aldermen Baker and Cote’s opinions on medical marijuana are now irrelevant. Beyond their right to vote on the ballot initiative two years ago like every other citizen of voting age, they should never have had any relevance at all. It was not the voter’s intention to give local politicians any role in permitting marijuana dispensaries. That is clear to anyone who reads the ballot initiative. The Board of Aldermen, like other local officials in Massachusetts cities and towns, obtained their power to impede [and even block] the opening of dispensaries from Martha Coakley, whose intent was to undermine the will of the voters because she opposes medical marijuana. Coakley will likely get her comeuppance on election day, when her opinion too will become irrelevant.
@Dan, I agree with you. Turning a blind eye to enforcement is not the way to address the issue. Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act, and Congress needs to amend it to address legalizing medical marijuana.
Weighing in: One of my assigned committees on the Board of Alderman is Land Use. Land Use is tasked with reviewing special permit applications and making the appropriate recommendation to the full board. We have an excellent committee chair who makes a great effort is seeing that members understand the issue and to vote on the facts of the permit. I feel that within the committee I add more value by working with the other members in reviewing and crafting a strong board order that protects the residents of Newtonville, and the City as a whole, than just saying no. As evidenced in the full Board meeting, the Board Order was well thought out and has built in safeguards allowing future reviews and appropriate city responses to the operations. So we did our job and I was in agreement with this stage of the process.
Fast forward to the full Board meeting: The State of Massachusetts has been addressing the marijuana agenda through the ballot box rather than through legislative actions. I for one would rather see this done through an orderly process that addresses concerns of the citizenry against those that seek to make money on the habits of others.
Please note this vote comes on the heals of our vote to ban E-Cigs from the city even though they are legal and in many cases are smoking cessation devices (saving lives). The reasons given in the e-cig vote was to send a message to the youth that this was not a positive habit to pick-up.
For every instance of marijuana helping people, I can show you many cases wherein it has started others on the road to addiction. (same as e-cigs). Last fall I had the pleasure of sitting in on a parent/athletes high school meeting wherein Chris Herren was brought in to straight talk the kids and parents. Chris’ talk is a strong message on our responsibility as a leaders to the youth. http://www.theherrenproject.org/ Those of you that have experimented in the past and did not become addicted to other substances are to be applauded but there are many folks that are not so lucky. As a parent, and former leader of thousands of young Marines, I feel that I would have been less than genuine had I changed my opinion with a popular vote in a state leaning towards legalization.
In the end yes my vote is irrelevant, but I hope that the residents of Newton respect leaders that look at a different perspective.
Jim– Opinions are an entitlement. Respect as a public official must be earned. I can’t speak for others, but when your opinion opposes the legal right of sick [and in some cases dying] people to obtain relief from their condition, you’re not going to earn much respect from me.
@Alderman Cote, thanks for taking the time to respond.
I appreciate the thought you clearly put into the two different votes. However both votes were about the special permit, not if marijuana is good or bad, so I would respectfully disagree that there should be a distinction.
I also believe your concerns about marijuana leading to bigger addiction problems is not applicable to a controlled clinic where only persons with a verified medial need will have access to the remedy.
Land Use went to great lengths — as you and the rest of your colleagues on the committee should have — to make sure the clinic had top-of-the-line security, strict distribution guidelines and was committed to working closely with law enforcement.
If you were comfortable with those standards as a committee member, why the lack of confidence as a board member?
Jim – Thanks for your explanation and I appreciate that you always respond to emails, even when the message isn’t one of support. The fact is the dispensary will open in Newton as a result of a vote of the BOA, so I’m really fine with a few no votes. Obviously my sympathies are with those who need medical marijuana to relieve debilitating pain. There are people on this blog with stories to tell, whose loved ones deserved a right to purchase the most effective pain and nausea reliever for the last two years and that’s why there is such passion about the issue.
The abuse of opiates is a growing problem that leads to addiction as well, and Bob as usual points out the truth – most often, alcohol is the initial contact with additive substances. There are many addictive drugs readily available illegally (and legally), so I just don’t understand why this one drug that’s been proven to be an effective pain and nausea reliever is put in a special category.
Thanks Lisap
What many dont want to consider that at a Federal Level this is illegal and it will be interesting to see if any doctors who take Medicare payments which is federally funded will be writing any prescriptions for medical Marijuana. Or any hospitals or health centers that take federal money will be writing any prescriptions. And any doctor that does I would think runs the risk of losing their license because they are violating federal statutes.
If this wasn’t illegal federally then Pharmacy’s would have been able to dispense this.
The medical community is well aware of the effectiveness of medical marijuana as a pain reliever. The only difference between Joanne and Lisap and proponents of this law is that they are lucky. That’s what it comes down to – luck. No one asks to be in pain.
And this wouldn’t be necessary if federal laws hadn’t made it virtually impossible to do research on marijuana, so universities and pharmaceutical companies can’t legally get what they’d need to create synthetic analogues or extracts that would employ the active ingredients in standardized amounts. If you don’t want people using medical marijuana, then make it possible to create effective substitutes for buying the plant itself.
It is unfortunate that federal law has not caught up to state laws in this area. But recall that until very recently, federal law hadn’t caught up to state law in the area of gay marriage either. Gay couples could be legally married according to a state (Mass first!) but still not enjoy federal benefits such as filing taxes jointly, hospital visitation rights, avoiding estate taxes, etc. Now that discrepancy has been eliminated, making a lot of peoples’ lives a lot better. I am confident we will see the same happen in the case of medical marijuana at some point but until then we have an admittedly messy situation to deal with.
Jim, as a Sergeant of Marines I’d love to tell you how the Corps is centered around a culture of drinking and medicating Marines with powerful over the counter drugs for PTSD and sleep issues that often complicate matters or lead to dependency. And how I’ve seen good Marines careers and even potential civilian careers destroyed for testing positive for marijuana though not under the influency on duty, all the while others are allowed to be stoned out of their minds as long as they have a prescription or receive little more than a slap on the wrist for being drunk while working. I could also tell you about how those who are fairing who have gotten out who opt to use weed in moderation in place of ambien, etc.
The federal law is BS and rooted in racism. There is NO way around that. Also, it should be pretty damn obvious that prohibition does nothing but generate crime and fill prisons, but we seem to be slow learners.
And this is coming from someone whos never touched the stuff nor has any desire to.
* prescription not otc
Jane not quite sure what you are implying in your statement above. It is not luck but facts.
I’ve never met a person who’s had the misfortune of getting a chronic painful illness, or has a family member get one, who opposes medical marijuana. Good health isn’t completely within our control. Some people are lucky, don’t develop chronic illnesses, and don’t need pain relief. I happen to be lucky, and it’s very clear that my good health has been nothing but luck. That’s a fact. It’s the people who’ve done nothing to deserve pain and suffering that we should be concerned about.
Hear, hear – Mike (not Strair).
Our out-dated, Puritan based sense of right and wrong that markets ethanol-based products yet keeps similar vices out of the hands of others has gotten us stuck in the mud in many areas.
Luckily, there is some reform is under our control this voting season
— We despised organized crime and the funding they got from weekly numbers games, yet adopted those games as a taxation method (we even use corporate marketing to maximize it as a vice), yet we are now doing our best to fight business investors from opening competing casinos. Vote No on #3.
— We found years ago the crafty method to get people to recycle was to reimburse them for driving the stuff back to the store. Thirty years have past and we found that was not the most efficient method of recycling, we can do it curbside and people will participate willingly. Yet we can’t let go of the revenue generation and want to charge good people extra to supply water with a bag lunch. Vote No on #2
— We city dwellers stand on a soapbox about our travel options, patting ourselves on the back because some of us bike to our place of employment and some of us have a train option, yet ignore that greater Massachusetts lives in diverse areas and use gasoline more than us. We seem to want to allow generations of legislators to vote through automatic proxy for added gas taxes, completely ignoring where the revenue is going and whether the tax is being abused through waste, fraud or inefficiency. Vote Yes (eliminate indexing) on #1.
Just a quick note in response to MGWA’s comment… Despite the federal laws, much research HAS been done on cannabis over the years. Indeed, neuroscience laboratories have been investigating heroin, methamphetamine, and other schedule 1 drugs for years. Consider the work of John Huffman, at Clemson University, who created over 400 synthetic cannabinoid agonists during the 90s and 2000s. (JWH-018 and JWH-073 became two of the more common chemicals sold as “spice” or ‘k2″ before they were banned in 2011.) We may be a little behind understanding cannabis than opioids and sympathomimetics, but that is largely due to the fact that endogenous cannabinoid molecules were not discovered until relatively recently. Still, we know quite a lot about the function of the endocannabinoid system.
Jef – much less has been done than would be without it being so difficult to legally get samples. And this has very much discouraged pharma companies from working in this area, which is what’s needed to have the worked translated into usable products.