A Boston Globe editorial has some harsh words for the “overwhelmingly white and wealthy” suburban communities where voters supported legalizing recreational marijuana but are now trying to ban the stores.
…it’s not supposed to be easy to ban marijuana sales permanently, especially in towns whose residents voted for legalization in the 2016 referendum.
Later the editorial is talking about Concord, but it seems to apply to Newton as well…
…One is forced to wonder: Which children did the overwhelmingly white and wealthy towns have in mind, and would they have voted differently in 2016 if all state residents were exposed to its consequences equally?
Massachusetts is headed toward a two-tier system, strongly correlated to race and privilege, and the law allows it. It’s not a pretty picture — and if towns try to make it even worse through moratoriums, officials should just say no.
The Globe is right on. It’s shameful how our city leaders have approached this, from former Mayor Warren to current Mayor Fuller to our spineless City Council which cowers when the anti-marijuana Prohibitionists pack a hearing with NIMBY opponents. Just treat marijuana like alcohol. Open the city up to potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax revenue. And require those seeking ballot relief to get the necessary signatures. Why is that so hard for our pols to do?
Yikes, I used to like this website a lot, but recently it’s really gone to weed.
At the end of the day, it seems to be about a dozen people for whom this topic is a genuine obsession. Must be a generational thing, since I don’t see this level of interest from people in my circles; I’d like to smugly propose that a lot of this fixation is coming from:
a) people born 50+ years ago who evidently spent their formative years believing that narcs were around every corner, and that the commercialization of marijuana will finally allow them to sleep peacefully at night, and
b) (to a much lesser extent) a handful of people who stand to benefit financially.
I’ll now shut up and simply avoid reading the weed articles, since they’re of no interest to me, but I thought it might be worth adding an unsolicited and unappreciated perspective to the mix of highly repetitive comments.
Apologies in advance for my insolence, and let the madness continue! The reefer madness, that is.
@Michael – As one of those dozen people I’ll tell you that A. I was born 60 years ago and already sleep well at night and B. Have no financial interest.
What piqued my interest in this issue is that the losing side on the referendum question is attempting to do an end-run around the established process and has recruited the City Council to do their bidding for them. i.e. this is “no way to run a railroad”
@Michale – Like you, certain very busy threads on Village14 can bore me to tears after a while. You’ve got the right idea I think, just skip over those threads until they die down … and we can all get back to leafblowers 😉
Michael,
This forum is more of an echo chamber than a open discussion.
If you are old fashioned and don’t want another addictive recreational substance made freely available implies you are racist according to this post
@Greg — The complete quote from the title you used is: “After all, it’s not supposed to be easy to ban marijuana sales permanently, especially in towns whose residents voted for legalization in the 2016 referendum. Voters in those municipalities need to approve bans by a townwide vote.”
So per this article the step of taking a townwide vote is the “not easy” part. It doesn’t say, “activists in those towns need to gather signatures from 10% of the registered voters and then prevail in a towwide vote”. This problem the article is calling out is municipalities stalling with moratoriums rather than bringing things to a head with a vote.
@Jerry — To me it seems the city council is following the established process (call a citywide vote), just with a nudge to action or inaction on that process by the petition. We can vote them out in Nov 2019 if we don’t like the stands they take on the issue. It will be interesting to see how the ward/at-large councilors split is on the issue.
@Jack: Yes and that vote should only happen when citizens collect the necessary signatures.
But I’d be interested in your opinion to the more salient point in the editorial: the argument that “Massachusetts is headed toward a two-tier system, strongly correlated to race and privilege” where recreational marijuana is banned in same” overwhelmingly white and wealthy” suburban communities that voted to legalize it.
How ironic: spreading marijuana dispensaries evenly through the state is the only way the Globe can find to fight inequality in Massachusetts. What next? Slot parlors cannot be found anywhere in wealthy towns?
If you want to help underprivileged kids, think about spreading good schools instead.
The Globe’s inequality angle is predictable, but false. There are over 100 towns in Massachusetts that have banned retail recreational marijuana sales in their communities and most are middle or lower income, including Randolph, Everett, Revere, Lawrence, Peabody and dozens of other towns, including at least 30 that voted YES on Question 4. You don’t have to be wealthy to not want the commercial marijuana industry run roughshod over your community. None of those towns required their citizens to gather thousands of signatures to get a question on the ballot— in most instances, their city and town councilors decided to put the question before the voters themselves.
The other Globe contention that it wasn’t supposed to be easy to ban sales in communities is because the marijuana industry wrote question 4 to make it hard. Why should it be hard for communities to opt out of stores in their town if they think the ramifications might be harmful? Or if they just want to see what happens in “early adopter” towns first?
Indeed, why do the folks in Revere need pot shops there if they can get it in the Garden City and avoid all problems associated with local marijuana retail? If you believe there are no problems, ask your police, let people discuss the facts openly and vote.
A comment was removed because the same person is attempting to post under different pysdonyms, a violation of our commenting rules.
For reference, here is the summary of the law that voters received along with pro/con arguments.
https://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/elepdf/IFV_2016.pdf
@Greg — The law doesn’t say anything about requiring signatures to put a ban or limit in front of voters. Signatures are only required to create social clubs. In terms of the divide, are you saying dispensaries are bad for a community? Do poorer communities have less means to implement bans or limit establishments? I think voters take the law at its word and assume that other communities will do what the choose to under the law. The law grants several new rights with regard to possession, cultivation, and exchange and only allows limitation of retail dispensaries. Again, not taking a side on the Yes/No issue, just trying to clarify the facts and process.
Perhaps Massachusetts voters should decide if marijuana should be legal in Connecticut and Pennsylvania.