Pressure grows to legalize medical pot 18 distribution centers eyed in Bay State

Pressure grows to legalize medical pot

18 distribution centers eyed in Bay State

By Christine McConville and Dave Wedge  |   Tuesday, March 1, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Politics

Pot “Wal-Marts” like those planned for California and other states could throw open their doors in the Bay State, as momentum builds for the legalization of medical marijuana.

Two years after Massachusetts decriminalized possession of small amounts of pot, a bill pending on Beacon Hill would allow prescriptions for medical marijuana and set up 18 distribution centers across Massachusetts.

“Since the 1930s, we’ve been fighting marijuana as the killer weed, and that has to stop,” said state Rep. Frank I. Smizik, a Brookline Democrat championing the bipartisan bill. “There are so many people suffering with serious diseases where marijuana is the only way to stop the pain and keep them going.”

Similar legislation is in place in Vermont and Rhode Island, where cancer and other chronically ill patients can buy reefer. Maine, which has allowed prescription weed for 12 years, is in the process of licensing eight dispensaries.

Meanwhile, a 10,000-square- foot gardening emporium, described in news reports as “the Wal-Mart of weed, just opened in Sacramento, offering experts and merchandise to help medical marijuana patients grow their own pot.

But even as the movement grows, some states are pulling back on their own medical marijuana laws amid spiking crime. The Montana House recently voted to repeal the state’s six-year-old medical marijuana law and in Colorado, seven towns have shut down dispensaries.

“We’ve had home invasions, and robberies and rip-offs of the people in the underground-growing business,” said Fort Collins, Colo. police Capt. Jerry Schiager. “The problem is it is so profitable, and the criminal element is so anxious to get in here and exploit this market, you have to be very careful.”

The Bay State proposal could be a money-maker for the commonwealth, Smizik said, as distribution centers will have to pay licensing fees of $5,000. And, he argues, it will also cut down on street crime as at least a portion of sales will be regulated by the state.

“A lot of medicines (patients) get, like OxyContin, are pretty dangerous ... Marijuana is the only thing that lets them function, and people have to go out on the street to buy it,” Smizik said.

The time is ripe for a “discussion” about legalizing medical marijuana in the Bay State, agreed state Rep. Daniel Winslow, a Wrentham Republican and former judge who noted a nonbinding referendum on the issue passed “overwhelmingly” in his district in the 2010 election.

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1320136

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Tokers blow smoke at pot fines

Tokers blow smoke at pot fines

By Laurel J. Sweet  |   Monday, November 22, 2010  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage

Potheads who’ve found the grass is greener under the state’s mellowed-out marijuana law have racked up as much as $64,500 in unpaid fines in Boston alone, thumbing their noses at hundreds of citations that cops have written up, but authorities are powerless to enforce.

Now the City Council wants to smoke out the stoner scofflaws.

“Everybody’s laughing in the face of this thing. We need to find a way to tighten up the loopholes that are allowing precious dollars to escape,” said Councilor Stephen J. Murphy, chairman of the committee on public safety.

Of the more than 760 $100 fines written up in Boston this year as of Nov. 4, police list 645 as unpaid with no way of accounting if any were cleared up at courts or by drop-ins to City Hall, a Herald review found.

Murphy has formally requested a public hearing to examine the police department’s struggle to enforce fines for possession of an ounce or less of cannabis. He’s also mulling measures such as seeking the Legislature’s permission to collect overdue dope debts through tax liens — such as the city does now with unpaid trash and snow removal fines under its so-called “Green Ticket Law.”

But Bill Downing, director of the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition, insists the new right to toke should not have a price tag.

“There’s this concept called freedom. The people of Massachusetts voted to tell the cops to leave these people alone. If they don’t pay their tickets, who cares? What, are you going to float city and town budgets on the backs of the pot-smoking public?”

Presently, a pot-possession ticket is supposed to be paid at police headquarters in 21 days. This year, only 52 tokers made the deadline. Police credited another 63 as being paid off after the due date, including one through South Boston District Court.

Boston police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said, “The police commissioner feels our responsibility is to enforce the law the way it currently stands.”

Cheryl Sibley, chief administrator of Boston Municipal Court, said there is “very limited recourse” for the courts to force payment if potheads don’t request a hearing to fight the ticket and police don’t seek a civil contempt hearing to enforce it.

But the cops and the courts both complain that there is no formal process for the exchange of records, so compliance is hard to track.

But among the locations where Hub cops whacked weed whiffers this year were Boston Latin Academy and Charlestown High, their records show. Murphy suggests that indicates a problem that is not being addressed under the law as it stands.

“My own opinion is, we never should have decriminalized it,” Murphy said. “The question now is what can we develop by way of a system that would allow us to enforce the civil side of it.’’

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1297999

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New pot law blamed as violence escalates

New pot law blamed as violence escalates
By Laurel J. Sweet and O’Ryan Johnson | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Politics

BIG TIME: Nantucket police recovered 107 marijuana plants in two separate areas over the summer.
Photo by Nantucket PD

Since recreational marijuana use was decriminalized in Massachusetts last year, pot-related trafficking and violence have escalated across the state, frustrated law enforcement officials tell the Herald.

Smoking weed is not a victimless crime, they say.

“We knew it was going to be a nightmare for public safety and law enforcement. An ounce of marijuana can make a thousand joints,” Middlesex District Attorney Gerard T. Leone Jr. said. “Question 2 perpetuated a feeling that marijuana is somehow safer than other drugs. It’s another mind-altering substance. What are we doing in this country? Can’t anyone get through the day without a drink or a drug?”

In November 2008, by nearly 2 to 1, Bay Staters voted to snuff out the threat of jail time for possession of an ounce or less of cannabis in favor of a $100 civil fine, proceeds from which are intended to puff up city and town coffers. The law, however, provides no enforcement mechanism for police to collect the money. Stiffer penalties for buying or selling the drug, or possessing more than an ounce, remain in place.

“Marijuana trafficking is no different from the wholesale distribution of any illicit substance. It’s accompanied by guns and violence in the short term and it floods communities with illegal drugs in the long term. It threatens public safety and public health,” said Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley. He said his open trafficking cases — dealing in 50 pounds of pot or more — have hit a historic high since the passage of Question 2 by doubling from roughly two prosecutions at any one time to four.

Several recent high-profile killings have been linked by law enforcement to pot, including:

• The Sept. 30 fatal shooting of Adam Coveney, 29, of Waltham. Four men, including a Newton North High School senior, have been charged in connection with the alleged dealer robbery and murder.
• The Sept. 28 massacre of four people in Mattapan — among them, a 21-year-old woman and her 2-year-old son — allegedly in a pot-dealing turf dispute.
• The May 2009 fatal shooting of Justin Cosby, 21, inside a Harvard University dorm, allegedly in a bid to rob him of pot and cash.
• The June 2009 murder of Tyriffe Lewis, 17, in Callahan State Park in Framingham, where prosecutors say he was lured by two men seeking revenge in a fight over marijuana.

In Boston, where one of the most shocking mass killings in recent city history was pot-related, police Commissioner Edward Davis blames drugs in general for surging violence — 65 murders compared to 44 last year at this time. Of Question 2, he said, “I can tell you I’m concerned. I wish we had gone another way in Massachusetts.”

But Mike Meno of the Washington-based Marijuana Policy Project, which helped push Question 2, faults partial decriminalization for the violence: “If they’re worried about the criminal element, the answer is to end the criminalization of marijuana and regulate it like alcohol. Marijuana is not going away. Anyone who believes that is naive. It’s used by millions of Americans.”

Leone said he fears decriminalization has created a booming “cottage industry” for dope dealers to target youths no longer fearing the stigma of arrest or how getting high could affect their already dicey driving. Leone’s combined distribution and trafficking caseload rose from 445 in 2008 to 464 in 2009. This year’s caseload stood at 422 as of last week, on track to match or exceed last year.

Leone, who is handling the Framingham, Waltham and Cambridge murder cases, said, “What we’re seeing now is an unfortunate and totally predictable outcome. It’s a cash-and-carry business.” With more small-time dealers operating, he said, turf encroachment is inevitable. “That tends to make drug dealers angry.”

In Essex County, District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett said his marijuana trafficking case load jumped from three in 2007 and one in 2008 to eight in 2009.

“It’s a dangerous business,” Blodgett said. “We’ve had arrests of people who’ve never been involved in trafficking before but got involved in the game. And whenever that happens, there’s going to be violence.”

Wellesley Deputy Police Chief William Brooks III, speaking on behalf of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, said, “The whole thing is a mess. The perception out there among a lot of people is it’s OK to do it now, so there’s an uptick in the number of people wanting to do it. . . . Most of the drug-related violence you see now — the shootings, the murders — is about weed.”

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1296392

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