Medical marijuana becomes law in Massachusetts!
After years of medical marijuana bills being stonewalled in the state legislature, Bay Staters took matters into their own hands in the 2012 general election and passed an effective medical marijuana law.
Question 3, the ballot initiative approved by 63% of Massachusetts voters, allows qualifying patients to use and purchase marijuana “produced and distributed by new state-regulated centers or, in specific hardship cases, to grow marijuana for their own use.” The law went into effect January 1, 2013.
The full text of Question 3 is available here. MPP’s summary of the new law is here. Additionally, this FAQ was published by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
Congratulations to Whitney Taylor, Matt Allen, and Jen Manley, who spearheaded this effort led by the Committee for Compassionate Medicine, and everybody else who worked so hard to promote this sensible, compassionate reform.
Massachusetts will not regulate marijuana similarly to alcohol in 2012
This year Massachusetts joined a growing list of states that have considered legislation to remove penalties for marijuana possession and regulate the production and sale of marijuana. Rep. Ellen Story introduced HB 1371, a bill designed to strip power and money from illegal marijuana syndicates by allowing legitimate businesses to produce and sell marijuana to adults over 21. Breaking the connection between marijuana and the criminal underworld would keep Massachusetts’ children safer and allow the state to realize taxes on a currently unregulated market worth millions. On March 6, the Massachusetts Legislature’s Joint Committee on the Judiciary heard testimony on the bill, but the bill did not advance.
High court rules the odor of burnt marijuana is not enough to justify an exit order
In April 2011, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the odor of marijuana emanating from a parked vehicle is not sufficient cause for further police investigation. By a 5-1 vote, the state's highest court ruled that police officers lacked the authority to order suspects out of a parked passenger vehicle based on the odor of marijuana. The court concluded that Boston police officers had no evidence that the suspects possessed a criminal amount of marijuana and that the police were wrong to pursue "decriminalized conduct with the same fervor associated with the pursuit of serious criminal conduct."
You may recall back in 2008, MPP led an effort to decriminalize possession of up to an ounce of marijuana. Question 2 replaced the criminal penalty associated with minor possession with a civil violation of $100. The court ruling above is a direct result of passage of Question 2. In addition, MPP congratulates our allies at the ACLU, who litigated the case.
Marijuana possession citation law working well, despite continued attempts to weaken it
On November 4, 2008, Massachusetts became the first state to remove the possibility of jail time for simple marijuana possession by voter initiative. MPP’s campaign committee spearheaded this effort. Under the new law, possession of an ounce or less of marijuana is a civil infraction punishable only by a $100 fine and forfeiture of the marijuana.
During the 2009-2010 legislative session, despite the fact that the new law was overwhelmingly approved with 65% of the vote, several bills were introduced that sought to undermine Massachusetts' new marijuana possession law or otherwise increase the penalties associated with marijuana. Most of these bills were heard before the Joint Committee on the Judiciary in July 2009, but fortunately, none of them passed.
Marijuana laws in Massachusetts
Although possession of under an ounce of marijuana is punishable by a civil fine of $100 in Massachusetts, the prohibition of marijuana has plenty of opportunity costs. Time spent enforcing marijuana laws could better be used to investigate and bring to justice perpetrators of violent crime. The clearance rate for murder in Massachusetts is 53.9%; for rape and burglary, the clearance rates are 27.8% and 23.8%, respectively. Please email your legislators and ask them to consider a more sensible alternative.
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