Marijuana Policy Project

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "We pray to be conventional. But the wary Heaven takes care you shall not be, if there is any good in you."

Regarding Ballot Question 2 to decriminalize an ounce or less of marijuana, many a politician's prayers to be conventional were answered.

Those opposing Question 2 included none other than Gov. Deval Patrick and Attorney General Martha Coakley. Locally, opposition included District Attorney David Capeless (who was joined by every other district attorney in the commonwealth), Mayor John Barrett III of North Adams, Mayor James Ruberto of Pittsfield, Sheriff Carmen Massimiano, virtually every police chief in Berkshire County, State Sen. Ben Downing and State Reps. Christopher Speranzo and Smitty Pignatelli. Instead of "together we can" or "change you can believe in" all these politicians in massive unison took a platform of "together you won't" and "more of the same."

And then something funny happened. In Berkshire County, Question 2 was overwhelmingly supported. In North Adams, it won by 59 percent to 41 percent. Statewide, the proponents of Question 2 enjoyed a historic landslide victory, with just shy of two out of every three voters (65 percent) in support. The Boston Herald went berserk on the voters, chastising them for daring to "reject the advice of the state's entire law enforcement leadership."

There have been many who disfavor voter initiatives, often stating that the already mind-numbing number of signatures needs to be increased because of the alarming propensity of the people to have the audacity of wanting to be the masters of their own destiny. Our fate, so it is argued, is best left in the hands of lobbyist-financed politicians and the newspaper intelligentsia who really "understand" our problems in a way we could never hope to ascertain.

To them, the problem is not that politicians are woefully out of sync with the will of the voters; it's that voters are woefully out of sync with the will of the politicians. To them, giants such as Whitney Taylor of the Committee for Sensible Marijuana policy and Carey Theil of the Committee to Protect Dogs are part of the problem, not part of the solution. It would be better if they were left languishing in the waiting rooms of the Legislature, never accomplishing anything as lawmakers attended to "more important and pressing" issues.

According to Peabody Loring, author of "A Short Account of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, 1917--1919," the Massachusetts initiative process was a product of a political awakening of the Progressive Era and an inability of pro-labor progressives to pass salutary laws. Government, then as today, was controlled by powerful moneyed interests, culminating in "the attempted consolidation of the railroads, steamship companies and electric lines of New England by J.P Morgan."

There was a "growing social unrest and class hostility which had grown up between those who enjoyed great wealth and the less fortunate. The rankling sense of injustice which the latter felt, nurtured by the belief that they suffered from legislation framed by lobbyists and lawyers in the offices of great corporations and enacted by subservient legislatures." The Massachusetts Senate was becoming known as the "graveyard of progressive legislation."

It was for this reason the people, the only legitimate source of power, retained for themselves the right of the initiative. According to Ballotpedia, of the 60 initiatives that have appeared on Massachusetts ballots, 31 have passed.

Our initiative process is not perfect. We need to drastically reduce the signature requirement so that it is within the grasp of the common people and not only available to the rich who can pay for signature-gathering services. The "Loring Amendment" which mandates that the Legislature can prevent the people from voting if it can obtain a 75 percent supermajority of a joint session, needs to be dispensed with. In the past, the Legislature has shamefully abused this process by illegally not voting (so the vote could not go to the people), or by not sending to the people questions that stood a great likelihood of passage.

This past Tuesday, Florida, Arizona and California became the 28th, 29th and 30th states to amend their constitutions to define marriage as the union between one man and one woman through the ballot process, but the Massachusetts Legislature blocked a similar measure from going to the people.

Direct democracy is pure democracy. It is the New England town meeting. It is the original democracy of Athens, with the petitioner pleading his case to all those who will have live by its edict -- with every citizen casting his vote on a measure from the Athenian hillside without the buffer of men whose hearts we know not where stand. It represents the frightening possibility of sudden change. It is clumsy. It is awkward. And it is great.

Rinaldo DelGallo III of Pittsfield is a frequent Transcript contributor.