Somerville rocks, so why does our Mayor oppose Question 2?

[ron_newman]

Somerville has a well-deserved image of being a haven for offbeat and creative types, so I'm confused and disappointed to see Mayor Joe take part in a press conference opposing Question 2.

As the city's press release itself points out, "Question 2 would decriminalize marijuana use and make possession of small amounts of marijuana punishable only with a fine similar to a traffic violation." (Actually, the police can also seize the marijuana.) That seems to me like just plain common sense. It saves the city money by not wasting police and court time on prosecuting a victimless "crime".

The campaigners against Question 2 call themselves the "Coalition for Safe Streets", but this question has nothing to do with either safety or streets.

Why did you do this, Mayor Joe?

Comments

[closetalker11.livejournal.com]

I decided it was QF Mart because I was hoping QF stood for "Quality Food."

[sonofabish.livejournal.com]

and crack- I left out crack as well. Silly me....

[dylanesque29.livejournal.com]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06339/743649-114.stm

Not necessarily, as evidenced from the above link. I think marijuana totally sucks, but I don't think that possession of small amounts of it warrants years of jail time. It creates an undue burden on our already incredibly broken court system, and diverts attention away from more serious crime, and fighting the factors that contribute to crime in the first place.

[ron_newman]

I sometimes wear hats outdoors, so I find this uncalled for.

[ilai]

Oh, maybe this is it: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/09/16/a_question_of_possession/

[hissilliness.livejournal.com]

We could criminalize "lookin' at me funny" instead.

Seriously, isn't that just a nice way of saying "the police would like to be able to put people in jail even if they can't prove they've done anything wrong?"

[ron_newman]

That's a pretty lame opinion column, and it doesn't (by itself, at least) support the claim. By the way, the author of that column was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol earlier this yera.

[duffless2323.livejournal.com]

While I respect you for being ballsy enough to voice a possibly unpopular opinion, I have to say that I find your viewpoint short sighted and lacking in logic and evidence. Talk of laced pot is just fear mongering based on what I'm guessing is anecdotal evidence at best. Like I said, I'm all for people having opinions contrary to my own, but if your goal is for people o consider yourself you might find it useful to use evidence to make your case instead of what came across as an ill informed fear based rant.

[gwodder.livejournal.com]

it's easier to convince the drunk person to do something s/he doesn't want to do

[gwodder.livejournal.com]

yes, sometimes we have to punish guiltless people in a semi randomly fashion because of what the bad people in another place are doing. official policy.

[exsplusohs.livejournal.com]

I'm actually going to disagree with that. I've watched a lot of COPS (Yes, that counts as research and no, I'm not proud of the fact that I've watched so much but what can I say, I lead a decadent lifestyle) and the drunk people are, more often that not, always really freakin' combative.

If I were a cop, I'd feel much safer arresting someone who was stoned than someone who has that superhero mentality that alcohol gives some people.

[tt02144.livejournal.com]

I used to agree with the position of decriminalizing marijuana. It just seemed like everyone used it, and it was harmless, right? I've learned, however, after dealing with an addiction problem in my family that for someone who has a propensity to addiction, it can and does often lead to use of other, more harmful drugs. I wouldn't have believed this a few years ago, but have come to change my mind. While it's harmless for most people who use it, unfortunately, there are those who experience the high and have a need for more. This is a conclusion that many people, without experience, simply don't see. Does alcohol serve the same purpose? Of course. Unfortunately, it's already legal, and we've already been down that road once! Based on the drug problem already existing in this city (i.e. notice the increase in reported breakins, etc.?), I think that now is not the time to try to be 'progressive', for the sake of our community.

[marylu.livejournal.com]

yeah, it's such a drag for police to actually have to dig up evidence on those serious charges. let's get rid of that whole "probable cause" notion while we're at it.

[marylu.livejournal.com]

you think it's marijuana smokers who are breaking into houses? I don't think you know as much about the drug as you think you do. and really what this law would do is have very little effect on marijuana *use* by people like your relative, but would ensure that if caught they would not be denied access to public housing, students loans, etc. I doubt those kinds of penalties, which are in place now, have any preventative effect for your addicted relative.

[bobobb.livejournal.com]

*With all due respect my two cents*

I worked with addicts as well in a professional and personal setting and I completely disagree with you. I think you are confusing issues and it is hard not to when someone close to you has a drug problem. Drugs are illegal now and yet they are really really easy to get (hence your personal experience), especially when someone is an addict (they have drug-radar or something) -- and when people get caught there is a whole mess of money spent rangling them around that could be spent on more violent crime or more annoying crime like break-ins (we don't have ANY of those here in somerville). Last, I have never seen a clinical study (that isn't being paid for by a propaganda group) that showed 1. Smoking pot leads to drug addition (was it the pot smoking that led to the crack smoking or the addictive personality and depressed life?) 2. Keeping marijuana illegal deterrs use

[chumbolly.livejournal.com]

Props to you for posting a cogent, thoughtful counterpoint to the bandwagon.

As you point out, however, there are other legal substances out there that are perhaps more problematic than pot, and I think that makes our current law on pot ill-conceived. People call pot a gateway drug, but I don't know anybody that tried pot before alcohol, and very few that tried it before nicotine. So if we're serious about preventing people from altering their mental states, pot is not the logical target. Furthermore, the illegality of pot is flouted by such a large portion of the population that I think it diminishes respect for the law generally. I've seen people from skate punks to executives to even a former federal prosecutor spark a bowl. More troubling, however, is that the law is not enforced or prosecuted uniformly. I do not know anybody that has been prosecuted for possession, but I bet if I lived in a different neighborhood I would. For the same reason the Supreme Court can find the death penalty cruel and unusual not because allowing the state to kill a murderer is inherently cruel but because doing so arbitrarily IS cruel and unusual(black killers of whites are much more likely to get the death penalty), I think the current law on pot falls disproportionately on certain segments of our society, and laws like that should be held up to special scrutiny. Lastly, I would argue that the illegality of pot has driven it to become a more hard-core drug. The voter education guide being distributed by the state in connection with this ballot question points out that pot now contains something like 30 times the THC it used to contain back in the olden days. I think that's due in large part to the pot trade being controlled by criminal enterprises and being unregulated. Most people I know actually want less potent pot, and if they could grow a plant in their backyard, would probably grow a milder stain.

[gwodder.livejournal.com]

Oh I don't mean easier for cops to manipulate, I mean for the average citizen

[ilai]

Yeah, upon re-reading this and thinking about his arguments I was less convinced.

[ilai]

Here's the problem I think the police are considering: sometimes evidence that would be otherwise convincing gets judged inadmissible in court because of some technicality or other, and not supposed to be taken into consideration (I didn't realize this was even that common until I served jury duty and saw this happen). So even if they're going after someone for a greater charge, the evidence that proves it can't get used, and so they can only go with a lesser charge.

But yeah, I'm not really clear this is entirely a good reason (or the right reason) to oppose the question. Just something that I was considering when I was weighing the relative merits of both sides.

[ilai]

If the column above is to believed, no one was charged on just marijuana possession last year--the ones charged were also allegedly doing other bad things. But yeah, that doesn't really mean the current policy makes sense.

[ilai]

See my comment above to hissilliness.

[makoshark.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's just inertia. Government has been used to opposing marijuana for so long that the idea that they might not seems twisted. Basically, they've come to believe the propaganda.

Potheads for 2 unite!

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

I don't care either way, but the idea that "creativity" and MJ have to go together is just stupid. When people are stoned they sure THINK they are being creative, but in reality they are just stoned.

Re: Potheads for 2 unite!

[ron_newman]

It's more that I tend to think of marijuana as the drug of choice for writers, musicians, artists, etc. -- more so than either alcohol or hard drugs. Maybe this isn't really true.

Gratuitous picture of a pothead

[redcolumbine.livejournal.com]