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

[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?"

[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.

[marylu.livejournal.com]

here's the problem with your theory: when people say that evidence is inadmissible based on a "technicality", what they generally mean is that the police violated a person's rights during a search or seizure. The fourth amendment of the constitution is not a technicality. There ARE police out there who stop and frisk people with the argument that a suspect was "lookin' at me funny". When police abuse their authority, any evidence they may happen to find is inadmissible because it was obtained illegally.

[ilai]

Yeah, I've thought along those lines as well. For some reason I thought that it might also be easy for the police to, in good faith, accidentally say something wrong or do things in the incorrect order that would violate some rule causing evidence recovered subsequently to become inadmissible, but I'm not well-versed in this issue so I can't say for sure. In any event I agree that the arguments against the ballot question that I've heard so far aren't entirely well thought out.