I received the following information in an e-mail from Massachusetts. It’s a very important opportunity to be heard, and I hope Massachusetts marijuana activists come out in numbers:
Legalization hearing at the statehouse, room A-2, Tuesday, March 6 at 1:00, Judiciary Committee, please come.
This is the bill that I first filed as a citizen petitioner in 1981 and refiled in the ’09-’10 session of legislature with some small tweaks. This session it was sponsored by Representative Ellen Story of Amherst as a direct result of the Public Policy Question in her district, in the 2010 election, that instructed her to support such a bill. She acknowledges that she has filed it in response thereto.
The PPQs were put on the ballot by MassCann and DPFMA, under the leadership of Steve and Scott and others. A number of people on this list exerted themselves to stand outside post offices in the rain, collecting signatures to get them on the ballot. That a tax-and-regulate bill has gotten this far–sponsorship by a house member and not some wingnut citizen from out west–is the direct consequence of those efforts. We remain grateful to them.
What’s important about the hearing on March 6 is not that this is a chance to legalize marijuana. The committee will want nothing to do with it, and the bill will go no further in the legislative process. The measure of our success will be that we get some good questions from committee members, and can engage them in serious dialogue.
Rep. Story’s bill, I should have mentioned, is co-sponsored by Rep. RuthBalser of Newton, Rep. Lori Ehrlich of Marblehead, and Rep. Anne Gobi ofSpencer. The hearing will be a good occasion to recognize these courageous members, implicitly reminding the entire legislature that support of this issue is not political suicide, i.e., that an earnest politician can support legalization without incurring the wrath of voters. The worst thing that’s happened, from what I’ve heard, is that the sponsors have gotten snickers from their colleagues, but that’s no big deal, as leaders always get snickers from those who fear to break a taboo. In this case it is the generations-old taboo against discussing the repeal of marijuana prohibition seriously, in a political setting, without winks, smirks and cheap puns.
