The Conscience of Abe’s Turn - New Massachusetts Pot Law Has Cops in a Tizzy - Comments

Re: New Massachusetts Pot Law Has Cops in a Tizzy

Mike — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 15:28:02 -0800

Wow i just used stumble upon and i come upon this which talks about my state and a police chief from Holyoke which is like 30 minutes away from me. Anyway I really hope we pass more pro-marijuana laws soon.

Re: New Massachusetts Pot Law Has Cops in a Tizzy

Breast Lift Philadelphia — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:21:39 -0800

Hope we’ll meet at the buttom-line that it is not the drugs that should be blamed, but the people who use it in excessive dosage. Prohibited drugs can never be named not until people begun using it to some estranged manners. More and more become victims, not of drugs but of theirselves.

Breast Lift Philadelphia

Re: New Massachusetts Pot Law Has Cops in a Tizzy

philadelphia cosmetic surgery tummy tuck — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:37:39 -0800

Pot should be legalized. If it grows from the ground, it’s safe! God made it for us to enjoy. It shouldn’t even be considered a drug. Sheesh!

Re: New Massachusetts Pot Law Has Cops in a Tizzy

Brian Woodcock — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:34:57 -0700

Weed as well as shrooms should be legal, sold in stores and taxed. Then take all the tax money and other money saved from not enforcing these laws and open more drug treatment centers. When people get caught with hardcore drugs instead of jail, make them go to treatment and maybe loss of licence. If everything was legal and sold at the store it would be hard to resist buying some hardcore shit every now and then. At the sametime we’re taking people who are nonviolent drug users and instead of helping them, we throw them in jail and they turn into real criminals after a few years. It amazes me that I can go to the store right now and legally buy a glock .40mm and bottle of tequila but if I want some weed I have to go to a drug dealer. I can tell you right now that me with a joint is FAR less dangerous to society than me with a gun and some hard liquor. I don’t own guns or drink hard liquor but I’m fucking sick and tired of these pigs busting my balls everytime my car smells like weed. I am a wartime army infantry veteran, I have no crimal record, and weed is the only drug a do. Why should I have to deal with drug dealrs, sneak around in the shadows? Weed keeps me creative, calm, relaxed, happy, and helps me sleep good. So I say fuck the police who choose to enforce these bullshit laws and fuck their “Tizzy.”

Re: New Massachusetts Pot Law Has Cops in a Tizzy

Brian Woodcock — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:34:54 -0700

Re: New Massachusetts Pot Law Has Cops in a Tizzy

Anonymous — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 11:57:15 -0800

“To say that marijuana never killed anyone is absurd!! It’s alot like alcohol, they get killed by getting behind the wheel and getting in a car accident.”
HA HA HA DISREGARD THAT I SUCK COCKS

Re: New Massachusetts Pot Law Has Cops in a Tizzy

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:34:30 -0800

“Unfortunately, the war on drugs continues to drag on and will never end. It’s already a deeply rooted international industry. Heck, it’s even highly possible that some of the most prominent business people in the world are actually behind it. Even Obama can’t do something about that.”

Excuse me?!

Of COURSE they’re behind it! how the fuck do you think it got started and stuck so quickly? If they were actually smart about it, they could use hemp for so many things that would put major companies out of business. Weed has to be illegal, just to fuel their fire in order to become more powerful.

isn’t it just goddamn great?
they want us to work our asses off our entire lives for them, and they want us to either do it sober, or use their drugs. they can’t do things the easy way.

Re: New Massachusetts Pot Law Has Cops in a Tizzy

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:30:13 -0800

if people want to od on heroin or cocaine if it were ever to be legal again ever…still, why can’t that decision be up to them? if someone is going to be a dumbfuck about it, let nature take it’s goddamn course. the government can’t save us from ourselves. someone who would die on that day from oding, would have died any other day they came across enough money to get enough of that.

if someone wants to harm themself so much they die, that is their decision and their fault.
this shit is grown goddamnit. no matter what you do, people are going to grow the stuff and make it into drugs that can be harmful if used for that purpose. what makes you think just because it’s illegal now, it’s safer than it would be if it wasn’t? people are going to be stupid about things. you can’t save everyone.

Re: New Massachusetts Pot Law Has Cops in a Tizzy

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:23:03 -0800

actually cocaine and heroin used to be sold freely in drugstores.

Re: New Massachusetts Pot Law Has Cops in a Tizzy

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:20:46 -0800

if only there were more 420 5-0s out there=]

Re: New Massachusetts Pot Law Has Cops in a Tizzy

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:17:36 -0800

don’t forget beat your wife.

another point; how many people have you heard of that smoke a bowl and beat their spouse?

…how many people have you heard come home from bars and do that?

just a thought.

Re: New Massachusetts Pot Law Has Cops in a Tizzy

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:12:54 -0800

hi, that’s not a direct fault of marijuana, but the user being behind the wheel.

it’s not a thing like alcohol, i don’t know if you have ever tried smoking or what you have smoked to make you believe that. I don’t recommend driving while under the influence of marijuana, but pot doesn’t make you want to make “crazy and wild decisions”. alcohol gives you the courage and makes you think you’re invincible really. weed makes you focus more. it also makes you lazy, and if you’re not lazy enough to actually go out to your car, then whatever you do behind the wheel is your own fault. alcohol causes liver damage and poisoning and a number of other things that weed doesn’t. maybe for stupid people, we should be more specific in saying that marijuana doesn’t kill anyone directly. meaning if you have an allergy to it, or you get killed or injured in an accident because you were high…that’s not the weed’s fault, it’s the users. you can’t overdose on it is what we’re trying to say.

Re: New Massachusetts Pot Law Has Cops in a Tizzy

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:06:21 -0800

why not?

only drugs that the government says are okay can be legal? cocaine and heroin used to be used for medical purposes when it was legal. you can overdose on just about anything [except for marijuana!=] so why does it matter if other drugs are illegal? it wouldn’t make a bit of a difference. if people are going to get into using cocaine and heroin, they’re not afraid of breaking the law. They’re not getting into it because it’s illegal. It being illegal doesn’t stop anyone from using it any less. My point is, there are going to be people who abuse drugs out there, a lot of people abuse drugs that actually are legal, but that’s okay because it’s a legal drug? bullfuckingshit.
i’m not an advocate of drugs, only pot, which i really don’t view as a drug.i like my farms with an “f” not a “ph” but i’m also not going to shove anything on anyone. everyone should be free. too bad they never will be.

Re: New Massachusetts Pot Law Has Cops in a Tizzy

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 09:59:55 -0800

and to the rehab guy, i have spent time with those people and yea they got messed up cause of drugs but the fact of the matter is, before drugs were illegal 1% of our population was addicted to drugs, guess how much of our population was addicted to drugs after they became illegal… u guessed 1%, making it illegal doesnt make it any harder to get or the will to get it any less it just creates more spending on the tax payers and the governments behalf

Re: New Massachusetts Pot Law Has Cops in a Tizzy

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 09:54:04 -0800

the issue with making all drugs legal isnt the whole civil liberty thing, which i do agree with, if u wanna harm urself go ahead, as long as ur not harming anyone else. the main issue is the money spent trying to keep drugs off the street which will never happen and then throwing people in jail for non violent crimes and having the tax payers pay for housing them. honestly, how many people do u kno that would do a drug just because its legal if they kno the effects of it.

New Massachusetts Pot Law Has Cops in a Tizzy

TimK — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 07:00:00 -0800

Last November, in Massachusetts, the ballot asked voters whether to change the state’s marijuana laws. Under the new law, anyone caught with an ounce or less of pot, instead of being arrested and charged with a crime, would simply get a $100 ticket. According to the official election returns, 63% of the voters thought this was a good idea. (Only 33% disapproved, with 4% abstaining.) This made Massachusetts the 12’th state to enact such a law, and this month, Question 2, the new marijuana law, went into effect. Already, police and drug prohibitionists are complaining about it.

Personally, I’m all for Question 2. Marijuana has never killed a single user, being one of the safest drugs ever discovered, much safer than alcohol. And in general, drug prohibition is a farce; alcohol prohibition was a farce in the 1920’s, and marijuana prohibition works no better. It is a policy born of fear, not of reason, and like all such laws, it wastes resources and creates crime, rather than making us safer. According to a 2008 report by Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron, Question 2 will save Massachusetts taxpayers approximately $29.5 million a year in law-enforcement costs alone. On top of all that, our nation’s drug laws are cruel and out of proportion, landing some non-violent drug offenders with longer prison sentences than violent crimes like assault and rape. Let me put it this way: I think cops should be chasing down rapists and murderers, not shaking down pot smokers.

Question 2 not only has a large majority of voters on its side, it also has informed reasoning behind it. This rare conjunction of popular opinion and sound thought should be applauded, not disparaged. But if you thought drug prohibitionists would simply take the informed will of the voters lying down, think again.

Their most vocal objection, which the press has fallen all over itself to report, is that no one seems to know how to enforce the new law. Police say they don’t know whether they’re allowed to demand a person identify himself, because they need to know his identity before they can issue a citation. Massachusetts state law, they say, prohibits the police from demanding identification for civil infractions.

“Not only do you not have to identify yourself,” said Berkshire County D.A. David Capeless, “but it would appear from a strict reading that people can get a citation, walk away, never pay a fine and have no repercussion.”

They also complain that their standard ticketing forms don’t have check-boxes for marijuana infractions. (Yeah, I know, stupid, but what can you do?) They wonder whether supporters of Question 2 knew about the problems ahead of time, whether the plan all along was effectively to legalize small quantities of marijuana. Right now, in some towns, the law is not being enforced at all, and pot smokers are simply being left alone (despite the drug prohibitionists’ panic over the coming of the end of the world).

And hey, that’s fine with me. But frankly, it also sounds like a threat. It sounds like they’re saying they’re going to let pot smokers off scott-free—and wouldn’t that be awful!—unless voters and legislators give in to their demands.

According to an email sent out by the Marijuana Policy Project, a small group of drug prohibitionists have quietly been lobbying the Massachusetts state legislature to “undermine the will of the electorate… Although opponents of Question 2 have claimed that the sky will fall in Massachusetts now that possessing an ounce or less of marijuana is punishable only by a $100 fine, they have so far been unable to invent a reason as to why sending these people to jail and saddling them with a damaging [criminal] record is a good idea.”

Meanwhile, some police departments are indeed issuing tickets, some cops are adopting innovative investigative methods in order to fill out the citation forms—How much does that cost? Is it really worth the $100?—and some local governments are piling on other fines for smoking pot in public.

But everywhere, police are complaining that they don’t understand the new law.

“It’s a very poorly written law,” said Holyoke Police Captain Arthur R. Monfette. “They should have sat down with police officers before they wrote the law.”

Bullshit!

Throughout the whole process, law enforcement and legislators have steadfastly refused to cooperate with proponents of decriminalization. If they had wanted to, the legislature could even have passed an alternative law, heading Question 2 off at the pass. But they probably never thought Question 2 would go anywhere. They probably thought that everyone is terrified of drugs and that they had to cater to the prohibitionists. They probably thought they could continue in their brutish ignorance forever. Maybe Question 2 was just the wake-up call they needed.

Well, here it is! Times are a-changing. Get on board, or be left behind. I don’t really care which, because I have little sympathy for whiners, idiots, and drug prohibitionists.

Always watching!
-TimK