VOTERS SEND A MESSAGE ON MARIJUANA

California voters shot down Proposition 19 last week, but the campaign
put full marijuana legalization on the table. Its supporters plan to
come back to the voters in 2012.

Massachusetts voters sent a quieter message on the same topic. Ballots
in 18 legislative districts included non-binding questions on
marijuana. Half of the questions asked legislators to support
legalizing use of marijuana for medical purposes, the other half
supporting the regulation, cultivation, sale and taxation of marijuana.

The results were consistent across the state: Voters said "yes," by
margins ranging from 54 percent to 70 percent, the Associated Press
reports.

Locally, voters in Hudson, Maynard, Stow, Sudbury, Wayland, Lincoln
and Dover supported full legalization. Voters in Bellingham, Medfield,
Blackstone and Uxbridge supported legalization for medical use. In
every local district, at least 60 percent of voters supported the
propositions.

Drug policy reform advocates in Massachusetts have been putting
marijuana-related questions on the ballot since 2000. Each time, the
question has asked state legislators to help write the reforms into
law. Out of 63 ballot questions, voters have approved all 63, but the
Legislature has yet to bring any reform bill to the floor for a vote.

In 2008, reformers went around the Legislature, with a ballot measure
reducing possession of small amounts of marijuana to a civil
violation, punishable by a fine of no more than $100. It passed by a
wide majority, and the commonwealth has survived. A few weeks ago,
California legislators passed a law doing the same thing, partly in
reaction to Proposition 19.

While timid lawmakers in Washington and state capitals avoided the
subject, marijuana has been moving haphazardly toward legalization
through dozens of ballot initiatives. Medical marijuana referenda have
resulted in de facto legalization in California, Colorado and other
states. It is now legal in Rhode Island, which is trying to avoid the
loose standards and party atmosphere found in medical marijuana
dispensaries in some western states.

California's Proposition 19 fell short for many reasons. It had
opposition, financed in part by alcohol distributors, that ranged from
the political establishment to some leaders in the medical marijuana
industry. Even the leaders of Latin American countries that export
marijuana criticized the initiative. The proposition failed to address
the conflict between state law and federal law, as well as
international treaties regulating marijuana.

Even many who supported the goal of full legalization, regulation and
taxation of marijuana saw problems in the regulatory structure the
proposal would have established. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who
signed the decriminalization bill, told Jay Leno this week that
"propositions don't die because the idea is bad. It just dies because
it's written wrong."

That's why it's a mistake for state legislators to leave it up to
activists to write drug laws. A bill that makes it through hearings,
expert testimony, and public debate is less likely to be prone to
unintended consequences than one that goes straight to the voters.

A legislative committee on Beacon Hill earlier this year held a
respectful hearing on a bill that would legalize, tax and regulate
marijuana. A similar bill will no doubt be filed for the next session.
The message voters sent last week was that elected officials should
take the issue seriously and do their jobs.

Either the Legislature sorts through the policy options and writes a
law, or the activists will write one for them and let the voters decide.