A CALL FOR CANNABIS REFORM

This Saturday the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition hosts its 16th
Annual Freedom Rally on the Boston Common. It coincidentally is the 218th
anniversary of the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, with the
promise that the constitution it drafted would "secure the blessings of
liberty" to the American People. I am proud to say I have been involved in
this annual event since the first in 1990 at the U.S.S. Constitution and
will continue to be until cannabis is either legal, I am 84, or dead.

Why would a 34-year-old middle class lawyer with a wife and two children -
we since added a third - help organize a protest against marijuana
prohibition? Well, I have consumed marijuana, as have most of you reading
this essay according to government surveys, and like Michael Bloomberg,
now mayor of New York, I liked it. My teachers taught me to question
authority and growing up during the Nixon Administration reinforced their
lessons of mistrust of government. My experience with marijuana and my
reading of the vast literature on the plant taught me that the government
was and continues to lie about the risk it poses to its users and to society.

The vast majority of former and current users are productive, responsible
citizens, who have not used other illicit drugs.

Except for their use of marijuana they are as otherwise law-abiding as the
rest of the citizenry. Massachusetts is the U.S. leader in monthly use and
only a third of us perceive great risk in occasional marijuana use. This
attitude is reflected in the success marijuana policy questions have had
with Massachusetts voters since 2000. The results show a solid majority do
not want possession of marijuana to be a crime. Voter approved questions
have proposed it be a civil violation, like a speeding ticket and for the
police to hold a person under 18 cited for possession until the child
is released to a parent, legal guardian or brought before a judge.

They also approved questions proposing possession of less than one ounce
of marijuana should be a civil violation, subject to a maximum fine of
$100 and not subject to any criminal penalties.

As a student of the Constitution of the United States and Massachusetts it
is apparent to me the founders understood that you cannot legislate utopia
into existence.

Marijuana prohibition as part of the utopian war on drugs purports as its
goal to establish a "drug free America." Years of prohibition have
by experience taught that what is really accomplished is a price support
for producers and distributors of these substances. In the case of
marijuana an ounce of dried flowers is boosted to the remarkably high
retail price of $240 to over $400 depending on the quality.

Since enforcement efforts cannot accomplish the utopian goal of
eradicating marijuana, enforcement is arbitrary and contrary to republican
principles. Realizing it is arbitrary, the prohibitionists need it to be
too punitive to enhance the "message" the arrest and prosecution of Tom,
but not Dick and Harry sends to the community.

It is arbitrary because the law grants the arbitrary power to the police to
arrest, summons, or verbally warn the offender.

All too often race, age and financial status are implicated not only in
whether or not charges are brought, but also with the outcome of those
charges.

It is too punitive because a conviction for possessing marijuana may
result not only in incarceration in jail in Massachusetts, but a loss of
the privilege to drive a car for up to five years, denial of federally
guaranteed student loans, and permanent loss of not only a permit to carry
firearms, but the ability to use a rifle to hunt. These consequences are
compounded by the fact that under Massachusetts law the defendant's right
to challenge the constitutionality of her arrest and seizure requires she
go to trial, thus giving the government a great advantage in inducing a
plea, rather than an appeal after trail. Prohibition fails to keep
marijuana away from children more effectively than regulation of alcohol
and tobacco keeps alcohol away from children it appears the wiser
course for Congress and the state legislature to tax and regulate this
agricultural commodity while prohibiting it to children as we do tobacco
and alcohol.

Such a policy is the only policy consistent with securing the
Constitution's promised Blessings of Liberty. It would free our plant
scientists to work with cannabis, not as the black market breeders have
done to maximize the potency of the flowers, but to maximize seed, fiber
and biomass production, as well as research of the medicinal potential.
For much of human history the seed and fiber of this plant with many names
was a source of medicine, food and textiles.

The English called it hemp. The seed is among the most nutritious on the
planet and when pressed produces large quantities of vegetable oil. The
fiber is among the most durable found in nature. Tens of thousands of
products produced from trees, petroleum and coal can be made from hemp.
Freed from the prohibition it may be that hemp will prove an
invaluable source of medicines, food, fuel, and textiles again fulfilling
John Adams' 1763 prophecy that, "We shall by and by want a world of hemp
more for our own consumption."