WHY WE NEED A "FREEDOM" RALLY

This Saturday the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition hosts its 16th
annual Freedom Rally on the Boston Common, it coincidentally is the two
hundred and eighteenth 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 USS
Constitution and will continue to be until cannabis is legal; I am 84, or
dead. Why would a 34-year-old middle class lawyer with a wife and at the
time 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 marihuana, they are as otherwise law-abiding as
the rest of the citizenry.

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.

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 by prohibition 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.

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.

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.

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."