DON'T TAKE AWAY THE MCI GARDENS

You're a parent with four children, one misbehaves and you punish all
four for that one child's behavior. Is that the way to raise a
family? Of course not. Yet that's exactly how state prison officials
are reacting to 29 marijuana plants found growing in pots on prison
land last fall.

For more than 20 years, a plot of state land behind MCI-Framingham
benefited from a labor of love - 26 gardeners with shovels and hoes
have nurtured from that dirt hundreds, perhaps even thousands of
pounds of vegetables and flowers of every conceivable kind.

One of those gardeners said he froze about 80 pounds of peppers from
his 30-by-30 foot plot last summer. This year, however, the community
garden is off-limits because of a pot plant garden police described
as "well-groomed" and "cultivated."

The gardeners, some as old as 82, are frustrated and angry. They
point out there was easier access to the marijuana "garden" from the
road and soccer field than from their shared garden space. Yet
long-time gardeners are being blamed, and feel like they are suspect,
though police say they have no suspects.

All the gardeners are being punished, which makes about as much sense
as closing down the soccer fields because their players, too, share
some proximity with a few pot plants tended in a marshy area on the
other side of a brook.

Prison officials say they'll reopen the land to gardeners if local
law enforcement officials agree to patrol the area. That's a start.
But why not get the entire community into the act? Where there are
soccer fields there are hundreds of soccer parents. Ask them to
report suspicious activity. Those community gardeners will certainly
be on alert now that they know someone is endangering their long-time
summer and fall pleasure.

The Department of Correction's decision is pointless as well as
destructive. If anything, removing the legal gardeners will make it
easier for an illegal gardener to do his work unseen. Both the legal
and illegal plantings are well outside the prison walls and pose no
threat whatsoever to DOC operations.

"I just think it makes no sense at all," said former Gov. Michael
Dukakis, who encouraged these and other community gardens on
state-owned land when he was in office. He's right.

It's spring. Let Framingham's gardeners back into their fields.