Nearly 1.8 million people in Massachusetts voted in favor of legalizing cannabis. However, did they really mean to do that? It is a crazy sounding question to present about a simple yes-or-no ballot proposition, but such are the mental gymnastics now being played by a pair of Massachusetts legislators. They are doing it for a governor who has made his distaste for legalization well known. Massachusetts voters approved legalization in November, approving Question 4 by nearly seven percentage points, despite opposition from nearly every major state politician. Since then, possession of small amounts of marijuana for adults 21 and over has been made legal, but elected officials have done everything they can to undo or delay much else.
Several legislators called a special holiday session to delay the opening of recreational cannabis shops by six months. In January, a key state senator introduced legislation to sharply reduce the amount of marijuana adults can possess and grow at home, also to delay the first legal, over-the-counter sale by two years. Now, state Senator Patricia Jehlen and Rep. Mark Cusack are open to making more changes to the voter-approved law, changes due by June. Possible changes could include raising the tax rate, giving local municipalities more leeway to limit the number of cannabis retail stores and messing with plant and possession limits.
As they explained to the Boston Globe, they can justify doing this because the voters weren’t quite sure what they were doing with their ‘yes’ votes. Jehlen stated, “I don’t think the voters were expressing deep engagement with every single sentence. But I think the idea of allowing people to own and use and grow marijuana legally, that is what is our mandate, to protect that.” Cusack argued, “I think the will of the voters is they wanted recreational marijuana, not that they sat there and read every word of the ballot measure before they voted for it. It was really: Do you want it or do you not?”
Like other legalization measures in other states approved last fall, Question 4 set clear basic rules on cultivation, possession and when they could expect sales. Whether Cusack and Jehlen tinker with bureaucratic minutiae or make fundamental changes remains to be seen, Jehlen, says that reducing the number of plants allowed “would be an error,” but to suggest that voters didn’t quite comprehend what they were doing is condescending.
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