“The so-called ‘Act to Restore a Sensible Marijuana Policy’ is dangerous. Regulated cannabis is popular and it is safer than the alternatives.”
As Massachusetts marijuana opponents and advocates alike have come to realize these past few months, slotting a referendum in this state is onerous business.
In addition to having to collect tens of thousands of signatures outside of grocery stores, holding people hostage when they’re just trying to quickly grab some produce, an official campaign committee must file significant paperwork and clear multiple legal and bureaucratic hurdles.
One such step in the manifold initiative grind unfolded this Monday. On Beacon Hill, Mass lawmakers held the required hearing for the proposal to repeal adult-use cannabis in the commonwealth. Put simply, legislators have a chance to pass comparable legislation ahead of a question hitting the actual ballot.
If elected officials don’t act, and it’s unlikely that they will in this matter, the proponents of the prohibitionist measure have to submit fewer than 13,000 additional signatures by July 1. That won’t be hard for a campaign that deployed demonstrably deceitful tactics in order to advance this far in the process.
We’re all over the story. You know this. But since it’s probable at this point that the deceptively named Act To Restore a Sensible Marijuana Policywill appear on the statewide ballot in November, we’re more focused on the campaign’s opponents—and what they have to say—than on the infinite and endless lies pushed by the speciously monikered Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts.
And so while we will certainly lampoon its rusty toxic cast of gremlins for so many fabrications, we’re also amplifying the voices of reason. Like the testimony below from this week’s hearing formality by Dr. Jeff Rawson, president of the Institute of Cannabis Science and a frequent Talking Joints Memo contributor. (Also read the testimony of Levia Co-Founder & CEO Kristin Rogers here). -TJM Editor Chris Faraone
Testimony of Dr. Jeff Rawson
Good Afternoon, Thank you all for the opportunity to speak. I am honored to sit before such an august panel of our state’s leaders.
My name is Jeff Rawson. I’m a chemist with a Ph. D. from Duke, and I founded a consumer protection nonprofit.
Today, I’m speaking to you as a scientist and as a regular consumer.
The so-called “Act to Restore a Sensible Marijuana Policy” is dangerous. Regulated cannabis is popular and it is safer than the alternatives. I did a study recently to compare gummies from the unregulated “Smoke Shops” with the ones from dispensaries, testing them for the accuracy of their labeled dose.
The products from our state’s regulated dispensaries were all accurate in their dosing, within reasonable tolerance. Many of the products from smoke contained different active ingredients from their labels altogether, not to mention their crazy dosing.
My own personal experience illustrates perfectly well the risks of unregulated cannabis. I lived in Cambridge during the early days of Adult Use. I was a postdoc in Harvard’s chemistry department. Cambridge held up the opening of dispensaries because they wanted their first to be a social equity licensee.
I ordered products from a website and had them dropped off to me in a parking lot. I got sick from vape carts I bought that were diluted with vitamin-E-acetate. I nearly died, but the folks in Mt. Auburn hospital saved my life.
I need to pause here to apologize to my family for the way my reckless choices caused them so much fear.
Despite that experience, I’m not afraid of this cartridge, because I bought it in a dispensary.
This Initiative is not what Massachusetts wants, as a recent UNH survey showed. It’s been foisted upon us by outsiders who used deception to get this far. It’s dangerous. Please make it stop.
