Pubdate: Sun, 09 Jun 2013
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2013 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact: http://services.bostonglobe.com/news/opeds/letter.aspx?id=6340
Website: http://bostonglobe.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: John Laidler

TWO TOWNS BAN PUBLIC MARIJUANA USE

Smoking marijuana on the street or in the park could soon become an 
expensive proposition in Norwood and Walpole, even for those with a 
legal right to possess the drug.

At their recent town meetings, the two communities adopted bylaws 
banning the public consumption of marijuana including by those who 
are authorized to use medical marijuana under the state law adopted 
by voters last year.

Violators would be subject to a $300 fine under the Norwood bylaw, 
and fines of $100 for the first offense, $200 for the second, and 
$300 for the third and subsequent offenses under the Walpole bylaw. 
Like all town bylaws, both measures require approval by the state 
Attorney General's office.

"I think most people would agree that someone sitting on a park bench 
smoking marijuana is probably a bad idea, just from a public order 
perspective," said Norwood Police Chief William G. Brooks, who 
proposed the bylaw in his town.

The two towns join other communities that have enacted similar bans. 
Many communities acted following approval by voters of the 2008 
ballot law decriminalizing possession of less than an ounce of marijuana.

'It's just like consuming alcohol - it's not allowed out in public.'

The Attorney General's office has approved bans in approximately 76 
towns, including Abington, Avon, Carver, Dedham, Duxbury, East 
Bridgewater, Foxborough, Halifax, Hanson, Lakeville, Mansfield, 
Middleborough, Plympton, Rockland, Wareham, West Bridgewater, and Whitman.

Norwood and Walpole's town meetings also enacted temporary 
moratoriums on medical marijuana dispensaries in their communities.

Brooks said the passage of the medical marijuana law spurred him to 
seek the bylaw in Norwood.

Under the 2008 law, Brooks noted, a police officer who comes upon 
someone smoking marijuana in public can issue the person a $100 civil 
citation for illegal possession of the drug, and seize the marijuana. 
But he said that without the bylaw, if the person smoking has a 
medical marijuana registration card, there is no available enforcement action.

"Even people who voted for medical marijuana must think it's a bad 
idea to have someone sitting . . . at a ball field smoking weed," he said.

But Bill Downing, treasurer of the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform 
Coalition, which supports legalization of marijuana, said local bans 
on public consumption of the drug go against the expressed wishes of 
the voting public.

"People have now twice had the opportunity to tell the state what 
they want regarding the regulation of marijuana . . . and both times 
they told the state they want them to moderate the regulation of 
marijuana," he said. "Some people just don't get it."

Downing said the criteria for curtailing public marijuana use should 
be no different than for any other types of smoking.

"It's a public environment issue. If you are polluting other people's 
environment, they have a right to complain whether it's marijuana or 
oak leaf or smoking tobacco," he said.

The proposed ban in Norwood drew some debate, including on the Board 
of Selectmen, which voted 3-2 to support its passage at Town Meeting.

Selectman Michael Lyons said he opposed the measure in light of the 
fact that voters statewide and in Norwood had supported both the 
decriminalization and medical marijuana ballot questions.

"Obviously, there is a lot of disappointment on the part of people 
who were lobbying heavily against both of these referendums on the 
statewide level - district attorneys, police associations. I get the 
feeling that they are looking for a way to chip at the will of the 
public on this," he said.

Norwood Selectwoman Helen Abdallah Donohue supported the ban.

"If a person has the right to be using marijuana for medical 
purposes, I don't think a public place is" the appropriate location 
for it, she said. "Why should people who don't want anything to do 
with marijuana have to be subjected to that in a public place?

"We have a beautiful town common, beautiful streets and ball fields, 
and we have an idyllic quality of life here in Norwood. I don't think 
we should put flaws in it," she said.

Norwood Selectman Allan D. Howard also favored the bylaw.

"If an individual who is really sick smokes it and it's good for 
them, that is a good thing," he said. "But I'm not in favor of them 
doing it in public in downtown Norwood."

In Walpole, the public consumption bylaw was proposed by the Board of 
Selectmen on the recommendation of the town's Coalition for Alcohol & 
Drug Awareness, according to Selectman Christopher Timson, the 
board's liaison to the group.

Timson said the coalition worried that the medical marijuana law and 
the 2008 decriminalization law taken together would "pose a 
significant barrier to trying to have youth avoid what is generally 
considered a gateway drug." He said the bylaw and the dispensary 
moratorium would help ease that concern.

"We wanted to go beyond just the one-year moratorium and tackle the 
issue of public usage of a drug that while it has been decriminalized 
to some extent is still an issue the town needs to deal with," said 
Eric A. Kraus, who was chairman of the selectmen until the town 
election June 1. He did not seek another term on the board.

"I think Walpole as a community would prefer that if someone is going 
to be smoking marijuana, they do it in the privacy of their own 
home," Timson said. "It's just like consuming alcohol - it's not 
allowed out in public. Why would we as a community look at this drug 
differently?"
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom