It’s practically meaningless at this very early stage, but still, one has to note the following results on the ballot questions from a just-released Suffolk poll (via Politicker).
Question: yes — no — undecided
1 (repeal income tax): 36-50-15
2 (decriminalize pot): 72-22-6
3 (ban dog racing): 50-37-13
Look at those numbers for decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana! The trend tends to be that “yes” votes on ballot questions decline as election day nears, but still, that’s quite a starting point.
Also, this is pretty funny.
When asked if voters would be more or less likely to vote for the Republican ticket if Romney were the vice presidential candidate, 33 percent said more likely, while 41 percent said less likely, and 24 percent indicated no difference.
Wonder what Jeff Beatty has to say about that?
Not really that big a spread on the Romniator, sort of a typical liberal-conservative split, I imagine. Personally I say either legalize herb completely or keep it criminal- I can’t get past the idea that the dealers and users are part of the same industry- I don’t like the idea of college kids being left alone for smoking product while their dealers in the projects or wherever can still go to jail. It bugs me.
In fact, just legalize it. Sell it in the Quik-E-Mart instead of those annoying scratch tickets.
i always worry about the accuracy of suffolk polls, but I’m glad to see the dogs and taxes are winning. And, honestly, I think people realize how absurd our policies on pot are… so hopefully politicians will listen.
Perhaps David or someone else more versed in local law than I could tell me what happens if those last two proposals pass.
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p>If I recall since they are Questions and not Propositions than the Leg can feel free to ignore the results right? Isn’t that what Finneran did in 02 when campaign finance and universal healthcare passed?
All three questions are proposed laws. If they pass, they become law. The legislature can’t “ignore” them — but they can alter or repeal the newly-enacted laws, just as they can with any other law on the books. That’s what happened with the income tax rollback to 5%. With campaign finance, the lege refused to appropriate funds (you can’t appropriate money via a ballot initiative).
It’s already begun. Barney Frank introduced legislation to decriminalize marijuana use.
in Massachusetts than it is on Capitol Hill. And I didn’t say it would be likely to pass here. That said, if this is an issue people really care about, they’d do well mail their legislators a copy of this poll, better yet, bring it to them in person. Just try not to dress like a stereotypical stoner, if you do. No offense.
It’s Time for a Conversation video.
as an incrementalist in the Burkeian mold I support decriminalization over legalization since it will allow us to see the results of decriminalization. Personally I think its stupid to fill our prisoners with so many drug offenders especially the pot possessors which is a less harmful drug than alcohol, and I say this as someone who has never touched weed. But legalization I think would open up more cans of worms with taxation, etc and making it more readily available so we should decriminalize as a trial balloon and then move to legalization.
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p>Ideally I would legalize pot and decriminalize all other drug possession but pot dealers don’t seem as criminal as coke or heroin dealers that are really feeding off chemical addictions so I want those guys behind bars.
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Honestly, legalizing it isn’t even on the table. It’ll take a lot of effort just to get decriminalizing it there.
If not…then those numbers may just sit there or drop a bit. The numbers on the two other questions will move based on the advertising that will be spent.
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p>But who will be spending money on the pot question? The MassCANN (pro pot) folks don’t have a “pot” to piss in since they lost a kilo of money when a storm crashed a recent smokein on the Common. Maybe George Soros, but I doubt it.
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p>You’ll certainly see lots of cop and anti-drug groups oppose this question, but will they have any money behind them? We’ll see.
I asked and then answered…Soros gave $400,000 to the cause and they raised another 150,000. Most of that is spent–paid signitures, with about 60,000 coh as of last report.