Secretary Galvin announced the order of the ballot questions yesterday. There are four that made it:
- To see if the Commonwealth will vote to allow a second slot parlor.
- To see if the Commonwealth will vote to lift the cap on charter schools.
- To see if the Commonwealth will vote to phase out extreme animal confinement.
- To see if the Commonwealth will vote to legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana for recreational use.
My own preferences are no, no, yes, no respectively.
Please share widely!
I won’t be able to vote on these, but I’d go No, No, Yes, HUGE YES.
When I was making big law paralegal money it was easy to buy the cage free eggs for 3.50 a dozen, but now I like my .79 eggs from Market Basket. I also wonder how that will raise food prices for the poor, not everyone can shop at Whole Paycheck. Maybe we can offset those changes with rebates we can fund with the YUGE revenues we will get from marijuana legalization.
Do you like fully funded every childhood education Christopher? What about fully funded prisoner job training and re-entry programs? What about drug treatment programs? All funded by legalization in Colorado. It’s money that will go to drug cartels and terrorists that could fund needed government programs, especially at a time when every community in Massachusetts is hurting. No one will force you to use it, I never have and never will. I dislike it for the same reasons you do. But I know a lot of people who do like it and have used it safely, and I’d rather they pay taxes on their vice of choice like everyone else.
Unfortunately, this marijuana thing opens a whole can of worms.
Legalization of medical marijuana (also passed by ballot question) did not work very well, specifically because it has very lax medical controls. Nobody seems to be looking carefully at dosage, side effects, appropriateness of treatment – the whole thing is a huge mess.
So the track record of success in terms of passing good, sensible policy for marijuana liberalization is just not there.
Which can cause us to suspect that full legalization of recreational marijuana will also not work as advertised. We are not likely to see less crime, fewer drugs, etc. We’re actually not likely to see an underground economy drained and cleared up.
What we are likely to see, however, is mainstreaming of marijuana use – by drivers on the road, by employees in work places, etc.
If you think that’s a good thing, by all means vote yes on this ballot question. But I think we’re just creating a lot of unforeseen trouble for ourselves.
Sure it’s the right thing to do but the GOP will blame us if anything wrong so let’s keep sending black kids to prison by the millions to be on the safe side
Jail times tend to be for the harder drugs, not much to do with marijuana.
I suggest you dig deeper.
I think you’ll find that inner-city blacks, who live in neighborhoods where pretty much the entire neighborhood is a “school zone”, are doing LOTS of jail time for marijuana. Your comment is a misperception that greatly understates the reality of our current drug laws and the way they disproportionately impact inner-city blacks.
After marijuana has been decriminalized? I highly doubt it.
The threshold for “possession with intent to distribute” remains at one ounce, even after “decriminalization”. Within a school zone, that carries SEVERE mandatory minimums.
Like I said, I suggest you actually read the law(s).
Kids are still brought up on charges of intent to distribute despite decriminalization. Some of those are not dealers. Others are, but they are small time and still getting prosecuted.
Nationally there are ~700,000 marijuana-related arrests each year and around 90% of those are for possession.
High mandatory minimums is something I disagree with.
National figures are interesting, but it would be better to find state figures – since state laws differ.
I hope you’re not suggesting it is acceptable to distribute marijuana in high schools, or that marijuana is good for students. Unless the laws are enforced, they can be ignored with impunity.
Maybe I missed some of your posts and Tom’s – but I’d be interested to know whether you support legalization of recreational marijuana because (a) you consider it harmless, or (b) it can’t (and shouldn’t) be stopped by law enforcement anyway.
If it’s (a), I disagree and we can talk more about it. If (b), then the real discussion from my perspective should be how to amend the laws and their enforcement.
I support legalization because:
a) Marijuana is far less harmful than a long list of other perfectly legal substances (most of the harm from marijuana comes from its illegal status)
b) There is a similarly long (VERY long) list far more important priorities for law enforcement
Absolutely NOBODY has suggested that is “acceptable distribute marijuana in high schools” or that “marijuana is good for students”.
What I have instead reminded you of, and what you so far show no sign of acknowledging, is that a 30-something man or woman should be able to enjoy smoking marijuana in the privacy of their home — even though their home overlooks a park (and is therefore within a “school zone” as described by current law).
That’s why I think marijuana should be regulated like alcohol (and taxed like crazy). It’s not harmless, but it’s significantly less harmful than alcohol and its prohibition is similarly failed. Also, it’s basically over at this point. The train has left the station. Legalization is coming, and soon. We can get on board and do it right and also get some early mover economic advantages or we can drag our feet and continue failed policies.
The statistics for 2013 drug sentencing are posted here, courtesy of a pointer from an unrelated blog post by Sen. Will Brownsberger:
http://www.mass.gov/courts/docs/admin/sentcomm/fy2013-survey-sentencing-practices.pdf
There are 2 “traffic marijuana 50 to 100 lbs” offenses, 27 “distribution within school or park”, 3 “possession class D marijuana” offenses that led to incarceration in 2013, out of a total more than 1,000.
The vast majority of offenses is for ‘operating auto after suspension’ (410) followed by trespassing (286).
27+48=75 “distribution within school or park”, including all types of drugs.
I only skimmed the report. Here’s what caught my eye, from page iv, bottom (emphasis mine):
QED
Maybe we should follow this up on the next ballot question thread. I don’t think it’s realistic to expect that the public will accept drugs to be distributed in schools even with the ballot question passed.
Here is what the report says (page 81, emphasis mine):
You again offer the canard of “accept drugs to be distributed in schools”. This misquote is, frankly, dishonest.
Meanwhile, from page 53 of the report:
The report you offer demonstrates that the impact of mandatory drug sentences falls THREE TO ONE against minorities, while whites represent 66.3% of defendants — two thirds.
I think EVERY citizen of Massachusetts has a right to expect that sentencing and incarceration rates will approximately reflect that representation of minorities in conviction rates. The fact that whites are two of three convicted defendants, and less than one in four incarcerations for mandatory drug convictions, is stark evidence of racial discrimination in mandatory drug sentencing.
I’m disappointed that you simultaneously distort the reality of our drug sentencing laws, while ignoring the clear evidence of racial disparity in their effect.
> I think EVERY citizen of Massachusetts has a right to expect that
> sentencing and incarceration rates will approximately reflect that
> representation of minorities in conviction rates.
I don’t think so. The rate at which people are sentenced and incarcerated should be proportional to the rate of the offenses.
The statistics don’t say which schools & parks were mostly affected. It could very well be that the schools hit with drug trading have higher proportion of minority students, and that the stats within each school are proportional with the ethnic or racial composition of that school.
In which case, if school drug traders are NOT pursued by the law, drug use will increase with preponderance in schools with higher proportion of ethnic/racial minority students.
You can take another example, if you will – that of driving with suspended license. Should the state stop incarcerating & sentencing people who drive with suspended license, just because the ethic/racial proportion of those caught does not exactly match that of the general population of the drivers?
The effect, if the law is not enforced, falls on all types of ethnic or racial slices of the population – and, sometimes, minorities are more strongly affected when enforcement is lax.
This is not a general statement, universally applicable, in the sense that one should never look at race or ethnicity, because it never makes sense to compare the effect of the enforcement on categories of population. But what I do mean to say is that, in particular, in what regards distribution of drugs in school, we all have an interest, white, black, brown, to ensure that schools are as much as possible drug free zones.
Reading your message more carefully – you are referring to a large discrepancy in the rate of sentencing, as opposed to incarceration. Meaning to say a larger proportion of ethnic/racial minority serving time, once convicted.
That’s another strand in the discussion than where I was headed. It pertains to the justice system working unequally for those getting under its grinding gears.
You are right to be concerned about this. I will argue, though, that this represents a problem that is more uniform across how criminal law is adjudicated through the courts, irrespective of the particular criminal law.
Simply put, those who can afford a better/more expensive lawyer has a better chance to get a lenient verdict.
Which means that, it does not automatically translate into a call, say, to stop enforcing laws in regards to drug distribution, or driving with suspended license.
Because the underlying problem is how justice is adjudicated, in between the time a person is charged and that person being tried, possibly sentenced and incarcerated.
As I read more about this on Brownsberger’s blog, School zone drug charges are dropped in over 95% of cases (http://willbrownsberger.com/school-zone-charges-are-dropped-in-over-95-of-cases/) before getting to the 75 conviction. But school drug dealing tends to be charged under different categories – I guess, possession, in case of small amounts of Marijuana – which have more favorable treatment in the law.
Brownsberger is arguing altogether for the elimination of the school zone charges.
This has been discussed at some length here, I don’t have time to get links right now.
It’s IMPORTANT to different between school ZONE offenses and “school drug dealing”. We are NOT talking about people selling drugs in school hallways. A “school zone” is anything within 300 feet of a school (until 2012, it was 1,000 feet).
Part of the disparity, and a contributor to why school-zone charges are so frequently dropped, is that school zones are a MUCH higher percentage of urban area than suburban and exurban settings.
The school zone mandatory sentencing provisions mean that urban dwellers are disproportionately affected. In today’s Massachusetts, that translates to minorities.
…The problem with the school zone offense being that it carries high mandatory minimums.
Yes, it’s school ‘zone’, extending 300 ft outside school.
I refer my honourable friend to previous comments on the merits of legalizing another drug for recreational use outright and see no need to rehash.
I’ll refer you and others to my piece two years ago showing that the social costs for casinos outweigh those for pot, while the project revenues for casino fall woefully short of projections. So if it’s a dollars and sense decision it’s a no brainier. Obviously we need to learn from the mistakes, and there were many, associated with the regulatory regimen set up by CO and avoid those here. My own preference was for our legislature to enact the sensible policy put forward by Rogers and Jehlen.
You also may recall I voted FOR repealing the casino deal and said here I plan again to vote against another slot parlor, largely over economic concerns.
…I’m voting (and yes, I recall you neither accept my evidence nor philosophical views on this) based on public health and not revenue.
The proposed tax is about a tenth what Colorado charges. We’ll be lucky if it covers implementation of the law.
What does “extreme animal confinement” mean?
Here Is the rundown.
Basically there is one farm in MA that would have to change its confinement policies, but the secondary question is the ban of sales to the state from out of state farms that also violate the policy. I see s host of regulatory issues and also anti-food insecurity and homeless activists are adamantly against this:
Like the bottle bill or the gas tax, it another one that arguably pits working families tighter and tighter paychecks against the greater environmental good. Hope I’m wrong and I’m open to convincing. But it’s definitely not a hard yes or no for me on this one.
Or is that an exaggeration?
Admittedly I know little about this issue, it’s definitely not something voters should probably be deciding.
We need a statewide ballot question over ONE FARM?
How did this happen? Why aren’t the papers complaining? What a colossal waste.
Which goes further than the CA law. So the question hinges on how this regulation will affect our supply chain and whether it will raise food prices, which is what those food security activists are right to be concerned about. It probably doesn’t matter; Pioneer Valley, Newline and Camberville will vote for it and the rest of the state will vote it down.
Look at it this way: it is virtually impossible to reform farm animal confinement policy unless by ballot question.
I think this is a very good use of referendum, for something few would care about unless compelled to answer a question at the ballot.
The anti-confinement side has to have a plan to address that. There are plenty of retired people in this state on fixed incomes like my parents or on food stamps like my sister. I don’t want them penalized by the people who are shopping at Whole Paycheck already.
I’m adamantly against factory farming, my wife and I tried an all organic/free range diet this time last year and it was definitely better for our bodies. I lost 15 lbs and it cured my IBS, and its better for the planet too. I’m not making that argument. But it’s not sustainable on our current budget with her schooling and my occupation getting in the way. I can’t imagine if cage free eggs are the only option how much that will raise food costs and whether our tight fisted legislature will adjust EBT to reflect that.
estimates that if the initiative passes, the increase in the price per egg will be somewhere between one and seven cents, not exactly the “regressive food tax on the poor” that the initiative opponents (who have ties to Big Agriculture and are represented by a gentleman who has made at least one very unflattering remark about people like his Massachusetts plaintiff who receive government food assistance) are claiming.
A buck a dozen, on the other hand, isn’t…
According to sites like this, the price of a dozen eggs in Boston is $3.62. The estimate you just cited is an increase of “somewhere between one and seven cents”. Let’s worst-case that at $0.07 per egg, or EIGHTY FOUR cents per dozen.
We’re talking about a measure that adds TWENTY FIVE PERCENT to the price of a dozen eggs.
That sounds regressive to me.
Wegmans & Tops Markets announced its goal to go cage-free by 2025. The two grocers join several other retailers, including Albertsons Cos., Kroger Co. and CVS Health Corp., who have announced plans to go cage-free within the next decade.
Consumers are willing to pay an average of $3.42 for cage-free eggs, which is more than double the price of conventional eggs, even though cage-free eggs only cost about 15 cents more to produce, according to the Agricultural Issues Center at University of California.
In Chicagoland and so far in Boston, I’ve never seen cage free eggs sell for anything less than at least double the price of conventional eggs. For most of us that’s an easy choice, and one I dutifully made for years until recent economizing. But it is a choice not everyone can afford. Is it because the scale of the mandate depresses the price or prevents grocers from gouging since it loses the niche factor? The merits of this change are strong on moral and ecological grounds, I do worry about the price negatively affecting those who depend on stretching their food dollars.
the cost of the losing effort to defend its constitutionality.
but you’re not letting on enough. Commerce Clause? Something else? Do tell…
The concept is the Inverse Commerce Clause, and, I believe the gist of it is:
The US Constitution grants authority to regulate interstate commerce to one and only one entity: the US Congress. Therefore, the states cannot regulate interstate commerce. So, laws like these have a problem.
There is some exception for laws that pursue local concerns and have only an incidental effect on interstate commerce, and to determine whether your law is OK, a multi-part balancing test that is understood by probably 25 people nationwide, one of whom is probably david.
The ballot question passed review by the SJC and by the state attorney general, would they have really let it through if it was not constitutional?
I think not.
Same question, by the way, applies to the medical marijuana question we just passed, and to the recreational marijuana now on the ballot. If the question was non-constitutional, (because it deals with commerce of marijuana across state lines, or some other thing) – but it is not considered non constitutional.
Does the SJC rule on the questions? I’ve never seen that. Where is the order?
The AG is a politician. And we no politicians never advocate constitutionally dubious things.
The marijuana question doesn’t ban the import of goods from other states into Massachusetts.
If someone doesn’t like the AG’s ruling they take it to the SJC. An example this year is the SJC throwing out a question which would have nixed Common Core for being too broad by constitutional standards.
The constitutional review by the SJC, I believe, is just on whether the ballot questions met the state constitutional rules around what can be on the ballot when – not whether what the question wants to do is constitutional under the U.S. Constitution.
In other words – the question before the SJC “In this appeal, we consider whether the Attorney General properly certified an initiative petition
proposing a new law that would prohibit . . . “
I need to add this:
Yes, it veal is a young cow. Actually, it’s most often a young steer. Why? Well, consider the dairy farm. Dairy cows give milk after giving birth to a calf. Dairy steers don’t do much except contribute sperm for dairy cows. So, a farm does not need more than one or two steers and can even get away with none if they have artificial insemination available. All that takes is a vial, a willing human, and a very long rubber glove. Trust me, I used to work on a dairy farm.
The odds of a calf being female are 50/50 eh? So what does a dairy farmer do with male dairy steers? The breed is not bred for beef production, it’s bread for milk production. So the only way to “process” the young steer is veal.
Yes, it’s a young animal but if you refuse to eat it because of the immorality of it, then please stop using butter, milk, and don’t dare enjoy that ice cream cone this summer.
Your last paragraph is nonsense.
If we don’t allow for the production of veal, a few things happen:
1. Farmers end up with dairy steer and have to figure out what to do with them, and
2. The price of diary goes up.
Let’s take it apart. On the first one, you’re right — what to do with the dairy steer? Well, there’s really only two choices. Let them live out their natural life, or kill them. The first seems generally unlikely — cows require land, but they also require attention. That ain’t free. So, let’s say they’re put down — that’s no worse for the cows than what’s happening now. Well, except that at least in this model they aren’t tortured before death. veal makes up about 1/4% of meat produced in America, so this isn’t about feeding hungry kids, not in the least.
On the second one, the farm ultimately has to stay above water — all revenue exceed all costs. You take away the veal revenue, and the dairy farmer has to make it work with a bit less revenue. That means higher prices for dairy and, because dairy products aren’t perfectly elastic, that means that the consumer pays more, the farmer makes less, and less dairy is consumed. With less dairy consumed, there will be fewer dairy cattle — including fewer dairy steers being born, only to be put to their death.
Seems to me that outlawing the sale of veal will result in the same number of dairy steer being killed initially, but will result in fewer dairy steer being killed within a few years or so. At the cost, of course, of higher prices for dairy products.
johntmay: what if you allow a dairy steer to reach adulthood? Is the meat so terrible that it can’t be used for hamburger? For dog food? I’m just not sure that there isn’t a middle ground between torturing calves to make veal and not eating dairy steer.
The middle ground is raising calves humanely. It’s the confinement and torture that is the problem, not the slaughtering of a young animal (I say this as a meat eater). Lamb is a sheep under a year old, but pasturing and grass feeding are more of the norm for lamb. If you’re a meat-eater, the age of the animal should not matter (it’s overly anthropomorphizing) but the torture should. The same goes for chicken and eggs.
Free-range veal is not an oxymoron, and it may even be on its way to being trendy in Boston-area restaurants:
I think some people oppose eating baby animals, but the bulk of folks who are concerned with veal are concerned about the torturous conditions to which the cattle are submitted.
Free range veal seems to solve the problem johntmay raises…
1. Just what we don’t need. Another slot parlor.
2. Just what we don’t need. Exponentially more charter schools without any funding or governance reform.
3. We owe it to ourselves to set standards for the treatment of animals. Cheap eggs are no bargain if you need to torture the birds to get them.
4. The devil is in the details, and this looks like it was written to support some big wannabe players in the marijuana industry.
1. Easy to see that the upside of gambling isn’t worth the downside
2. Easy to see that the charter system we have now isn’t working, and that the ramifications of closing a charter are always substantial. Let’s figure out what to do with the charters we have now first.
3. I’m concerned about the upward pressure on food prices, but we’re not leading on this… we’re at the end of the first wave of states. Ag is overly torturous of animals, and we can do better.
4. This is, for me, the most complex of the issues, and an issue for which I don’t want to become an expert. I’m perfectly happy voting no and letting our paid professionals — the legislature — figure out what the heck to do on this one.
Yes, I’m sure if the ballot question fails, the legislature will be thrilled to take up marijuana legalization.
It’s not that complicated. Marijuana criminalization is horrible right now, in practice. Legalization fixes it. Vote yes!
That’s far enough for me.
People can be charged with intent to distribute even if they have considerably less than an ounce in their possession – as long as it’s broken up, like in smaller bags or joints.
no, we have not decriminalized
It’s a very complicated issue for me, and there’s a wide gap in my opinion between legalizing a use and decriminalizing the use. I’m all for the latter — I’m simply not “there” on the former.
Please don’t pretend that they’re the same, or that the only solution to the rampant imprisonment of black and brown people on marijuana charges is legalization.
I’m not trying to be a jerk here, but do you understand that doesn’t make a lick of sense?
Generally speaking, it seems like a lot of Dems – mostly white, mostly middle class or higher – both want credit for opposing Scary Scary Drugs AND to absolve themselves of any guilt for sending all the poor black kids to prison. Can’t have it both ways.
a citation–the penalty for possession for under an ounce–is not a civil violation, not criminal violation. You pay a fine. Same thing with speeding. The line between the two is blurry, but when talking about marijuana, people would not pay a fine before it was decriminalized, they would go to court.
It can be described this way:
Vote YES for the chickens.
Vote NO for the rest of this shit.
NO
NO
YES
DUDE!
Let’s take a moment and recognize a question that should have been on the ballot, but is not:
The question addressing cost disparities in health care in the state.
Yes (barely with nod to Barney, and resistance to even wise paternalism)
No
Yes
Yes
I continue to remain philosophically opposed on public health and message it sends grounds to outright legalizing another drug for merely recreational use. I’ll refer you, as I have others, to comments I’ve made previously (which includes, just as a reminder, erring on the smart rather than tough side of enforcement). That’s not what I want for the society I live in and my vote represents nobody but myself. I’ll make this really simple. I am NOT persuadable on this. That is my story and I’m sticking to it.
I can respect that. There are positions I can’t budge on either, even if they are losing ones. The no fly list for example, we shouldn’t compound Bush era mistakes for gun control optics. Then there are more emotional ones like opposing the death penalty, opposing euthanasia, abortion funding and supporting conscience clauses for Catholic hospitals.
I’m on the “wrong” side of public opinion on all four, and on BMG for the last three, but I do think there is a place for faith to be respected in the public sphere that doesn’t impose itself on others. Where I will impose my faith is the belief that the state lacks the moral authority to take lives in its custody, which fortunately most of the non-believers at BMG agree with me on 😉