"Drug law puzzles police; Many questions on enforcement of new marijuana rules" by Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff | December 25, 2008
Prosecutors and police officers say they still have fundamental questions about how to enforce the new law that takes effect Jan. 2 decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana.
Many law enforcement officials strongly opposed the intensely debated Nov. 4 state ballot question that will turn possession of an ounce or less of marijuana into an offense on par with a traffic violation. Police and prosecutors say they are in the dark about many aspects of the law.
A high-ranking state judge sought to clarify some matters in a memorandum issued yesterday. But police and prosecutors said questions still abound, including what they should do with people caught with several joints who refuse to identify themselves, who will develop and fund a drug-awareness program required for violators under 18, and whether state-run laboratories that test drugs seized in criminal cases will continue to do so for small quantities of marijuana....
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Berkshire District Attorney David F. Capeless, president of the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association, said state officials have yet to address other unexpected questions, including whether police chiefs can discipline officers who light up a joint after work.
Well, if they are smoking at all, how about KICKING THEM OFF the FORCE?! Can you believe these people?
First they sound the extreme alarm bells during the vote, and because the public didn't bite, noe they role out the COPS ARE HIGH canard?!!
Please!!!!
That doesn't go along with the beatings, tyranny, and shootings, let me tell you, MAN, nor does it explain the RANK CORRUPTION at ALL LEVELS of government!!!!
"I'm not suggesting that officers are doing it," he said. "But what you're doing, whether it's officers or other public employees - transportation workers, bus drivers, teachers - you're removing a disincentive by saying: 'We won't be able to do anything to you. You won't get disciplined for this. It won't mean your job. It may mean a $100 fine.' "
Then WHY SAY IT?!!
And then he DRAGS EVERY OTHER PUBLIC SERVICE SECTOR WORKER IN TO IT!!! I'm ready to lynch this guy!!! And I'm not even the target of the INSULTS!!!!!!!!
And you want the ULTIMATE HYPOCRISY?
Those DA's GOT STONED!!!! Also see: Mass. DA's Broke the Law
Then type "pot" into my blog search and see what comes up.
In a letter last month on behalf of the district attorneys, Capeless urged Governor Deval Patrick to ask the Legislature to delay the effective date of the new law. But a spokesman for the state's Executive Office of Public Safety and Security said yesterday that Patrick will not do that, even though the governor opposed the ballot question.
That's MASSACHUSETT'S DEMOCRACY for you! I don't know why I even bothered to go vote; maybe I just won't next time!
Terrel Harris - a spokesman for the Office of Public Safety, which is responsible for setting up the new system of civil penalties - acknowledged that time is running out until the law goes into effect and said the office will issue its own guidelines for law enforcement officials next week....
Thomas W. Nolan, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Boston University and a former Boston police lieutenant who was featured in a television ad supporting Question 2, characterized the complaints of law enforcement officials as inflexibility.
"Police organizations are somewhat monolithic, in that they are resistant to change by nature," he said....
So are TYRANNIES!!!!
Under the ballot measure, which won the approval of about 65 percent of state voters, people caught with an ounce or less of marijuana would be subject to a $100 civil fine. Offenders under 18 would also be required to attend a drug-awareness class within a year. The fine increases to $1,000 for those who skip the class.
Yeah, but THEY DON'T HEAR US!! The WHOLE POINT of the initiative was to PREVENT some KID from being scarred from having an ARREST -- not a court hearing, not a trial, not a conviction, but AN ARREST -- go on his permanent record, depriving him of aid money and job opportunities.
But maybe that is the point, right? All of a sudden, you got cannon fodder for the military, nice, good, Amurkn kids who can go die for Israel and her bloody wars!
Massachusetts became the 13th state to decriminalize quantities of marijuana.
What, we ain't a leader like the gay thing? (Sigh)
Proponents of the change - including activist groups such as the Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy and the billionaire financier George Soros, who spent more than $400,000 in favor of decriminalizing marijuana - said it would ensure that those caught with small quantities would avoid the taint of a criminal record.
Yeah, that gave me pause about voting yes on the question, but the BG editorializing no made me give it a yea!
Nevertheless, I don't like some globalist puke trying to destroy our morals so he can make a shitload of money. Yeah, just stony up the population -- as if Amurkns aren't stoo-pid and brain-dead enough!
The Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, the Massachusetts Association of District Attorneys, Attorney General Martha Coakley, and Patrick all opposed Question 2, saying it would send the wrong message, create a bureaucratic nightmare, and probably mean de facto legalization of small amounts of marijuana....
A) THERE THEY GO AGAIN, and b) GOOD!!!! It shouldn't be illegal to begin with!
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Capeless said law enforcement officials have other pressing questions.
They wonder, for example, whether two laboratories that test drugs seized by police, one run by the Department of Public Health and another by the State Police, will continue doing so for small quantities of marijuana in civil cases. The labs are already backlogged and understaffed, he said, and law enforcement officials are concerned that they will stop testing small quantities in cases where alleged violators deny that the substance is marijuana....
Yeah, the new law should HELP CLEAR OUT that SURE SIGN of TYRANNY!!
Liberal tyranny, I love it!!!
Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe said law enforcement officials also still do not know how they will respond if people caught with a few joints refuse to identify themselves.
Ooooooohhhh, THAT is what it is ALL ABOUT!!
YOUR PAPERS, pleaze, heil to the fatherland!!
Currently, Massachusetts residents are not required to carry identification unless engaged in specific acts, such as driving. As a result, Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley had predicted that police will be handing out citations to violators who call themselves Mickey Mouse.
Good, because THAT'S WHAT THIS IS -- Mickey Mouse s***!
O'Keefe said he believes that proponents of decriminalization cannily crafted a ballot measure with numerous loopholes in hope that it would be impossible to implement and quickly lead to de facto legalization. "They sold the public a pig in a poke, and the public bought it," he said.
Yeah, GOOD THING POLITICIANS never did that over LOOTING, er, BAILOUTS and WARS, huh? The ARROGANCE and CHUTZPAH is enough to MAKE YOU WANT TO SWEAR this Xmas morning!!!!
But Nolan, the Boston University professor who supported decriminalization, disagreed. "The nuts and bolts of the implementation of this new law will be worked out incrementally as it's rolled out," he said, "and if there are obstacles, there's nothing to preclude the state Legislature from fixing it. That's what we pay state legislators to do."
Yeah, and they turn around and pump us while looting us!! Into the harbor!!!!!
Of course, anything that might actual help you stay alive, this government opposes.
"Study: Smoking Pot Doesn't Cause Cancer--It May Prevent It! Smoking Cannabis Does Not Cause Cancer Of Lung or Upper Airways, Tashkin Finds; Data Suggest Possible Protective Effect"
It's a CULTURE of DEATH country!!!
Related: The Ron Paul Platform: Personal Freedom
