After passing recreational marijuana on November 8th, Massachusetts’s citizens eager to get started may have to wait a little bit longer.
Last week the Boston Globe reported that legislature is considering delaying weed stores opening date until mid-2018, rather than January 2018 as listed in the ballot measure that almost 1.8 million people voted for. However, according to the Globe, some are saying this would not give adequate time to regulators to prepare proper oversight. Also mentioned is delaying home growing, which according to the bill voters approved, should be legal December 15th.
However, Richard Evans (who has been pushing for legal weed for over 4 decades), doesn’t see their concerns as valid. According to him, Colorado managed to do the same thing in the same amount of time that Massachusetts officials have.
“We have a law that we have to implement, and it’s the will of the voters,” the Senate President Stanley Rosenberg said to reporters. “I’m going to be meeting with some of the proponents over the next week to have that conversation to assure them that we hear the voters voted. We want to work with them because we’re going to need to make some changes in the law. But we’re going to respect the principle here, which is: The voters have spoken.”
Should no progress be made before Dec. 15th (something that wouldn’t be unheard of in government, even state-government), then home growing can continue as before. For people who have wanted this for a while (40+ years in Evans’ case), this delay can be seen as another push to stop legalization all together. However, as Rosenberg said, the voters have spoken.
Beacon Hill Blog 