Poll indicates half of voters want marijuana decriminalized – The Boston Globe
A ballot proposal to decriminalize the possession of marijuana has the support of about half of Massachusetts voters as the Nov. 4 election nears, a new poll indicates.Fifty-one percent of registered voters supported Question 2, while 32 percent opposed it, and 16 percent were undecided, according to the 7News/Suffolk University poll taken earlier this week.
In an August survey, 72 percent of those surveyed had supported decriminalization. But law enforcement officials have mobilized to oppose the proposal and have made significant progress in swaying people to their side, said David Paleologos, director of the Political Research Center at Suffolk.
“The no side has gained momentum over the past two months,” Paleologos said in a statement.
“The issue is whether the brass and blue will be able to move enough additional voters to their side in 12 days.”
It’s amazing how much pull the law enforcement community has with voters and the ease with which they can lie about Question 2. They want to scare voters by saying that teen marijuana use has dropped (it has) and that Question 2 would end that trend. It’s that old “message we send to the kids” argument.
What I don’t understand about that argument is that the message you’re sending to kids right now isn’t working. We’ve sent the message that cannabis is awful and illegal and if you do it we’ll arrest you and give you a record and mess up your life. We’ve sent that message for 38 years now and kids are still smoking pot! Yes, rates have declined recently, as they have nationwide, but over the entire 38 years span of this message, we’ve seen very little change in marijuana use rates.
So, for some reason, the message used now doesn’t work to stop pot smoking, but if we changed the message to “we still think you shouldn’t smoke pot, we’ll still fine you, but we won’t ruin your life”, then suddenly the use rates of marijuana by teens would skyrocket. The “NO we really hate it” message isn’t working, but somehow the “NO we really dislike it” message will successfully encourage more use.
Then there’s the idea promoted by opponents that this will open the floodgates to drug dealers. Please. The amounts we’re talking about – less than an ounce – are far lower than what a “drug dealer” works with. Nobody is making a consistent buck of selling 1-gram joints out of a 27-joint bag.
