Thumbing their noses at the state’s lax new pot law, Bay State stoners are brazenly lighting up in front of cops and then refusing to pay fines – leading some frustrated police chiefs to all but give up the fight.
Local police report widespread defiance of the six-month-old law, and a Herald review shows a vast majority of potheads cited by cops blowing off their $100 fines.
All told, a staggering 83 percent of 415 tokers cited in Boston since the law took effect in January have refused to pony up the $100, a Herald review shows.
In Braintree, 15 of 28 citations went unpaid, while in Brookline 26 of 33 blew off the fines.
Somerville Deputy Chief Paul Upton said his officers are now writing few if any citations, in part because enforcing the law costs more money than it’s worth.
“If we send an officer to court, it’s going to cost us $250,” Upton said. “We’re not getting a lot of (citations) written.”
Meanwhile, in Braintree on Monday night, police spotted a suspected perv smoking pot in a car filled with coils of rope, a pair of handcuffs and bottles of NyQuil. But they had to let the man go, even though he was awaiting trial on child sexual assault charges.
Said Deputy Chief Russell Jenkins, “Had the law not been changed, he absolutely would have been placed under arrest.”
via Pot law leaves cops high & dry – BostonHerald.com.
The Boston Herald since Day One has been opposed to the decriminalization measure in Massachusetts that was supported by almost 2 out of 3 voters. The reason people supported Question 2 in the first place was that they felt police in the Bay State had better things to do than to haul pot smokers in front of a judge at $250 worth of an officer’s time per pop.
In the penultimate graf, we get a ridiculous and offensive implication about marijuana and pedophilia – have they been reading John English in Boston? First of all, let’s suppose the “suspected perv” (nice journalistic integrity there) had been sitting in his car smoking a cigarette. The police would have nothing to bust him for, as possession of rope, handcuffs, and NyQuil, even for those accused of (not proven to be) child molesters. Is it really Chief Jenkins and the Herald’s assertion that the only way he can keep Braintree safe from child molesters is if they choose to smoke pot in public and he has the right to lock them up for it? Does he really mean that nationwide, 872,721 marijuana smokers per year have to have their lives ruined so we can catch the four or five suspected-but-not-proven child molesters in that group?
As for this “toothless” decriminalization, are the people of Massachusetts upset about this? Do they feel they’ve been duped, thinking they’d reap $100 for every pothead caught, and are now gnashing their teeth over all the stoners who are getting off scot-free? The Herald asked about this in their online poll:
Is the $100 fine for smoking pot a good idea?
7% – Yes, give it a chance to work
3% – No, double the fine
19% – No, go back to it being an arrestable offense
70% – Just legalize pot and save us all the trouble
Total Votes: 3,477
Topics:
Boston Herald,
Massachusetts,
Question 2
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