From the WaylandPatch:
The Massachusetts Prevention Alliance, of which WaylandCares is a member, has filed a petition with the Supreme Judicial Court of Suffolk County seeking the clarification of language in a likely ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana.
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“The radical components of this marijuana ballot question are being hidden from the voter,” said Heidi Heilman in a press release. Heilman serves as president of MAPA and director of WaylandCares. “The voters must be provided fair and accurate information. The Secretary of State and Attorney General have a unique responsibility to inform the voters, and we trust the Court will give them the tools to do that.”
The points that MAPA would like to see the voter’s guide and ballot “adequately inform” voters on include, among others:
•The “at least” 35 dispensaries proposed by the initiative would be able to sell marijuana in a variety of forms including, “food, tinctures, aerosols, oils, or ointments.”
•There is no minimum age listed to obtain medical marijuana.
•While the medical conditions of “cancer, glaucoma, positive status for human immunodeficiency virus, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), hepatitis C, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis” are specifically listed as the “debilitating medical conditions” that could necessitate a medical marijuana card, the initiative also allows for “other conditions as determined in writing by a qualifying patient’s physician,” which MAPA argues is too broad.
•The actual amount of a 60-day supply of marijuana, which would be permitted to patients under the initiative, is undefined in the initiative itself. The initiative calls for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to define an amount that a patient “would reasonably be expected to need over a period of sixty days for their personal medical use.” The initiative also states that the “presumption as to quantity may be overcome with evidence of a particular qualifying patient’s appropriate medical use.”
•A “hardship” application could allow patients to grow an unspecified amount of marijuana in their homes.
Read the full article HERE.