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MPP Plotting Legalization Strategies in New England
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Americans look west for signs of what marijuana policy reform will be like. Colorado, Washington, Alaska and Oregon boast legal cannabis and coalitions in California, Nevada and Arizona are working on promising ballot measures campaigns. The next big victories, however, may come from the country’s Northeast.
While the world watched Colorado and Washington, New England’s six states made more progress on marijuana policy reform since 2011 than any region in the country. Advocates from the Marijuana Policy Project played an important role in these changes.
Over the next two years, MPP tells Marijuana.com the group will be leading the charge for the next stage of policy reform in New England: legalization.
“There’s been a lot of groundwork done in the Northeast,” said Deputy Director of State Policies Bob Capecchi in a phone interview. “I think that’s going to start bearing some fruit here.”
The groundwork started with Maine’s decriminalization of marijuana 38 years ago. Lawmakers expanded the policy in 2009, but Maine has treated possession of less than 35 grams as a civil violation since the 1970s.
Between 1975 and 1981, eleven U.S. states passed decriminalization bills. Maine joined as the third state to pass in 1975 with the policy going into effect the following year. Federal pressure from the Reagan Administration and its “Just Say No” campaign put an end to decriminalization efforts.
It took Maine voters 23 years to make history again in 1999 as the first Northeastern state to adopt medical marijuana, only three years after California passed its own groundbreaking law. The legislature passed a decriminalization bill nearly a quarter century before, but medical marijuana took a ballot initiative.
The millennial decade saw few Northeastern reforms. Lawmakers created medical marijuana programs in Vermont in 2004 and Rhode Island in 2006. The most promising development came from Massachusetts, which started a trend of ballot initiatives that may end with legalization two years from now.
After Massachusetts voted to decriminalize marijuana while electing Obama in 2008, they used 2012 to both re-elect the president and approve medical marijuana. While state regulators wrestle with a medical dispensary system, advocates look to a planned 2016 ballot initiative to legalize the plant.
Source: http://truthisscary.com/2014/11/mpp-plotting-legalization-strategies-in-new-england/
