Massachusetts decriminalizes marijuana

So…how would a person legally acquire an ounce of the stuff then? Is it strictly a medical thing?

If you need a place to stay drop me a line. Beer and weed for everyone. Then we can go get married!

It’s decriminalized, not legalized. You can’t legally acquire an ounce. Here’s how it works:

Caught in the act of buying, growing or selling weed = punished
Caught with weed on you = not punished

Correct. I believe buying even the decriminalized amount is still a crime, it’s just that if you are stopped for some reason and happen to have a tiny amount, it’s not a big deal any more. And of course selling is completely illegal.

In other words, it’s almost meaningless, though it may reduce a small amount of otherwise pointless jail time. I think New York adopted just about the same measure over 20 years ago.

You leave a tooth under your pillow and the Pot Fairy leaves you a joint.

well at least something good happened

I wouldn’t say that it’s meaningless. A pretty large percentage of our prison population nationwide is incarcerated on possession charges. Replacing felony charges and jail time for minor possession offenses with a civil penalty and a small fine is a pretty big deal (and a big step towards sanity, IMHO).

Yeah, exactly. That’s the point. It’s a great thing from a criminal justice perspective, just not a Cheech & Chong perspective.

It’s a step in the right direction, and definitely not meaningless. About a dozen states decriminalized in the seventies and eighties. The effects on usage patterns was pretty small, but there is some evidence that teenagers responded by smoking more pot but drinking less (alcohol and pot are economic substitutes). The net effect was a reduction in youth traffic fatalities, probably because pot has a less deleterious effect on driving ability than alcohol.

Do youths substitute alcohol and marijuana? Some econometric evidence.

(Ungated draft version.)

Because, as George Carlin pointed out, when you’re really high you can’t find your car.