More than 63 percent of Massachusetts voters last November said okay to medical marijuana dispensaries. The ballot question passed easily in every county and the law took effect on Jan. 1, with the state Department of Public Health directed to formulate regulations within 120 days.
With just a little more than a month to go, those regulations still haven’t come out, though officials are planning to unveil them by the end of this week. In the meantime, many cities and towns have passed or are considering moratoriums, either to wait for the state guidance or to try to fend off the placement of the dispensaries within their borders.
The toney town of Norwell, though, appears to be one of the few bucking the trend. Norwell officials are moving forward with regulations that would allow medical marijuana dispensaries to open in the town’s industrial and business parks.
“I think that the board has decided that (medical marijuana) does help a lot of people, and we didn’t feel that just delaying it made any sense,” said Margaret Etzel, chairwoman of Norwell’s planning board, told the Patriot Ledger.
Etzel said the voter-approved referendum has sufficient guidance in the law to allow the town to enact its own regulations without having to wait for the state to issue its rules. That view makes Norwell an outlier. In nearby Pembroke, selectmen are asking Town Meeting members to either approve a zoning change that would permit marijuana dispensaries be sited in the industrial park in the northeast section of town or, failing that, pass a moratorium until June of 2014.
More than 80 cities and towns have already approved moratoriums and many others are soon to take up the issue of a moratorium. Some even passed ordinances banning the dispensaries from coming into their community. Earlier this month, though, Attorney General Martha Coakley struck down those bans, saying communities cannot prevent a dispensary from opening. Coakley did give the okay to moratoriums.
At least one town is challenging Coakley’s ruling. Wakefield officials say they will go to court to enforce the zoning ban passed by Town Meeting by a 143-to-9 vote. But what they aren’t acknowledging is that Wakefield voters approved the ballot question by a 54-to-46 percent margin.
Under the law, no more than 35 medical marijuana dispensaries can open their doors in the state in 2013. Each county must have at least one but no more than five are allowed in any one county. After this year, it is up to the DPH to determine how many more dispensaries can be allowed and where they can be located.
The law also requires a potential patient to get a certificate signed by a doctor that would allow them to grow, buy, and use marijuana for medical purposes. That has some municipal officials worried that people who may not need the pot can get access to it. Indeed, WHDH investigative reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan sent one of her healthy producers into doctors’ offices seeking relief from arthritis — with an x-ray of a Golden Retriever who actually had the condition.
At least two of the clinics agreed to see the “patient” and one issued a certificate costing $200 for the producer to legally possess and grow cannabis. Those are the kinds of stories that will gain traction as the issue continues to smolder.
If the DPH regulations are released this week, they could go into effect by the end of May and communities who do approve siting dispensaries could see the first ones open by this summer. And you can bet there will be no shortage of entrepreneurs who will be looking to make some hay off selling weed.
–JACK SULLIVAN
BEACON HILL
The state has spent less than one-third of the $1 billion earmarked for biotech investments in Gov. Deval Patrick’s 10-year 2008 initiative to boost life sciences in Massachusetts, according to a new report.
The New York Times wraps its arms around Patrick’s $13 billion transportation plan, with an emphasis on rail projects.
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission prepares to unveil the regulations it will follow in licensing casinos, MassLive reports.
Lowell Sun columnist Peter Lucas urges President Obama to pardon former House speaker Sal DiMasi.
Auditor Suzanne Bump will look into the payout public safety secretary Andrea Cabral took when she left the Suffolk County sheriff’s office. Cabral cashed out unused vacation days, but was never require to log days off.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
The agency overseeing the development of SouthField, the mixed-use project on the former naval air base in Weymouth, has agreed to pay the town $230,000 for the education and transportation costs this year for children living there.
Freetown residents and business owners are frustrated that selectmen will not allow discussion at the board’s meetings of allegations of impropriety and unethical business dealings against the town’s building inspector.
Lowell City Councilor and former mayor Rita Mercier says she will push for a no-confidence vote against current mayor Patrick Murphy, the Sun reports.
The Brockton City Council is pushing the state to rethink its decision that the city’s statue of Rocky Marciano is not worthy of a sign on Route 24.
Methuen strikes a deal to pay its police chief $100,000 plus his legal expenses to settle claims that he was unfairly fired in 2008, the Eagle-Tribune reports.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
The Times charts Bill Clinton’s long, strange evolution on same-sex marriage.
ELECTIONS
A new WBUR/MassINC Polling Group poll indicates the US Senate race is wide open, WBUR reports. The Globe report on the poll nonetheless headlines its story with the top-line finding that Democrat Ed Markey and Republican Michael Sullivan are leading their respective primary races. Veteran anti-tax activist Barbara Anderson is throwing her support behind state Rep. Dan Winslow in the three-way Republican primary.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
Richard Florida maps class division in Boston for Atlantic Cities.
Brockton officials are creating a new office of planning and economic development to lure businesses to the city.
Boston may be getting its first Wegmans grocery store. The Herald worries about the looming traffic nightmare the store will bring.
Yahoo buys a British teen’s startup company for $30 million, the Washington Post reports.
Southwest Airlines is not all about cheap fares anymore, Time reports.
EDUCATION
The state is awarding $2 million in scholarships to students pursuing degrees in high-need fields such as health care and science at state colleges and universities.
Concerns are being raised about online educational courses being offered for free, the New York Times reports.
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
The governors of Washington and Oregon raise questions about the climate change impact of coal exports, the Seattle Times reports.
Dartmouth officials say they are concerned but powerless over a Brockton company’s plan to bury the town’s dormant landfill under 1.4 million tons of contaminated soil.
State environmental officials are wrapping up a plan to reduce waste in Massachusetts landfills by 80 percent through a number of measures including lifting the 23-year moratorium on new incinerators.
MEDIA
Anthony Lewis, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and the husband of former SJC chief justice Margaret Marshall, died yesterday at home in Cambridge. We have reports from the AP, the Boston Globe, and the Times. Alex Jones chats with the Radio Boston crew about Lewis.
GateHouse Media, which owns about 500 dailies, weeklies, and shoppers around the country including the Ledger, Brockton Enterprise, Metrowest Daily News, and about 100 weeklies in Massachusetts, is in talks with creditors for a “structured” bankruptcy filing to relieve about $1.2 billion in debt, the Wall Street Journal reports (via Media Nation.)
