URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v16/n639/a09.html
Newshawk: Herb Couch
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Mon, 10 Oct 2016
Source: Boston Herald (MA)
Copyright: 2016 The Boston Herald, Inc
Contact:
Website: http://www.bostonherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/53
Note: Prints only very short LTEs.
Page: 20
PUSHING THE LIMITS ON POT
OK, so maybe the helicopter was a little excessive.
It’s reasonable to criticize the lengths that authorities went to in an effort to confiscate a single pot plant from an elderly woman in Amherst – though it should be noted that the backyard raid at Peg Holcomb’s home was just a small part of a larger marijuana eradication operation.
But before sympathizers anoint the 81-year-old Holcomb a great martyr for the marijuana cause, we would simply point out that in Massachusetts there are legal means by which she could obtain marijuana if she really does need it to keep her glaucoma at bay, as she told the Herald.
And they do not include cultivating a 6-foot-tall marijuana plant in the backyard, hidden among the raspberry bushes.
The Massachusetts law that allows the use of marijuana for medical purposes permits those who get approval from a doctor to obtain it at a licensed dispensary ( there is one 10 miles from Holcomb’s home ).
If a patient has a hardship and can’t get to a dispensary there is an allowance for growing pot at home – but only with permission, in a secure, indoor space, and only enough to provide for individual use.
Or, you know – you can take your chances without a doctor’s certification and with a giant weed plant out where the chickens roam around. But don’t be surprised when the authorities come knocking at your door.
Holcomb is furious, claiming her Fourth Amendment right to privacy was violated when the authorities flew over her property, which is how they located her plant.
“This kind of thing can’t happen,” she told the Herald. “It smacks of police state and fascism.”
In fact what it smacks of is a person who flouted the law agreed to by her fellow citizens, got caught – and is now being held up as a convenient but entirely misleading poster woman for legalization.
MAP posted-by: Matt