Lining Up For Rec: From Prohibition to Legal Cannabis in Massachusetts

What recreational cannabis legalization looks like in Massachusetts, from the perspective of a man who’s been on all sides of this law.

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When recreational cannabis sales started in my home state of Massachusetts in November, I didn’t want to brave the lines like so many of my fellow cannabis enthusiasts. Medical cannabis has been around since 2012 here, and nerve damage in my spine warranted my prescription several years ago. With the fabled “green card” one has not to wait in the same lines as the consenting adults that do not have qualifying medical conditions. 

For these enthusiasts, the line that looks like it belongs at Six Flags is the final sprint, completing the marathon of a life-long prohibition. In a serpentine bend wrapping around the corner and down the street, people are waiting three to five hours in the New England winter to buy up to an ounce of flower for $300 plus up to 25% tax. 

Besides the line cutting privilege, medical patients don’t pay the tax. We have larger doses of THC infused edibles available as well. After a month with only two stores dispensing “adult use” cannabis products in the state, a third has opened. With the lines beginning to even out a bit and despite the advantages of my medical card, I felt the need to line up in solidarity. 

Evolving perspectives, evolving laws

My grandfather was lucky enough to see the world transition from his seat in the den as a boy listening to the Red Sox games broadcast on the radio to seeing them on my cousins’ phone this summer. Over those developmental years of Ted Williams and World War II, my grandfather watched the use of hemp being everywhere to being outlawed. 

In so many places we’ve come full circle with the plant being decriminalized, then accepted medically and now recreationally.  Unfortunately, my grandfather is indoctrinated with an anti-marijuana slant so steep he can’t surpass his own fear of the flower to try and be rid of the tremors and other symptoms of his Alzheimer’s/Parkinson’s double header shotgun of neurological disorders.

My first-time smoking marijuana was a last-ditch effort to end a migraine when I was fifteen years old. Migraine headaches were something I grew up with and had no relief from. Before that first time smoking, I had seen what drugs could do to people firsthand. So my biased view was hard lined against altering the mind. But after a few hits of the joint, I had no headache and felt happy as well as relaxed. I was sold on cannabis. 

Not long after that, I was passing around fliers from NORML and reading Jack Herer like he was channeling a new religion for me. Since then I’ve preached the benefits of the flower and proudly taught my children the truth of the matter.

Not after big bangs

Driving down the Mohawk Trail, I pass a liquor store near a flower wreathe commemorating the spot where a local woman died after a drunk driver rammed his car into hers one afternoon. Of course, the socially acceptable hypocrisy is in plain sight. We as a nation pretend one form of adult relaxation is superior to another. 

I could pull into that “packy,” as we call a liquor store in these parts, and get a whole lot more bang for my buck than I will from the dispensary I’m now a half hour away from. But I’m not after big bangs. I’m after something to make my neck muscles relax so I can feel my fingers. So I pass the liquor store and keep thinking of why I’m heading to the dispensary, in the philosophical sense.

Even D.A.R.E. can’t hide the truth

When I was a child the smell of a freshly lit joint was never far away, and neither was someone who had been drinking.  We lived in apartment complexes and there was always a neighbor getting high if my mother wasn’t toking herself.  Growing up in the eighties made me a proud D.A.R.E. graduate. But growing up how I grew up, I also figured out D.A.R.E. was not preparing anyone for the world unless they were hoping to be a police informant for a living. There were real drugs all around me as a kid and I saw the truth from a firsthand perspective. 

When someone smoked pot, they were almost always friendly and in a generally good mood.  At worst, the stoners would want to be left alone and go off by themselves. On the more accessible side of the soft drug scale, when someone had been drinking, they were almost always sloppy. That’s when things always got loud and rowdy. My mother was scared to death to sign that D.A.R.E. permission slip, and I knew why. But how could she say no? The war on drugs would cause many casualties in my life but my mothers’ personal journey would survive the attempted indoctrination.

What once was a crime…

Northampton is about a forty-minute drive from my humble apartment in the western Massachusetts hill towns, and the closest location to legally purchase cannabis in this state without a prescription. Our law allows us to “gift” up to an ounce of flower to another individual over twenty-one years of age, but no sales are legal outside of the licensed dispensaries. 

This is not a great tactic to prevent an underground market. It will never be an easier option to drive an hour and a half, round trip, plus wait up to five hours to shell out $60 for an eighth of an ounce of usually average grade pot.

“This is ridiculous.” I say to myself as I turn onto the interstate 15 minutes from my house.

Wu-Tang is bumping while I make my way down the highway in the Corolla. Usually my pup rides shotgun wherever I go, but he’s hanging with friends while I risk eight hours of gone time. It’s not really much time compared to the mandatory two-year sentence I served from 2002 to 2004 for possession in a school zone. I plead guilty, because I was.  Had I known the law a bit better and maybe wasn’t so honest, I would have had the school zone dropped in exchange for the guilty plea and been home in a few months.

Didn’t matter then and it sure doesn’t now, my state sells legal weed!

…will now be taxed!

Turning left off the interstate I turn down the Wu-Tang Clan. As the dispensary comes into view, I see the line. It shoots out both sides of the building entrance and wraps around the parking lot. I’m on the verge of a panic attack at the sight. Besides nerve damage, I use cannabis to control my PTSD symptoms. I’m going to need an Indica/CBD cross to come off high alert in this crowd.

Police and traffic cones are in the road of the dispensary. I know the area well and figure the people in line must have parked in some lots up the street. After parking it takes me several minutes to get past the anxiety: driving that far keeps me from medicating beforehand. My vape pen comes in handy on these occasions. As I approach the line I feel better, relaxed and eager to pay some taxes!

Really, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Taxation makes it legitimate, regardless of what “it” may be? 

Across the nearly empty parking lot of the dispensary there is the obvious end of the line.  From either side of the building entrance down the sidewalk people stand, most doing some form of dance to keep warm, wrapping around two corners to nearly fill the perimeter of the property.  I take my place at the end and look around at the chattering teeth and hunched shoulders of my fellow patriots. 

Prohibition be damned

A few folks give me nods and hopeful looks as if I were bringing them a cup of coffee.  We’re having a mild winter; there has been minimal snow and the temperatures have been in the 30s most days. Regardless of a balmy January, standing in refrigeration temperatures gets old quick. Several people move in to line behind me. Only one person had come out in nearly ten minutes. They are a prescription holder, as is clear when they get in the car closest to the door and leave. 

Watching them leave, I notice a car pulling up to the police check point. The passenger shows the officer what must have been his medical patient ID. In drove the car and took the vacant spot close to the door. As the passenger shows identification to the security guard, another medical patient gets in their car and leaves. Watching the car pull away it dawns on me, again, how long this line is.  The longest I had waited in line as a medical patient was over an hour. And that line didn’t even leave the building. Several people fall into the other line for recreational cannabis sales. 

I cave, so much for solidarity. The stroll to the door feels good. After showing my medical card and license to the security guard I’m in and out in twenty minutes. The “adult use” line seemed longer when I left.

Prohibition be damned, I’ve paid and waited long enough. And so has the rest of the world.