GREENFIELD — Ahead of the Nov. 3 election, when voters will consider repealing laws that legalized recreational cannabis, one Greenfield resident traveled nearly 100 miles to urge listeners at the Sept. 19 Boston Freedom Rally to vote against the proposed changes.
Voters will soon be asked to weigh in on repealing laws that allow for the sale, regulation and taxation of recreational cannabis. According to the Secretary of State’s Office, the proposed changes would allow people ages 21 and older to possess or give to someone else 1 ounce or less of marijuana that includes no more than 5 grams in the form of concentrate, and impose a $100 civil penalty and forfeiture of the product for possession of marijuana weighing between 1 and 2 ounces.
As for the commercial impact, the proposed law, which would take effect Jan. 1, 2028, would allow currently licensed adult recreational marijuana businesses to apply on an expedited basis to become a licensed medical marijuana dispensary and to sell their remaining inventory of adult recreational marijuana to medical marijuana dispensaries. The proposed law would also shift the authority of the state Cannabis Control Commission to only regulate the medical marijuana market.
“We are told the battle is won here in Massachusetts,” Greenfield resident Erika McGee told the crowd gathered at the Boston Common, “but we know the truth: true cognitive liberty is still on trial in this country. … No one handed a permission slip to the government giving them the right to police your consciousness. They took it!”
Wearing green lipstick, sunglasses with lenses in the shape of cannabis leaves, a green shirt with a cannabis leaf and a necklace of cannabis leaf garlands, she listed politicians who have mentioned memories of using cannabis, including former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and former U.S. President Barack Obama.
“While they get to joke about it on the campaign trail, countless everyday people lost their families, their livelihoods and their loved ones to the violent enforcement of the war on drugs,” McGee said. “It isn’t just political hypocrisy — it is a human tragedy, and we are tired of the double standard!”
McGee started using cannabis in her 30s as a way to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She remembers sitting at home smoking marijuana, when a question hit her.
“Wait, who gave people permission to tell me that I can’t change my consciousness?” she recalled thinking. Speaking of the federal government, she said, “They’ve made nature a criminal, and a crime for us to interact with it. … That’s something I could not comprehend.”
In 2016, her first year living in Greenfield, she started volunteering with the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition, the group behind the Boston Freedom Rally.
The rally started in 1989 in North Adams, nearly 30 years before Massachusetts voters approved decriminalizing recreational cannabis use. According to the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition’s website, the rally “brings together advocates, activists and the public to raise awareness, support reform and celebrate cannabis culture while fostering a deeper understanding of its potential benefits.”
“It was such an incredible experience,” McGee wrote in an email after the rally. “I did what I was invited to do, and I am ecstatic to represent western Mass.”
