Dear Massachusetts,
What the hell are you doing?
We need to talk about your upcoming November ballot, because looking through this line-up of questions feels less like reading state policy and more like watching a state have a full-blown mid-life crisis. You’ve got voters weighing in on everything from expanding public records to changing primary elections, but then we arrive at Question 8—and honestly, who let this off the drafting table?
Question 8 wants to ban the retail sale of adult-use recreational marijuana.
Let’s rewind for a second. Ten years ago, in 2016, your voters went to the polls, looked at recreational weed, and said, “Yes, let’s legalize it, regulate it, and tax it.” Since then, you built a massive legal cannabis industry. You set up dispensaries from the Berkshires to Provincetown. You generated hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue that funded local infrastructure, public schools, and community initiatives. You literally became the legal weed oasis of the Northeast while surrounding states were still wringing their hands.
And now, Question 8 wants you to pull the emergency brake, throw the entire legal market into reverse, and become the first state in American history to repeal voter-approved recreational sales.
Are you serious?
Banning retail sales isn’t going to make cannabis magically disappear from the Bay State. It just means the billions of dollars currently flowing into state coffers, regulated testing labs, and legitimate local small businesses will immediately walk right back into the unregulated illicit market. You’re essentially proposing to hand your entire multi-million-dollar retail sector back to street dealers, all while stripping local municipalities of the host community fees they’ve built into their municipal budgets.
If Question 8 passes, you won’t be stopping people from buying weed—you’ll just be sending your residents driving across state lines to Connecticut, Rhode Island, or New York to spend their tax dollars somewhere else.
Massachusetts, you built one of the most established legal adult-use frameworks in the country. Trying to erase a decade of economic infrastructure because a petition drive managed to land on the ballot is pure chaos. Get it together before November.
With Love,
~-JohnsJoints
