Massachusetts Medical Marijuana Initiative

The Massachusetts Medical Marijuana Initiative, appeared as the third question on the state's 2012 ballot as an indirect initiated state statute. The measure allows cannabis to be used for medical purposes in the state. The initiative—backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Massachusetts Patient Advocacy Alliance, and the Committee for Compassionate Medicine—was filed with proponents turning in the required signatures to the Massachusetts Attorney General's office by the August 3, 2011 deadline. Those signatures were needed for the required ten qualified voters who submitted the original petition to put forward the full text of the law they want enacted. The initiative passed with support from 63% of state voters.

The ballot language of the measure reads as follows:

A YES VOTE would enact the proposed law eliminating state criminal and civil penalties related to the medical use of marijuana, allowing patients meeting certain conditions to obtain marijuana produced and distributed by new state-regulated centers or, in specific hardship cases, to grow marijuana for their own use.

A NO VOTE would make no change in existing laws.

The following is information obtained from the supporting side of the ballot measure:

The following is information obtained from the opposing side of the ballot measure:

In May 2012, The Massachusetts Prevention Alliance filed a petition to the state supreme judicial court requesting that the wording of the ballot question be changed. According to reports, the group claimed that the wording of the measure hid key provisions of the potential state statute. For example, the group argued that a network of dispensaries would be created to comply with the law, if enacted, but that this was not shown clearly by the wording.

Shortly after, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley moved to dismiss the petition. According to the Attorney General's office, the petition did not offer a valid alternative way to write the ballot question.

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