Dear friends:
You might think that the people who are paid to uphold the law would also follow the law themselves. In Massachusetts, you'd be wrong.
The Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy (CSMP) â which is running the campaign to pass a marijuana decriminalization ballot initiative in Massachusetts this Election Day â has uncovered at least 15 violations of Massachusetts campaign finance and election laws committed by the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association and other opponents of the initiative. You can read media coverage of yesterday's press conference calling for charges to be filed here.
If you support forcing marijuana policy reform opponents to follow the law, please help out the campaign today.
CSMP has filed official complaints with the Office of Campaign and Political Finance and the Office of the Attorney General, charging that opponents of the initiative participated in 14 counts of raising funds illegally, as well as one count of publishing false statements relating to the initiative, which are clear violations of the law. The campaign is calling on the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance to punish them to the fullest extent of the law. Each violation carries a penalty of up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
Specifically:
- Under Massachusetts law, it is illegal to solicit, receive, or spend funds to support or oppose a ballot initiative without first forming a political committee. CSMP has from its inception followed all of these rules, but the district attorneys solicited, received, and spent donations before they were legally allowed to â blatantly ignoring state law in a cynical attempt to conceal their campaign activity for as long as they could, undermining the very laws they have sworn to uphold.
- Additionally, the district attorneys used public funds to post and house a statement urging voters to reject the decriminalization initiative on its Web site ... clear, indisputable violation of Massachusetts election law, which prohibits public officials from using public resources to advocate for or against a ballot initiative.
- What's more, this illegal statement â itself an abuse of public office and taxpayer resources â is riddled with bald-faced lies ... like the claim that the initiative would permit any person to carry and use marijuana at any time. In reality, the measure simply changes the type of penalty for possession of less than an ounce and specifically reiterates that public use remains illegal.
It's past time for prohibitionist officials to be held to the same standards and laws as everyone else. If you support these aggressive tactics to hold our opponents accountable for their lies, deception, and lawbreaking, would you please consider donating $10 or more to the campaign today?
Thank you,
Rob Kampia
Executive Director
Marijuana Policy Project
Washington, D.C.
P.S. If convicted, the initiative opponents would risk more than fines and jail time. They'd also face loss of their driver's licenses, suspension of their licenses to practice law or medicine; and placement in a permanent database of offenders that employers, landlords, and schools can search and use to preclude offenders from getting jobs, housing, and school loans ... the same penalties that marijuana offenders currently face in Massachusetts and which the ballot initiative would remove.