cannabisnews.com: Gov Sticks by Pot Ad Fight: Forbids MBTA To Settle





Gov Sticks by Pot Ad Fight: Forbids MBTA To Settle
Posted by FoM on September 21, 2000 at 06:59:04 PT
By Cosmo Macero Jr. 
Source: Boston Herald
Gov. Paul Cellucci is forbidding the MBTA from settling a federal lawsuit aimed at forcing the transit agency to accept pro-marijuana advertising on its trains and buses.Some administration officials, at a staff meeting Monday, suggested settling out of court with the Greenfield-based Change The Climate, Inc. - a nonprofit group charged with ending the ``war on marijuana.'' But Cellucci ``blew his stack,'' according to one source close to the governor, saying a federal judge will have to make the T accept the ads.
``I'm not going to settle any case. I want them to fight,'' Cellucci said yesterday. ``Why should a government entity be forced to put up a message that may be harmful to children? That's ridiculous.''Change The Climate sued the MBTA in U.S. District Court in May after the agency balked at its $30,000 ad campaign. One ad depicts a mother saying, ``Let's be honest . . . marijuana is not cocaine or heroin.''Another says, ``Police are too important . . . too valuable . . . too good . . . to waste on arresting people for marijuana when real criminals are on the loose.''Sarah Wunsch of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Change The Climate in court, said the rules are different for government agencies than in the private sector when it comes to accepting advertising.``The T can't pick and choose the kinds of views that go on display,'' Wunsch said. ``They already have ads about drugs on (buses and trains). Along comes a group urging public debate about drug policy, and the T decides, `Oh, no. You can't express those views.' The government can't be making those decisions.''But Cellucci press secretary John Birtwell said the governor thinks the ads are clearly an attempt to promote the use of marijuana, rather than just a move to promote public debate of drug policies.The governor said he told his legal aides, ``If you have to take it to the Supreme Court of the United States, take it to the Supreme Court. I'm not going to go along with this.''Wunsch said even if the ads called for overt civil disobedience they would be protected by the First Amendment.``These ads do not advocate any illegal acts whatsoever. They call for everybody to think about policies toward marijuana. That's a far cry from advocating illegal action,'' Wunsch said.``Even if they did, the Supreme Court has given a lot of protection to a wide array of ideas, including the idea of breaking the law.''MBTA spokesman Brian Pedro and other administration officials said the agency is abiding by Cellucci's directive.``The governor sent a strong message that we won't accept any advertising that sends even a message that is slightly pro-drug,'' Pedro said.``We'll let the court decide,'' Pedro said.Talk back to Cosmo Macero Jr.http://www.bostonherald.com/guestbook/all/cmacero.htmSource: Boston Herald (MA)Author: Cosmo Macero Jr.Published: Thursday, September 21, 2000Copyright: 2000 The Boston Herald, Inc.Contact: letterstoeditor bostonherald.comAddress: One Herald Square, Boston, MA 02106-2096Website: http://www.bostonherald.com/Related Articles & Web Site:Change The Climatehttp://www.changetheclimate.org/MBTA Sued for Nixing Pro-Marijuana Adshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/5/thread5778.shtmlPro-Marijuana Group Sues MBTA on Ad Refusal http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5774.shtml 
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Comment #5 posted by kaptinemo on September 22, 2000 at 04:46:39 PT:
Running out of corners to paint themselves into
I love it when the antis make public displays of stupidity; it only serves to prove my thesis that many of them suffer from anoxia at birth. That lack of oxygen to the brain seems to show up later in life as an inablity to reason. 'The governor said he told his legal aides, ``If you have to take it to the Supreme Court of the United States, take it to the Supreme Court. I'm not going to go alongwith this.''Ahem! Please, Br'er Governor, please don't throw me into that briar patch! Obviously the Governor has not been keeping up with current events; the Supremes own recent bit of poorly thought-out strategy in denying the Oakland Cannabis Club the right to distibute MMJ has caused the cannabis issue to land SQUARELY in front of the Court. Which it has tried to *dodge* the issue for 3 decades. For reasons we all know about, but the Court has been pee-its'-pants scared of ever having to elucidate. But now they have no choice; the nature of their 'emergency ruling' makes it imperative that they make a decision. They will HAVE to deal with it now. So now the Governor of Taxachusetts (a friend of mine from there called it that many years ago, and it still seems fitting) wants to pour even *more* petrochemicals on this blaze? He even wants it to go to the Supremes? He wants to create even more of a catastrophic loss of face because he himself hasn't the guts to deal forthrightly with this issue, as other Governors (Johnson of Arizona and Ventura of Minnesota) have?Like I said, lack of oxygen at birth. These goofs simply can't see that even the Supremes, as knot-headed as many are, when presented with a preponderance of evidence, will have to rule in favor of cannabis - or risk invalidating their already tenous legitimacy and risk casting aspersion on their professional abilities.To paraphrase the comic Don Rickles (who was speaking about another group of people, entirely) the antis "...all ought to be put into a Home, and stop bothering the American people." 
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Comment #4 posted by EdC on September 22, 2000 at 02:33:10 PT
MBTA ads
I'm from Massachusetts. Believe me, the governor is an idiot. The lieutenant governor is worse.
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Comment #3 posted by CantBearIt on September 21, 2000 at 16:57:19 PT:
You know about the forest and the trees, right?
They see the ads as pro pot. That they can be interpreted that way will just force litigation. Why couldn't they spend their money on a campain that promotes a call for a "National Drug Debate" with a web address before the election comes and goes?BIG LETTERS in a cheap black on white. I see the problem as how to force a national debate not if you can put mom on a bus saying it isn't so bad. Just my view
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Comment #2 posted by i_rule_ on September 21, 2000 at 13:17:06 PT
They can't HANDLE the truth!!!!!!
Why are these people so afraid that children or anyone else will see, hear, or speak the truth about marijuana? I guess the old saying, "The truth hurts." is still valid."Hey, at least it's not crack!"Peace, i_rule_
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Comment #1 posted by observer on September 21, 2000 at 09:17:57 PT
Inquisitors, Blind to their Inquisition
But Cellucci press secretary John Birtwell said the governor thinks the ads are clearly an attempt to promote the use of marijuana, rather than just a move to promote public debate of drug policies. . . . ``The governor sent a strong message that we won't accept any advertising that sends even a message that is slightly pro-drug,'' Pedro said.Criticism of anti-drug laws and so-called narcotics controls is often misinterpreted as approval or endorsement of drug use or drug addiction. Those who so interpret my position -- or any position of laissez faire and tolerance with respect to drug use -- do so because they implicitly subscribe to the principle that anyone who does not support their position supports their adversary's. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I regard tolerance with respect to drugs as wholly analogous to tolerance with respect to religion. To be sure, a Christian advocating religious tolerance at the height of the Inquisition would himself have been accused of heresy. Today, however, no one would misinterpret his position as an endorsement or advocacy of a non-Christian religion or of atheism. The fact that a contemporary American's, and especially physician's, advocacy of tolerance with respect to drugs is generally viewed as an endorsement or support of undisciplined licentiousness in the use of "dangerous drugs" signifies that we are now at the height of an "anti-narcotic" inquisition.Ceremonial Chemistry : The Ritual Persecution of Drugs, Addicts, and Pushers, Thomas Szasz (1973, revised 1885), p. 57http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1556910193/ 
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