Students Speak at Massachusetts Legislative Hearings on Legalizing Marijuana

by Ariel Shearer, Mon Nov 2, 2009

The golden dome of the Massachusetts State House shone like a beacon of truth in a fair blue sky for five Emerson Students for Sensible Drug Policy members on a sunny Wednesday, October 14. We followed the glowing orb all the way into basement courtroom B2, location of the legislative hearing before the Joint Committee on Revenue for Bill H2929, a proposal to legalize marijuana as public policy.

We left our school on the corner of Tremont and Boylston at busy 9 A.M., walking through Boston Common. We stopped at the infamous “freedom” monument to suck down three quick jibs, then giddie-upped the street to the State House, where we passed through security with ease, received thoughtful directions from officers to find the hearing room, got Minute Man pot leaf stickers from Steve Epstein and Mass Cann, and finally sat down, taking up an entire bench in a standing-room only hearing hall packed with mostly students. We inadvertently divided our …READ MORE

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How the 20th Boston Freedom Rally Created a SSDP Chapter at Emerson College

by Ariel Shearer, Thu Oct 22, 2009

Our noses are so unaccustomed to smelling marijuana in public that walking through the park can be totally distracting, with that wonderful sticky icky scent causing you to look around, wondering: “who’s got the herb?”

In just two years, this park has completely turned from night to day.

Last year, I didn’t even attend the Freedom Rally, held every September on the Common. The blaze gang and myself were boycotting the concept of the previous year’s “Freedom Rally” at which we witnessed tie-dyed, dread-headed strangers popping up in circles of kids, asking for a toke, and slapping cuffs on any “hippie” they could grab.

Fortunately, I was not arrested at that 2007 Rally. …READ MORE

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