On October 29th, Westford Academy’s Junior State of America (JSA) chapter went to the Northeast Fall One Day convention at Harvard to discuss topics sparking conversation about politics and social issues. Senator James Lewis came to address the question on the ballot this year called Question 4. On Tuesday, November 8th, the people of Massachusetts will vote on whether or not to legalize recreational marijuana and regulate it like alcohol. Even though many students are not old enough to vote this year, the effects of this voting day will have the same or if not more effects on our future. Below are opinions of some students on Question 4.
“I support Question 4 because of the restrictions that are put on the access that comes along with the law still make it illegal for teenagers to have access to it. So, for recreational use of people who are underage, it will still be as difficult as it is now but it will make it easier for those of classes to access medical marijuana. It will benefit the economy because the money that is circulating within the industry is continuing to circulate currently, but that money is not benefitting the economy because of the fact that recreational marijuana is illegal,” junior Medha Palnati said.
“I believe that it should not be legalized because if it’s used for medical purposes, and someone who’s not using it for medical purposes gets ahold of it, you can never know what will happen. Medical purposes only,” sophomore Emily Holway said.
“I don’t support Question 4 because I think it will allow those who are over 21 to have more power those who are not because they have the ability to but marijuana which is a desired substance among teenagers. Also, more lively distributing anything will cause higher use. Even if marijuana doesn’t have a very high death rate, there can still be very dangerous accidents like driving while high, which is harder to detect than using a breathalyzer test,” senior Deborah Kreithen said.“I don’t support the legalization because medical legalization is enough because that way there’s is a controlled distribution of it. But if it’s legalized then there’s a lot people out there who will have access to it, and even though there’s certain age limit that doesn’t mean the person who’s buying it will need it or use it safely. The safest way is to have a doctor prescribe it,” senior Ashley Wang said.“The amount of research that’s gone into it and the effects in Colorado have not been fully explored. There’s still the issue of the federal government that has not cleared marijuana sales to be put into banks. there are a lot of issues in regards to: ‘should it be a ballot question?’ definitely, and ‘Should there be more time invested?’ yes,” history teacher Tim Curran said.“I don’t really care. People are gonna do it anyway, might as well make it legal. I personally don’t condone smoking weed, like I’m not going to tell you to and I’m not gonna tell you not to. I actually probably will tell you not to, but it’s fine,” senior Jack Laushine said.
