Advocates for decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana in Massachusetts appear to have gathered enough resident signatures to move the legal initiative forward, the Boston Globe reported on Nov. 24.

Proponents had to gather at least 66,593 signatures by Nov. 21, equal to three percent of ballots cast in the 2006 gubernatorial election. Proponents for the initiative appear to have done so, said Brian McNiff, a spokesman for the secretary of state's office. Still, city and town clerks have to certify the signatures, and the secretary of state's office has to count them.

If the secretary of state determines that the requisite number of signatures has been collected, the state legislature has until the first Wednesday in May to enact the proposals into law. If the legislature fails to act, proponents would have to gather an additional 11,099 signatures, 0.5 percent of the ballots cast in the 2006 gubernatorial election, to get the initiative onto next November's ballot.

The initiative would replace criminal penalties with civil penalties for people possessing an ounce or less of marijuana. According to Whitney A. Taylor, chairwoman of the Committee for a Sensible Marijuana Policy, the group sponsoring the initiative, 11 other states have enacted similar laws.

Lester Grinspoon, MD, an emeritus professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, opposes the initiative as currently written, despite his overall support of eliminating criminal penalties for minor marijuana offenses.

In a Boston Globe editorial, Grinspoon states that the ballot initiative actually creates a new offense, internal possession of marijuana metabolites. A person discovered with metabolites in their body fluid or hair would be prosecutable, he says. Marijuana metabolites excrete slowly, long after any psychoactive effects of the drug have disappeared. Currently, a person in Massachusetts cannot be charged with having inactive marijuana metabolites in their system.

Grinspoon also objects to the initiative decriminalizing up to an ounce of marijuana with more potent, pure THC, the primary active ingredient in cannabis. He believes covering the more potent marijuana makes the initiative vulnerable to opposition.