State Legislature to Consider Reform of Drug Use Statutes

Two Boston representatives have introduced bills in the state legislature intended to liberalize existing laws against the sale and use of marijuana.

State Representative Barney Frank and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws have jointly filed a bill that would repeal all state laws relating to marijuana.

This bill would free Massachusetts police, court and correctional facilities from the duty of enforcing marijuana laws. It would not legalize marijuana, however, since possession and sale would remain a Federal offense.

Frank said yesterday that his proposal "has almost no chance of passage right now."

State Senator Jack H. Backman, chairman of the Social Welfare Committee, has proposed a more moderate bill that would eliminate penalties for possession or the sale of one ounce or less of marijuana without a profit. The Back-man bill would retain existing penalties for the sale of quantities greater than one ounce.

Roswitha M. Winsor and William R. Rollins, co-chairmen of the Committee for Sane Drug Policy (CSDP), a group that is supporting the present efforts for marijuana reform, were both skeptical of the bills' chances for approval.

"I don't think either bill is going to pass," Rollins said yesterday.

Winsor said that the Frank bill "may make the Backman bill look like a greater compromise."

Frank said yesterday that he was "perfectly willing to accept the Backman bill as a political compromise."

Lester Grinspoon, associate clinical professor of Psychiatry and a member of CSDP, will testify at a public hearing on March 7 for the liberalization of existing marijuana laws.