As of today, the partial decriminalization of marijuana has officially been achieved via ballot measure for the first time in American history. After passing 65-35 in November, Question 2 is now law and Massachusetts has joined the eleven other U.S. states to have decriminalized possession of small amounts of pot. As with any significant change in the law, only time and creative lawyering will give us an outline of the full contours of this thing. Meanwhile: (Full analysis continues)
massachusetts
Massachusetts law
“For preventing disorders, arising in several places within this jurisdiction by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other communities, to the great dishonor of God and offense of others: it is therefore ordered by this court and the authority thereof that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, upon any such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shilling as a fine to the county.”
From the records of the General Court,
Massachusetts Bay Colony
May 11, 1659
massachusetts, stupid laws
Massachusetts law, stupid laws
Now that you, the presumed reader of the foregoing “Idle and Disorderly Statute: Part I,” know more than you ever wanted to know about our embarrassment of a disorderly conduct statute, let us now move on to examine just how unconstitutional its least-constitutional subsection is.
Buried right in the middle of the steaming dog’s breakfast of old-timey criminality that is G.L.c. 272 Sec. 53 is the quaint classification of “persons who with offensive or disorderly acts or language accost and annoy members of the opposite sex.” Although not as widely employed as the “disorderly persons” provision, this may well be one of the stupidest criminal charges in the Mass. General Laws—if not any state criminal code—now in regular active use.
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massachusetts, stupid laws
Massachusetts law, stupid laws
