Moving Words.

AuthorSullum, Jacob
PositionMassachusetts Bay Transportation Authority rejects ads from drug policy reform group - Brief Article

Imagine you're sitting on a bus or a train. You look up and, amid the ads for ambulance-chasing attorneys and laser-wielding dermatologists, notice a picture of two police officers. The text reads, "Police are too important... to waste on arresting people for marijuana when real criminals are on the loose."

Boston transit officials are determined to stop that scene from becoming a reality. Change the Climate, a Massachusetts-based drug policy reform group, tried to buy space for the message on buses and trains in Boston, but the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority turned it down. The MBTA also rejected two other ads: one featuring a mother who declares that "jail is a lot more dangerous than smoking pot," the other showing a teenager who says, "Smoking pot is not cool, but we're not stupid, ya know. Marijuana is NOT cocaine or heroin."

Now Change the Climate is challenging the Boston decision as a violation of the First Amendment, and it has got a good shot at winning. (The Washington, D.C., transit authority, which initially rejected the same ads, relented in...

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