Voters Approve Area for Marijuana Sales

Last week, voters unanimously set aside a designated area for medical marijuana sales in the town of Medfield.

After voters passed a law state-wide to allow the creation of medical marijuana dispensaries, some towns tried to prohibit those sales from their towns; however, earlier this year, the Attorney General ruled that towns cannot prohibit medical marijuana dispensaries from individual towns but they can regulate (through zoning) the areas in which a dispensary can be located. 

Last week, Medfield voters amended their town bylaws to restrict medical marijuana dispensaries to the town's Industrial-Extensive zone -- the area that runs along Route 27, north of West Street, west toward Millis, and east toward Mill Street and Ice House Road bordering on Copperwood Road.

"I think we're probably on the right track allowing such a use by special permit in an industrial zone," said Medfield Town Administrator Michael Sullivan when the bylaw amendment was proposed earlier this year. 

He noted the Attorney General's office overturned Wakefield's bylaw banning dispensaries anywhere in town, but also approved Burlington's moratorium on medical marijuana treatment centers through mid-2014. 

"The Wakefield decision threw out the total ban on medical marijuana dispensaries, so it's good we didn't go with that solution," Sullivan said. "And they did approve a limited moratorium, but that's only a temporary delay and not a final solution."

Selectman Osler "Pete" Peterson, a lawyer and an outspoken opponent of legalizing medical marijuana, told town meeting that "the data is horrendous" on the effects of marijuana on young people.

"The effects are incredibly detrimental to our kids," he said. 

The bylaw amendment required a two-thirds vote and passed unanimously.