Pot Hearings March 29, 2017

Why I don’t want Pot Shops in our community…Medford or anywhere.

 From my own observation and personal experience there is no upside to the recreational use of Marijuana or Cannabis as they like to call it.

Medical use may be OK with a prescription but as a small business owner in the field of nutrition and epigenetics, I think there are many natural non-addictive treatments for pain and anxiety that traditional medicine is not open to because Big Pharma wants to sell drugs... and the medical community must wait for clinical proof. They do not know much about epigenetics and nutrition.It is not taught in medical school beyond a few hours. I know, my son is a doctor.

I attended the Public Hearing on Pot Shops yesterday and listened to nearly 6 hours of testimony mostly by pot proponents or bureaucrats who see a gravy train they plan to ride at the expense of our children and youth not to mention the elderly and our disabled vets suffering the trauma of injury and stress. I feel many if not most problems I heard about today could be helped or alleviated through better life choices and supplementation.

 I would like to revisit the Marijuana Question as it was not covered well during our brutal presidential campaign season. Obviously most of the Commonwealth is not truly on board the pot train. It is too complex and the law was poorly written and extremely difficult to implement. 
"Although it may have gone somewhat overlooked due to the presidential election, on November 8, 2016, MA voters approved the legalization of recreational marijuana at the ballot box.  The law allows the possession, transfer or use of up to one ounce of marijuana on one's person (the equivalent of about 40 joints/servings) and up to 10 ounces at home.

The law does not create ANY limits or restrictions on the marketing and sale of edible products, including those gummy bears, lollipops, soda or other products that would be particularly appealing to kids and teens. Neither does the law establish any limits on potency, including hash oil extracts that can have a potency approaching 100% THC (the active chemical in marijuana)... "

 Stood while one of their group testified against pot.

 Parents holding pix of loved ones who died from addiction and substance abuse...against pot.

 Pot proponent reprimanded by officer for being a disturbance.

 Hemp is her issue

 Pot grower

 Vet with PTSD got applause for his service.

 Concerned about racism in putting legal restraints on pot use.

Media presence

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Pot Hearing April 3, 2017

 Trans-human who lost partner to AIDS

 LBTQ supports Pot

 Laying out all the stuff he gets provided by the state.

 Rep, Shauna O'Connell

 Reps Lyons and O'Connell

My husband David also testified that day. Here is his testimony...

Sub-human Standards

David Funnell

I was twenty years old when I was introduced to marijuana – I was in my sophomore year at the very exclusive and prestigious Amherst College in early 1967.

Friends coming home to our residential frat house from Spring Break had joined the newly-popular subculture of recreational drug use and started me on a new adventure we universally found fascinating. There were virtually no opponents and at the time it was not strange to me that those of our brothers who chose to abstain, also found it convenient to refrain from criticism.

Now it is 2017 and fifty years have passed I will not refrain from my more mature criticism.

It was of the nature of our “high moral ground” standards learned in the Freshman Year required course in English, that we had been indoctrinated into “values clarification.”

This meant that believers (like me who grew up through the 1950's) in a traditional, American Christian lifestyle would be shamed, by professorial manipulation of peer pressure, to accept the view that we had been raised in an “authoritarian” culture. That culture now stood in need of being judged by the current sociological trends among our teachers to be inferior. It needed to be displaced by relativism, acceptance and rote-learning of the symbols valuing the multicultural  “cool” new world of diversity  and situational ethics.

I say, “rote-learning” of the symbols because our highly-trained analytical skills were being schooled away from the ancient foundations that had formerly given us a firm cohesion between personal choices and the society around us – morality was expendable.

This change of the 1960's included me, with my full participation – my diligent pursuit and enjoyment of the varieties of “experience” made my life a virtual cliché of the times.

When I was working on my Qualifying Exams for my admission to Candidacy for the final phase of my doctoral-degree studies my dependency on marijuana had caught up with me.

While achieving far-above-normal study results and planning an exciting research pattern for my Ph.D. thesis work that would soon gain for me a Fulbright Grant, I was settling for less than I was capable of and my professors told me this. They learned from me about my habit and admonished me to make the best of a second chance to pass the Exams.

Much more could be said but this simple story is told just to point out that a subculture like the one I had voluntarily joined nine years previous to this jarring realization, is one that cannot be used as a building block for a future society in this or in any other country.

Marijuana use and the delusions of self-induced “contact highs” of peer acceptance go together to prompt young and gullible souls to imagine that they are capable of only a very low, and I submit, decidedly sub-human standard of performance.

I urge the committee to impose the strictest of controls on this dangerous substance and to reject the localization of its open commercialization.

                       The Restoration of our Crumbling Judeo-Christian Foundation in Medford

   
We need to research the original covenants of the places where we live, restore them and live by them. On Patriots Day April 17, 2017, instead of going to the Boston Marathon which I have done many times, Dave and I went to the Patriot's Day Celebration in the city where we have lived for 9 years, Medford MA. We gathered in the old burial ground on Salem St. downtown. We literally stood on the graves of the town forefathers and mothers, most of whom were Christian and who abided by this Covenant since Charlestown was just over the Craddock Bridge and down the road a bit. This was the route Paul Revere took on his way to Concord on April 18, 1775

In fact after the ceremony we all walked down the middle of  Salem Street following the marching band to the Gaffey Funeral Home, one of the oldest buildings in Medford which was once a tavern where Revere roused the minutemen before continuing down the road to Arlington.

There were the town officials, The new Mayor Stephanie Burke, City Councillors led by President Rick Caraviello, State Rep. Paul Donato , a color guard standing at attention, the Medford High School Band, and the Girlscouts were adorably assembled to put a symbolic flag on a grave to honor the patriots buried there. It was opened with a benediction from a local church by Rev.Wendy Olapade of the Sanctuary United Church of Christ who also opened the State of the City Mayoral address recently. Dave and I both noticed that the name of Jesus Christ, whose Resurrection most Christians observed the previous day on what is called Easter, was not even acknowledged but Allah's was. Jehovah and Yahweh the names for God in the Hebrew and Old Testament were mentioned but Jesus Christ was not. That has to change and for that, Almighty God, we humbly ask your forgiveness for violating your first commandment.

"I am the Lord your God,who rescued you out of the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery. You must not have any god but Me." Exodus 20:2

In 2007 I started an organization called Commonwealth Covenant Keepers(see my FB page) I have concentrated on Boston and gone in to testify many times when some legislation has ignored that covenant. Here is the original Boston Covenant from 1630...

COVENANT OF THE
FIRST CHURCH IN BOSTON

The Massachusetts Bay Company fleet, under John Winthrop, having ‘sett
themselves down’ on the northern shore of the Bay, (present-day Charlestown),
the ‘thirtieth day of July [1630] was set apart for fasting and prayer.’ With solemn
religious exercises, the party gathered under ‘the umbrage of a great tree,’ and
voluntarily formed themselves into a Church.
________

In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in Obedience to His holy will, and Divine
Ordinaunce:
Wee whose names are hereunder written, being by His most wise, and good
Providence brought together into this part of America in the Bay of Massachusetts,
and desirous to unite our selves into one Congregation, or Church, under the Lord Jesus
Christ our Head, in such sort as becometh all whom He hath Redeemed, and Sanctifyed
to Himselfe, doe hereby solemnly, and religiously (as is His most holy Presence) Promisse,
and bind our selves, to walke in all our wayes according to the Rule of the Gospell, and
in all sincere Conformity to His holy Ordinaunces, and in mutuall love, and respect each
to other, so neere as God shall give us grace.

This touchstone covenant is a typical affirmation of ‘covenant theology,’ a simple
statement of obedience to God and of aid to one another.

It prepares for the registering of names of those who will sign this ‘contract’:
‘Wee whose names are hereunder written...
gives the location:
‘brought together into this part of America in the Bay of Massachusetts...
declares the organizational structure:
‘desirous to unite ourselves into one Congregation, or Church...
signifies its religious leader:
‘under the Lord Jesus Christ our Head...
characterizes its members as
‘all whom He hath Redeemed, and Sanctifyed to Himselfe...
pledges aid to one another:
‘[Wee] solemnly, and religiously...Promise, and bind ourselves,
to walke in all our ways...in mutuall love, and respect each to other...
accepts responsibilities:
‘according to the Rule of the Gospell,
in all sincere Conformity to His holy Ordinaunces...
portrays the community ethos:
‘and in mutuall love, and respect each to other...
and ends in humility:
‘so neere as God shall give us grace.’
*****************************************************
http://www.medfordhistorical.org/medford-history/about-medford/a-peculiar-plantation-17th-century-medford/

Patriot's Day, April 17, 2017 in Medford Square in the old graveyard dating back to the Revolutionary War. City leaders gathered to honor the forbears who were buried there and Girl Scouts put a flag at the grave of a fallen patriot. Medford High School band played patriotic songs
and taps which is always very moving in a setting like this. We were literally standing on the graves of the brave people who founded Medford and fought for our freedom. Mayor Stephanie Burke officiated and introduced the City Councilors and Rev. Wendy Miller Olapade of Sanctuary Congregational Church gave the benediction. To our great consternation Allah was named before Yahweh and Jehovah also mentioned but Jesus Christ was not. Did not our forbears come here for the most part bringing the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ yet he is forgotten here which denies his first Commandment which is to Have NO Other Gods Before Him.
No wonder the potholes and potheads are out of control in Medford!
Here is some very fascinating history of the Congregational Church which Rev. Wendy now leads.
https://apps.bostonglobe.com/graphics/2016/05/sanctuary/

                                           Patriot's Day Celebration in Medford Square

After the ceremony we all followed the band down Salem St. through the Square to the Gaffey Funeral Home which was once a tavern that Paul Revere rode by alerting the Minutemen that the British were coming.

It was a grand procession as the police held traffic at bay while we took to the street behind the marching band. There was a color guard performing, a balloon artist and free donuts from Dunkins as we waited for Paul Revere. I overheard  Mayor Burke telling a visitor from Europe that the rider was running late as he had to come all the way from the North End and it would be another hour until his arrival. Since my husband's back was getting sore we decided to go home where I switched on the TV in time to see the elite runners coming nearing the finish line.  We have watched the Marathon from various angles, most often in Wellesley where my brother lives often hosted a barbecue that day, but this day it was more desirable to go the Medford observance.

At noon I raced back sans hubby to see Paul Revere. I boogied for downtown Medford which was closed off so I went up Forest over Hall and down Governors Ave where I found a parking spot. I saw a man coming up the hill from the Square with two little girls. I asked if I had missed Paul Revere and the sweet man, an immigrant, did not know what I was talking about but he did see a horse down the street. Darn, I wished I had time to fill them in on what all the falderlall was about. I hoofed it dawn the street and just then I saw the man on a chestnut horse resplendent in a green colonial jacket calling out something. I can only imagine it was something about the British coming. He was closely followed by a man on a dappled gray horse and a horse trailer where they probably had spare horses a bystander suggested.

Riding through present-day Somerville, Medford, and Arlington, Revere warned patriots along his route, many of whom set out on horseback to deliver warnings of their own. By the end of the night there were probably as many as 40 riders throughout Middlesex County carrying the news of the army's advance. Revere did not shout the phrase later attributed to him ("The British are coming!"): his mission depended on secrecy, the countryside was filled with British army patrols, and most of the Massachusetts colonists (who were predominantly English in ethnic origin)^[44] still considered themselves British.^[45][46] Revere's warning, according to eyewitness accounts of the ride and Revere's own descriptions, was "The Regulars are coming out."^[47] Revere arrived in Lexington around midnight, with Dawes arriving about a half-hour later. They met with Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were spending the night with Hancock's relatives (in what is now called the Hancock–Clarke House), and they spent a great deal of time discussing plans of action upon receiving the news. Wikipedia

I asked the man on the corner if  Paul Revere had stayed or just went barreling through. Oh yes, Bob said, He stayed for a little while and just as he was about to charge off an emergency vehicle carrying the mayor pulled out in front because she wanted to lead Revere on his ride. I wish I had that on video. Fortunately the horse had more sense and did not spook but it was a near collision which is par for the course in Medford as the city navigates the twenty-first century.

http://www.nationallancers.org/images/revere4thleg.jpg">

Red dot on the far right is where we waited for Paul Revere to re-enact his ride 242 years ago.

These are pictures I took the other day when it was 80 plus degrees and I saw some interesting sights around my hood in Medford. It was once and Irish-Italian enclave but in the last 50 years many immigrants have settled here and something like 19 languages are spoken. There is a Buddhist compound on Washington St which the Dali Lama visited a few years ago. There is an old condemned house on Otis Street frozen in time. Just up the block children play in the nursery school yard belonging to the Methodist Church.
I met with the President of the City Council for coffee at Dempsy's in Haynes Square.  I am quite sure I do not want Medford to have pot shops and I don't want it to become a Sanctuary City like Somerville next door. Bull dog lady is on the streets. I attended two Public Hearings on Pot Shops and learned a lot. More on that later. I am pausing for a reflection on Easter because it is upon us.
I have written a memoir of my childhood Easter in Revere MA when I was 3 years old approximately.

The Easter Bunny is a Jack-a-lope

As I lay in bed feverish and about to fall asleep I saw him from behind as he jumped over the backyard fence, his white cotton tail reflecting moonlight. Is this where the term ‘mooning’ came from? He was small, brown with big bunny ears tilted back for speed. He carried no Easter baskets for other children. He must have brought mine and two for my older brothers. I suppose he was headed back to his stash to cover the rest of the neighborhood. Like Santa Claus he had a lot of ground to cover before dawn.

 I did not check to see if my Easter basket was delivered outside my bedroom door because I had one foot in dreamland and being sick with chicken pox I had no appetite for candy anyway.

We lived in Revere in a two-family house across from a fire station. There was an upright piano that came with the apartment which my mom painted chartreuse, her favorite color. I was told there was no room for a horse in the back yard despite my continual pleading. We lived in this house a block from a private beach within walking distance to my grandparent’s house and the small Catholic church we attended. It was a comfortable community with a fair amount of Jews which established my preference for Bulkie Rolls which were called Kaiser Rolls in other places.

Point of Pines did not have a lot of pine trees. They must have cut them all down to build houses. On the other side of the Lynnway lived Nanny and Papa in a small cape that looked just like all the other houses in what some called the “Cardboard Village” because it was quickly built to accommodate all the GI’s coming home form WWII which my grandparents somehow qualified for due to Papa’s stint in the Navy long before the war. I heard they paid something like $3K for the house, that wouldn’t even make a down payment today. They loved living only a block from the water and made friends with all their neighbors and took in stray cats, making sure all the pets that got killed crossing the Lynnway had a proper burial in their yard.

It was April 1950 and chicken pox was in bloom and I was quarantined in my bedroom by the doctor who made house calls.

My mom was pregnant with my sister Valerie. Mom was enjoying having a little girl after two boys and bought me a special coat outfit for Easter. It must have been a chilly April because it was made of sea green wool with matching leggings and bonnet. It was not what you would typically think of for Easter but being only three, I was thrilled to have a special outfit which was probably picked up by Nana who worked at Filene’s in Boston. My new outfit hung on a hanger from the curtain rod over the window which had the shade pulled all day to prevent the light from hurting my eyes which I guess could get pox on them judging by all the time I spent in a darkened room lonely and bored with no one to play with. Maybe that’s why the Saturday night before Easter, I lifted the shade and saw a bunny hopping over the back fence and out of sight.

Sickness was a time when my Mom was an extra good mom. She knew I was sad to be missing the family activities and unable to even try on a scratchy wool outfit. The solid fudge egg from Fanny Farmer’s decorated with pastel flowers and leaves sat in its box. A white porcelain diaper pail was positioned next to my bed in case I got sicker.

Forty Aprils later, I was a mother myself with three sons all taking turns with Chicken pox. First the 8 year-old gets a mild case, number two son gets a much worse case followed by the baby who got it the worst, but at least he felt like one of the gang and we all got through it somehow over the five long weeks. I documented it all taking pix of them in their Underoos holding little slate that said Chicken Pox 1989.

No Easter baskets have ever been delivered to our kids much as I miss the solid fudge egg and the fuzzy little chicks that decorated my basket. Even though I saw Mr. Easter Bunny with my own eyes I realize now it was probably a dream.

Today I realize this cultural concoction is more of a Jack-o-lope; a patching together of Pagan and Christian religions. Have you ever seen a Jack-o-lope driving through western states where they have them stuffed for display in gas stations and depicted on post cards? They’re a cross between a Jack rabbit and an antelope with antlers.

 Since the Chicken Pox Vaccine became a routine since 1995 fewer kids get them. Now we have other things to worry about. Are the vaccines causing autism, ADHD or the many other diseases and disorders that are on the rise? Should we be more discriminating about what Mr Jack-a-lope delivers? Maybe we should just say ‘no’ to Mr. Jack-o-lope and all the sugar he brings setting kids up for obesity, diabetes and tooth decay.

(I am working on chapter 2 of this topic for our Marriage and Family in the End Times Book)

Chris Noonan Funnell April 11, 2014