{"id":890167,"date":"2016-07-12T12:10:49","date_gmt":"2016-07-12T18:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=890167"},"modified":"2016-07-12T12:10:49","modified_gmt":"2016-07-12T18:10:49","slug":"recreating-with-pot-should-be-legal-but-i-cant-convince-myself-to-vote-yes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/recreating-with-pot-should-be-legal-but-i-cant-convince-myself-to-vote-yes\/","title":{"rendered":"Recreating with Pot Should Be Legal but I Can’t Convince Myself to Vote Yes"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Hahesy | Preti Strategies<\/a> | July 1, 2016<\/p>\n

In the summer of 1968, I was fortunate to land a job as a meat packer at Bolton & Smart, one of the many wholesalers then located in Boston\u2019s Clinton Street Market, on what is now mainly the site of Christopher Columbus Park in the North End.\u00a0 Bolton & Smart hired me because a friend of mine from Revere, Ronnie Tempesta, a meat cutter there, brought me to the boss one morning and said he wanted me to have the job.\u00a0 They liked Ronnie because he worked so hard you\u2019d think he owned the company.\u00a0 Also, Ronnie was born likeable: he got people laughing all the time, which is a major virtue in a group of men working all day in a gigantic refrigerator.\u00a0 There were many applicants for that meat packing job because it paid a union wage, $2.67 an hour.\u00a0 The minimum wage at the time was about $1.40, I think.<\/p>\n

The end of my first week, I was initiated into a custom cherished by most Bolton & Smart front-line employees: the mid-afternoon Friday drinking break.\u00a0 We had 15 minutes off, starting at 3:00 o\u2019clock. The company strictly enforced this limit by requiring us to punch the timeclock when we went on break and punch it again when we came back into the plant.<\/p>\n

It took a minute to walk to the nearest dive, where the bartender was awaiting our arrival with about a dozen cold, unopened bottles of Budweiser and Schlitz atop the end of the bar facing the door.\u00a0 (It\u2019s hard today for folks to understand, but in those days, Bud and Schlitz were roughly even competitors in Massachusetts.\u00a0 Prefiguring my lifelong attraction to the ill-fated, I myself was, at 17, already a Schlitz man.)\u00a0 We had 13 minutes to drink.\u00a0 The object, I quickly learned, was to consume at least two beers during that time.\u00a0 Serious Friday guys aimed for three, a feat I accomplished only once; fittingly, I reached that pinnacle\/pit on my last day on the job, in late August.<\/p>\n

I admit to these facts now only to draw attention to a timeless truth, i.e., the stupidity and recklessness of young men, and to make a connection between that truth and the position taken earlier this week by the Construction Industries of Massachusetts (CIM) against a referendum in November proposing to legalize the recreational use of marijuana.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur members spend their days on worksites across the Commonwealth, and we believe increasing the availability of marijuana will undermine the safety of our workers,\u201d said CIM Executive Director John Pourbaix in a written statement issued on Monday.<\/p>\n

One of CIM\u2019s \u201cmajor concerns\u201d is the \u201cinflux of legal edible products that would come with commercial legalization.\u201d\u00a0 The organization said, \u201cEmployees who test positive for marijuana have significantly higher rates of workplace accidents.\u201d<\/p>\n

CIM describes itself as \u201can association representing all aspects of the transportation and public works construction industry in Massachusetts.\u201d Its membership includes general contractors, subcontractors, material suppliers, equipment dealers, engineers, consultants, insurance and bonding companies, law firms and accounting firms and \u201cmany other companies interested in furthering the progress of the (construction) industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a strong case to be made that using marijuana is not much different from using alcohol, and perhaps even less harmful.<\/p>\n

Advocates for legalizing recreational pot are essentially telling persons like me, who have no problem with booze but do<\/em> have a problem with recreational pot, that our opposition is grounded in our personalities, preferences, family histories and social strata, our age-related biases and fears, our unconscious affinity to cultural norms, etc., rather than in any objective evidence that pot may cause significant harm or societal disruption when people are able to buy it and consume it on any street corner, on any day or night. Given my blind spots, I have to concede this case to the advocates.<\/p>\n

The main reason I’m leaning against voting\u00a0for recreational pot is I\u00a0don’t\u00a0feel we\u00a0need more ways for people to get stupid.\u00a0 Based purely on that instinct, I am willing to deprive\u00a0Massachusetts pot lovers of their natural human right to get a buzz on with a product that is maybe less harmful than booze — at least in terms of typical physical effects on the average human. (No one can yet say how recreational pot for the masses will\u00a0or will not alter\u00a0our society.)<\/p>\n

I’m pretty sure\u00a0what we Bolton & Smartalecks would have done on a Friday afternoon if recreational marijuana had been legal in 1968. If someone had said to us then, \u201cBet you can\u2019t eat six weed cookies,\u201d we would have said, \u201cShut up and get me the milk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advise & Consult, Inc. does not endorse any position, law, party or platform endorsing, promoting or allowing alcohol or drug use in a work environment – especially in a work environment like construction that already has as many inert dangerous situations for employees and the public.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Hahesy | Preti Strategies | July 1, 2016 In the summer of 1968, I was fortunate to land a job as a meat packer at Bolton & Smart, one of the many wholesalers then located in Boston\u2019s Clinton Street Market, on what is now mainly the site of Christopher Columbus Park in the North… Continue reading Recreating with Pot Should Be Legal but I Can’t Convince Myself to Vote Yes<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[12,9314],"class_list":["post-890167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-construction-2","tag-construction","tag-marijuana","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nRecreating with Pot Should Be Legal but I Can't Convince Myself to Vote Yes - 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