H1371,  An Act to Regulate and Tax the Cannabis Industry, is scheduled for hearing before the Joint Committee on the Judiciary of the Massachusetts legislature. The hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, March 6, 2012, at 1:00 PM in Room A-2 of the Statehouse in Boston. Here is a FAQ Sheet, and here is the notice to Massachusetts activists that went out on February 8, 2012.

Recent stirrings in Michigan and Montana recall important milestones toward the repeal of the Prohibition Amendment three generations ago.

For most of Prohibition, 1920 to 1933, alcohol was illegal under both state and federal law (except in Maryland, which never enacted state prohibition laws, and New York, where in 1923 a Republican legislature, trying to destroy Gov. Al Smith’s chances for the Presidency, repealed state prohibition; Smith called their bluff and signed the bill, but the Republicans may have been successful in the end as Smith never reached the White House). In 1930, the citizens of Massachusetts voted by a large margin to repeal the state’s prohibition law, and for the remaining three years of Prohibition, booze was illegal only under the federal Volstead Act as authorized by the 18^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In 1933, eleven more states did the same thing, and one of them, California, went one step better: voters not only repealed the alcohol prohibition laws, but also enacted an amendment to the state constitution which provided that IF federal law were to change allowing the states to tax and regulate the production and distribution of alcoholic beverages, then the state government—as opposed to counties and municipalities—shall have the exclusive right to so tax and regulate, thus assuring a uniform statewide regulatory system and a lock on the new revenue by Sacramento.

What’s important is that these reforms in alcohol laws were not made by lawmakers, but rather the voters themselves, as politicians then ducked and weaved when it came to taking a stand on alcohol. The two sides of the public debate were the Wets and the Drys, but politicians were consistently Damp, afraid to declare themselves on either side of history.

In Michigan and Montana, driven by mendacious public officials who have blocked implementation of medical marijuana programs approved by the voters, activists are collecting signatures to put a constitutional amendment on November’s ballots that would establish the right to have and use (non-medical) cannabis responsibly. If they succeed, they will have done more than repeal cannabis prohibition: they will have prohibited marijuana prohibition, a stunningly remarkable achievement, and a courageous and inspiring effort even if they don’t make it.