[420 Girl]

Smoking a joint may become illegal again in Milford, even though new state law says it's not.

Selectmen voted unanimously last night to have Town Meeting consider a bylaw that would make consuming marijuana on public property a criminal offense.

"I think it's a good idea," said Selectman Brian Murray.

Police Chief Thomas O'Loughlin told the board he supports the idea, which he likened to a town bylaw that prohibits drinking in public.

Under a state law that went into effect last week, possession of an ounce of less of marijuana is now a civil offense.

Now, O'Loughlin said, if a group of kids are smoking pot in a park behind a school, for instance, just as they might be drinking beer, and a neighbor calls to complain, all police can legally do is write a non-criminal civil citation for anyone caught with up to an ounce of pot.

"And they're on their merry way," the chief said.

The case is a common one, and it's frustrating to police, he said.

"I believe that the board should move forward and bring this to Town Meeting," O'Loughlin said of the bylaw.

The local bylaw will be modeled after one the state Department of Public Safety is recommending, according to a memo from Town Counsel Gerald Moody.

According to a draft, it would prohibit people from smoking, ingesting or otherwise consuming marijuana or tetrahydrocannabinol while on a street, sidewalk, public way, footway, passageway, stairs, bridge, park playground, beach, recreation area, boat landing, public building, schoolhouse, school grounds, cemetery, parking lot or any area owned or controlled by the town.

The bylaw would serve as an additional enforcement mechanism whereby the police can better discourage public use of the drug, he wrote.

"I think we all agree with what you said," selectmen Chairman Dino DeBartolomeis said to Moody.

The board decided to support the bylaw at the next Town Meeting.

http://www.420magazine.com/forums/in...-property.html