McGrory tongue in cheek

By Jim Stergios
August 30th, 2008

Kudos to Globe City & Region editor Brian McGrory for the witty juxtaposition of two articles on marijuana in the Thursday edition. The first was entitled Soros is behind marijuana initiative and covered the effort by billionaire financier and liberal twit George Soros to de-criminalize marijuana use.

I am not a “criminalize all marijuana use” hawk and agree with the statement by Ethan Nadelmann, a Soros spokesman, that we should “reduce the over-reliance on criminal justice sanctions in dealing with marijuana.”

But I do question Soros’ fixation with this issue, as it borders on promotion. AP’s Steve LeBlanc further reports that

Of the $429,000 collected last year by the group advancing the measure, $400,000 came from Soros… The Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy needed about $315,000 of that to collect the more than 100,000 signatures that secured a spot on the ballot, according to campaign finance reports reviewed by the Associated Press.

Right next to the Soros article was a piece with the uplifting title: 4 indicted in kidnapping, extortion plot. The piece, by the Globe’s Jeannie Nuss, tells the tale of a band of four Boston no-goods indicted “on attempted murder and other charges in connection with a ‘multifaceted extortion plot’”. A 24-year-old Allston man, it seems, was lured into an apartment by a woman and then “held captive at gunpoint.” The DA’s office noted to Nuss that:

Once inside, the man was beaten, threatened, and robbed by three men who took his cellphone.

The four defendants then held the man for ransom and instructed his relatives to give $5,000 to two women at the Dudley Square MBTA Station… The victim’s family raised $4,280 and contacted Boston police, who arrested the two women at the T station…

The victim had sold small amounts of marijuana to Jacques in the past, and the four believed he could produce larger quantities…

When the victim said he was unable to deliver the drugs, the three men beat him and demanded money, the district attorney’s office said. The men also threatened to cut off his fingers, mutilate his genitals, and kill him…

The placement suggests that McGrory is not ready to pass joints around the newsroom just yet. Nor does he agree with Keith Stroup, of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, that we “owe George Soros a great deal of gratitude.”