DEAR READER,

It pains me to openly ask this, but have you seen the &$*@^#* commercials that opponents of legal marijuana are airing!?! One has a mother and child driving through an imaginary suburb in which every other store is a pot shop. Another, which I believe is playing online only, has the wife of a state trooper who was allegedly killed by a stoned driver earlier this year claiming that legalization would result in more roadside fatalities. Not surprisingly, the Boston Globe and other outlets have trumpeted this prohibitionist claptrap, all of them neglecting to acknowledge that the opposition is largely funded by contributions from liquor lobbyists and beer, wine, and spirit distributors. There’s nothing wrong with those companies supporting their own interests, but it’s the media’s job to call out bullshit where it festers, and we haven’t seen anywhere close to enough of that during this fight. So while I know the donnybrook is tiring and that even some of our most loyal readers who support legalization may get occasionally exhausted by our relentless needling of the hypocrites among us, I want to remind everyone that the upcoming vote to free cannabis is decades in the making and a moment we must absolutely trounce on. Activists, patients, anti-prohibitionist reporters, decent people of Mass who happen to enjoy a joint every now and then—we’ve come too far to let equivocators lie with impunity this late in the game. It may be the most obvious endorsement of all time, but it still feels good to say it: Yes on 4!

CHRIS FARAONE, NEWS + FEATURES EDITOR

OH, CRUEL WORLD

Dear Two-Spaced Bastard,

I used to live in South Florida, home to even worse people than you might already think, as well as the proud residence of more selfish drivers than any other place on earth. A lot of them even like to park their sparkly luxury rides across two spaces, which led me to break out the old pocket knife on more than one occasion so that I could rearrange a paint job or, if I had to be discreet, adjust the tire pressure. I moved to Boston because I thought people were better than that, but I guess I was wrong. A lot of you like to take up two spaces as well, so I guess it’s good that I relocated my services to Massachusetts.