City communities should have the right to say no to legal pot before Dec. 31 deadline
With little fanfare, a great pot divide is opening between cities and suburbs — and disadvantaged urban neighborhoods, long suffering from drug use, look again to be the losers, denied even the choice the more affluent are exercising.
According to the Rockefeller Institute of Government’s frequently updated Marijuana Opt-Out Tracker, 588 of 1,518 municipalities have resisted the blandishments of new tax revenues and just said no to marijuana retailers, while 670 have turned down consumption sites — what the Dutch euphemistically call “coffee shops.”