No, that “Got
Weed?” mailer was for real
By Will Collette
Recently, many, but not all, people in Charlestown, Richmond and Hopkinton received an
expensive-looking, full-color glossy magazine-style brochure with the title, “Got Weed?” There's a large
photo of a pair of hands apparently in the act of rolling a joint on the cover (see left).
Some people
thought it was a joke. Others thought that maybe it was a fancy ad for one of
Rhode Island’s new “compassion
centers”
for medical marijuana. Or a catalog from a
mail-order marijuana operation in Colorado. There was no return address or
author on the cover – just a standard postage imprint showing it was
sent from Oakland, CA.
But “Got Weed”
is a product of the local Chariho Task
Force on Substance Abuse Prevention. This Task Force is not a part of the Chariho school system
and no one from the school district took part in producing this mailer. It was
not reviewed by the staff or the Chariho School Committee.
According to
Administrator Paula Augustinho, the Task Force paid “approximately $9,500.00 to have this done.” The
“this” is a 16-page, 8.5 x 11 full-color magazine quality piece. They printed
10,000 copies and mailed 8,500. Using PSPrint, a California printer, they apparently saved a lot of money, though it would have been nice to see that money get
used to employ Rhode Islanders.
You paid for it because all of the money came from federal block grant funds that the Task
Force won in competition with other community needs, such as feeding the
hungry, sheltering the homeless and helping to stop domestic violence.
