No issue may have consumed more of the General Assembly’s time more trivially in recent years than “medical marijuana.” Such legislation at last has cleared the state House of Representatives and Senate, and Gov. Malloy says he’ll sign it. But it’s not likely to make any difference, except maybe to let some legislators pose as more compassionate than some of their colleagues.The bill wouldn’t just decriminalize marijuana use by people afflicted with certain serious diseases for which the weed is said to have therapeutic value. It would license people to grow the drug for pharmacists and pharmacists to distribute it to patients. For the state to decriminalize marijuana wouldn’t violate federal law, as no state is obliged to match its criminal code exactly to the federal government’s. Indeed, Connecticut recently reduced to a mere infraction its penalty for possession of small amounts of marijuana, even as the federal government remains free to enforce its more punitive marijuana laws in the state.But the licensing and distribution sections of the medical marijuana bill are meant to facilitate violation of federal law and thus would be a form of “nullification” and “interposition,” the sort of thing the segregationist Southern states did to thwart federal civil rights laws in the 1960s and the sort of thing recently undertaken in New Haven with its issuance of city government identification cards to illegal aliens to facilitate their breaking federal immigration law. Connecticut has no business doing that, and, really, no need, marijuana being so widely available already and the state’s penalty for possession having been reduced. Even many of those who long have been pleading for medical marijuana from experience with sick relatives have acknowledged its availability in their circumstances.While public dispensaries would make things easy for medical marijuana users, it’s not likely that the proposed legislation would accomplish that anyway. For few if any pharmacists would risk federal prosecution and confiscation of their businesses by participating in a state licensing system. Medical marijuana legislation has been raised in the General Assembly for years without prompting the discussion Connecticut really needs — a discussion about drug criminalization generally. That policy causes infinitely more suffering than the lack of medical marijuana. An audit of drug policy generally is long overdue, and medical marijuana long has been the smoke screen for avoiding it.When Dannel P. Malloy was campaigning for governor in 2010, the universal preschool program he had instituted as mayor of Stamford may have been the part of his record of which he was most proud. He advocated a similar program for the whole state. As state government’s catastrophic insolvency crashed down on him, the governor sharply curtailed his ambition. Instead of universal state-funded preschool, he proposed state funding for 1000 more preschool seats for disadvantaged kids throughout the state. But anyone watching television lately in Connecticut might hardly know this, as 1000 new preschool seats figure heavily in the commercials being broadcast by the state’s biggest teacher union, the Connecticut Education Association, in opposition to the governor’s proposals, which include increasing teacher accountability and weakening tenure. So to disguise itself as a supporter of education reform, the CEA has its ads tout the thousand new preschool seats as if the idea was the union’s own, not the hated governor’s. Chris Powell is managing editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester.
Latest News
Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
Provided
Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.
