NY couple “on a mission from God” bring pot plants to capitol to protest marijuana laws

(Times Union) ALBANY — Most lobbyists come to the Capitol with a briefcase, a position paper and a cellphone. At least one arrived with a pot plant, and for this she must answer.

Abigail Storm-Eggink, 58, doesn’t deny she’s the owner of the two 18-inch plants cops took from her in separate incidents recently. One was confiscated by the Albany Police Department on June 30 as she carried it down Pearl Street on her way to the Capitol, where the Kingston woman and her 71-year-old husband, Dan Eggink, have been coming regularly for 14 months — including the past 10 weeks straight, five days a week — to protest pot laws.

For two days, Storm-Eggink and her husband had paraded outside the government complex with the weed. But on July 3, according to a court document, after she brought it inside and used it as a visual aid while confronting senators in the corridors, she was charged by State Police with unlawful possession of a controlled substance as soon as she stepped out onto the landing on State Street.

Storm-Eggink hopes to use the trial before City Court Judge Rachel Kretser to make a larger case based on the First Amendment, religious freedom and what she sees as the inalienable right to the bounty of the land — including marijuana. Storm-Eggink, who plans to represent herself, is to appear Friday morning on the charges.

Huge mistake.  Never try to represent yourself in a trial.  Besides, experienced constitutional law experts have been trying to press the First Amendment religious use of cannabis argument for years and have not been successful.  Not that I don’t agree with Storm-Eggink – I absolutely believe we have an inalienable right to the bounty of the land and that the only reason the Founders didn’t explicitly enshrine that right in the Constitution they were drafting on hemp paper is that they could never imagined that some future government would ban the most important crop in the colonies (just as they never could have imagined fully automatic assault weapons, but that’s a discussion for another blog).  I think there is actually a stronger constitutional argument to be made for personal privacy and sovereignty based on the arguments that protect birth control use and a woman’s right to choose reproductive health options… but I’m no lawyer.

Dan Eggink says he wishes his first wife, who died of cancer in 1977, had been able to use the oils from cannabis. He’s convinced the herbal treatment kills cancer cells. (Needless to say, this theory falls well outside conventional medicine.)

Not entirely.  A 2008 review in the journal Cancer Research reported that the administration of cannabinoids halts the spread of a wide range of cancers, including brain cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, skin cancer, pancreatic cancer, and lymphoma.

Eggink says he and his wife “are on a mission from God — like the Blues Brothers.”

Sen. Marty Golden, R-Brooklyn, a former New York City police officer who was seriously injured during a drug bust, said he hopes Storm-Eggink gets the book thrown at her.

“You can advocate for anything in this state, but when you start to bring in samples that are illegal, then it’s illegal,” he said. “I hope she gets the max.”

Sen. Hugh Farley, R-Niskayuna, a business law professor, said the pot activists don’t bother him, and he considers them “kind of funny.”"They weren’t obnoxious; they weren’t in your face,” he said. “Every time we came out of conference they tended to be there. I don’t think they were taken seriously by anybody; I don’t think their issue is taken seriously by anyone. In my judgment they were just trying to get attention.”

Everyone knows that if you want to be taken seriously in Albany, you don’t bring pot plants and compare yourself to the Blues Brothers.  You bring high paid lobbyists in $3,000 suits and offer campaign contributions.