Remember learning about our Founding Fathers in school and how they put together our marvelous Constitution? Following its ratification these wise men realized that there needed to be a charter that clearly enumerated the rights of the people – our Bill of Rights.
Somehow I missed that day in school when Madison added that “marijuana exception” to the first ten amendments of the Constitution, but it must certainly be there, considering how cannabis consumers’ rights are regularly trampled:
- our 1st amendment freedom of religion (the right to religious ganja sacrament is ignored, even though other religions enjoy protection for ayahuasca and peyote);
- our 2nd amendment right to bear arms (enhanced penalties for drug law violations if in possession of even a legally owned and registered firearm);
- our 4th amendment protection from unreasonable search and seizure (cops breaking down your door with no-knock warrants);
- our 5th amendment protection against self-incrimination (pee tests) and double jeopardy (state medmj cases being retried by feds);
- our 6th amendment right to confront witnesses (anonymous snitches in drug cases);
- our 7th amendment right to civil trials (to recoup lost, stolen, or destroyed crops and equipment);
- our 8th amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment (locking up paraplegic medical patients who then die in jail);
- our 9th amendment right to grow and use plants (how could a constitution drafted on hemp paper not presume we have a right to grow hemp?);
- our 10th amendment states’ rights (every medical marijuana state).
When you think about it, only our right to be free from soldiers being quartered in our homes during peacetime (3rd amendment) has been safe from the ravages of reefer madness in eviscerating our rights.
But we still have our freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, and we can use those to assert our right to petition our government for a redress of grievances, right?
Sadly, no. To illustrate, I bring you an email from past Stash guest Bob Newland of South Dakota NORML:
Many of you know I pled to a felony count of possession of marijuana in May. Today I was sentenced.
In an hour-long sentencing hearing, Judge Delaney waxed reminiscent as he described his admiration for Muhammad Ali’s stance against an illegal war, which cost him millions of dollars and his peak performing years, during which time he did not complain, nor did he leave the country that so abused him for his beliefs.
Then, citing the fact that he (Judge Delaney) had to account for his actions to the hundreds of kids he sees in juvenile court, he sentenced me to a year in the Penn. Co. jail, with all suspended but 45 days.
During the suspended part of the sentence I will wear a bracelet that senses alcohol use and I will be subject to arbitrary piss tests by a probation officer to detect illegal “drug” use. In addition I may have no “public role” in cannabis law reform advocacy during that year.
…For 40 years I have watched as dozens of people I know and thousands I know of go through this same, ummm…, procedure. Now it’s happening to me, and I feel the same frustration over the purposelessness of it all as I have felt for all those other people, many, many, many of whom were treated far more viciously than I.
If Judge Delaney so admired Muhammad Ali, he should have noted that when Ali was convicted of draft evasion in 1967, he was sentenced to five years and $10,000, forbidden from fighting professionally in America, stripped of his heavyweight title and his passport, but remained free on appeal. However, the judge did not sentence Ali to have no “public role” in the Nation of Islam or in protesting the Vietnam War.
Instead, Judge Delaney just stripped from Newland four of the five freedoms guaranteed in the 1st amendment – speech, assembly, press (blogging), and petitioning the government for a redress of grievances. Why not sentence him to attend a specific church while you’re at it (actually, I should keep quiet lest Bob get sentenced to a pseudo-religious Twelve Step program)?
I just got a new flux capacitor for the DeLorean, so I’m headed back to 1789. Can someone give me an easy way to explain to Messrs. Madison, Jefferson, Adams, and Hamilton how much we love their 1st amendment, but in our time a judge has to suspend it for people convicted of growing hemp?
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[...] South Dakota NORML’s Bob Newland sentenced to shut up about ending marijuana prohibition [...]
Don’t worry we have a president in the white house that was a Constitutional law professor, if the war on drugs violated our Constitutional rights, surely he would have directed the Justice Department to change the way federal drug policy is enforced.
or not.
I will keep us updated on Bob’s progress and whether he sues.
Actually, people do have the right to freedom of speech behind bars. Maybe not computers and internet access, but certainly free speech.
http://www.adl.org/civil_rights/prison_ex.asp#q2
I don’t think there is a compelling “penological concern” about a man who won’t be in prison (his sentence is 45 days locked up, but one year shut up) exercising his right to political expression.
Russ, this was a great post. I especially liked your enumeration of how practically all of our Bill of Rights is undermined by the pernicious effects of the War on Drugs.
I agree with you that adults in a free country shouldn’t be criminally punished for using marijuana. However, to answer your question, I think that given the fact that our duly enacted laws prohibit marijuana, it is reasonable that their can be punishments for breaking those laws.
You ask:
But people don’t have the right to freedom of speech (in the robust sense) behind bars. For instance, if I’m a blogger and I’m sentenced to jail for tax evasion, I don’t necessarily have a right to access to a computer and the internet to continue updating my blog. Put another way, depriving me of my “freedom of speech” is not unjust when done after conviction for violating the law.
Quoting the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution:
So you CAN deprive someone of liberty with due process of law. No one complains about throwing the murderer in jail and thus depriving the killer of his liberty.
Treating pot smokers like killers or child rapists is ridiculous. This is why we work to change our marijuana laws: they’re too absurd to enforce.
I cant see how this will fly, why arent there fifty lawyers linning up for this appeal Or is he not allowed to appeal also?
See they bend all the laws just to keep this failed policy alive and well. Now they are changing the constitution to keep locking and now shutting us up!