Wow!  I just received a fax from McGraw Hill, the people who make college textbooks, among other publishing.  They happened on a piece I wrote for The Oregon Herald on 4/20/2005 (just two weeks before I met Madeline Martinez and started my career in marijuana law reform) entitled “Drug Testing Does No Good” and are asking my permission to reprint it in a college textbook entitled “Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Management” that will be published in August.  Yours truly even receives a fee!  For something I wrote and forgot about four years ago!  (Ain’t the intertubes wonderful?)

Here it is for your reading pleasure…

Recently, an RV manufacturing plant in Goshen, Indiana, made headlines because they had drug tested all 120 of their employees and found that nearly a third of them tested positive for some illicit substance.

What caused the company to drug test all of their employees? Was there a rash of accidents? Had productivity dropped significantly? Were there increasing incidents of absenteeism and illness? Did a supervisor notice any drug use occurring at the plant, or notice an employee obviously under the influence of drugs?

No. The only reason the plant spent the time, effort, and money to test their employees was due to a police tip that there was a drug problem at the plant. In other words, there was no reason for the company to believe they had a drug problem.

You would think that running a manufacturing plant with one third of your employees working under the influence would lead to some obvious problems. You’d be right. The problem is that a positive drug test does not indicate that a person is under the influence of drugs. It only indicates that a person has done drugs in the past.

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TRENTON (NJ.com) — The state Supreme Court ruled today that police did not violate the rights of a woman and her passenger when they searched her car during a 2004 traffic stop after she told an officer she had smoked marijuana earlier in the day.

The Bernards Township police officer threatened to search Angela Baum’s car when she could not provide him with a valid driver’s license or registration. Baum admitted there were drugs in the car, according to court documents. The incident occurred on June 4, 2004.

In a 5-2 decision, the court said the officer should have immediately read Baum her Miranda rights, but that his investigation was not “unreasonable” because of the information she had already given him.

“There is nothing … more intrusive than necessary in this stop and in this investigation,” Justice Helen Hoens wrote for the majority.

Both Baum and her passenger, Jermel Moore, were arrested and then read their rights. Police searched the car and found cocaine and more than 50 grams of marijuana.

Imagine an America where every school child is taught the Bill of Rights, especially that part called the 5th Amendment.  Imagine that kids were given lesson on their rights, including the fact that when questioned by a police officer, you have the right to remain silent.  I think in that America, we’d see possession arrests slashed by about half.

If Eighteenth Century colonial writing style is too much to comprehend, how about writing a 21st century equivalent in black marker on the back of your driver’s license?  Just four little letters: STFU!

Seriously, people, if a cop pulls you over and you know you’re being naughty, STFU!  Hand him your license, insurance, and registration and don’t say a damn word!  If he asks why you’re so quiet, shrug your shoulders.  You cannot be any more busted for what you’re being naughty with by being silent.  Being silent doesn’t give them more probable cause to search you.  Refusing a search (directly or by silence when asked to be searched) does not give them more probable cause to search you.  In the end, if they do find out what naughty things you’re doing, your lawyer has many more options to work with, from questioning the probable cause to dismissing the evidence, if you don’t say anything.

Or as my NORML Legal Committee pal John Lucy IV says, “the more you say, the more you pay” him to get you out of your predicament.  STFU!

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