“You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
April 16, 1963

Today our nation honors what would’ve been this week the eightieth birthday of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., on the eve of the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th president of these United States.  I was sixty-four days old when an assassin’s bullet cut down Dr. King in the prime of his life.  Today I am six-hundred forty days older than Dr. King when he was killed.  Tomorrow I will see something few people my age and older thought we’d ever see, yet something Dr. King had dreamed from the start.

There remains a grave injustice to be battled, the most unjust of laws to be disobeyed, a law that by its definition is not rooted in eternal law and natural law: the man made code that declares nature itself to be illegal, the prohibition on cannabis.  Yet when I mention marijuana law reform in the context of the great civil rights struggles in America, so many are quick to dismiss me with snickers of derision.  ”You just want pot legal so you can get high!” is a common refrain.

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Download the NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2008-04-04

We’d like to pause for a moment in remembrance of this day forty years ago, April 4, 1968, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated on a hotel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. King was a true patriot who stood up for civil rights and famously dreamed of a day when people would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

We cannabis consumers are another minority – an invisible minority – and we regularly have our civil rights trampled upon for our use and appreciation of a plant. Cannabis users are disenfranchised by felony convictions in many states. Cannabis users’ privacy is violated by workplace urine testing. Cannabis users’ families are broken up by social services. Cannabis users are beaten and killed just for being cannabis users.

That’s not to compare the injustice suffered for 350 years by African-Americans whose ancestors were brought over in slave ships to the injustice suffered by a college kid who loses a loan, a blue collar worker who loses a job, or pot smoker who loses their freedom; they aren’t comparable. However, civil rights is not a zero-sum game and we can’t base our rights on perceived degrees of past offense. The right to one’s own mind and body are the ultimate civil right and considering how much the War on Marijuana disproportionately affects communities of color, perhaps it’s time we started thinking of it in a civil rights perspective.

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Friday is Cannabis Community day on the Stash, and coming up after the news, we’re speaking with our regular guest Steve Bloom, the webmaster at CelebStoner.com. We’ll be discussing the new documentary on the Rolling Stones and admissions by Keith Richards that he uses marijuana to stay off heroin. We’ve also got an update on Barack Obama’s smoking habits.

Next, Cannabis Karri has unearthed a tune from a Seattle artists named Aaron English. He’s got a great big song called “Like Smoke” that’s a perfect kickoff to the weekend.

We wrap things up today with comedian Rob Cantrell, who you’ll remember from Last Comic Standing, who is joining us to promote a 420 film festival in Arlington, Virginia on April 20th, of course.

Finally, don’t forget that every Saturday we’re now posting the NORML Weekend Music Stash, where you can get all of the last ten songs from our daily musical breaks in one podcast, suitable for your weekend party pleasure. If you have a band that would like to be featured on our podcast, please send us an email at stash ‘at’ norml.org.

So sit back and relax with your favorite strain and enjoy your NORML Daily Audio Stash…

Topics: Aaron English, CelebStoner.com, civil rights, Martin Luther King Jr., Rob Cantrell

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