NORML Board of Directors member George Rohrbacher sends out this Valentine’s message for Jonathan Magbie, the Patron Saint of Unicorns. See the post at blog.norml.org to read along or push play below to hear George read it to you.

Download: Secret Stash - Register to access

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Related posts

• Stash for Wed, Feb 4, 2009 (3)
• Cannabis Civil Rights (10)
• Workin’ at NORML: We Get Calls… (7)

Download the NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2009-02-04

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Sorry again for the late posting.  Lots of running around to do today and on top of all that, I got sacked from my XM Satellite talk radio show.  It’s the universe’s way of telling me that 100% of my focus needs to be on ending adult marijuana prohibition.  For nearly two years I have been missing our Oregon NORML Cardholders Meetings and it will be exhilarating to return.

Beginning this Sunday, I will be shifting my production schedule to Sunday through Thursday so I can bring you Stash fresh and ontime at 4:20 Pacific each day Monday through Friday.  But that does mean if some news breaks after noon, I won’t be able to cover it until the next podcast.  It’s a sacrifice I’ll have to make, because as a professional pothead, it’s better if I’m not constantly late, ya dig?  ;-{)>

Today’s Stash features the ladies of “The View” discussing Michael Phelps, new polling from Zogby showing almost 3 out of four Americans opposing current DEA raids, and new arrest data from Denver.  Dr. Mitch Earleywine is here to talk about the Phelps story and some research on cannabis and bipolar disorder.  Finally, NORML Board Member George Rohrbacher presents his heart-wrenching essay, “Jonathan Magbie: Patron Saint of Unicorns”.

Related posts

• Stash for Tue, Oct 6, 2009 (0)
• Jonathan Magbie, Patron Saint of Unicorns (0)
• Is Phelps Getting Off Easy? (0)

“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.

Read the rest of this entry by clicking here

Related posts

• Phelps Apologizes for Marijuana Use (18)
• Is Phelps Getting Off Easy? (0)
• 14-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps’ marijuana bong photo (18)

City Settles in Death Of Paralyzed Inmate – washingtonpost.com
The mother of a quadriplegic inmate who died in 2004 after suffering breathing problems at the D.C. jail has reached financial settlements with the District government and his care providers, her attorneys disclosed yesterday.

The settlements were reached in the controversial death of Jonathan Magbie, a 27-year-old Maryland man who was paralyzed from the neck down and used a mouth-operated wheelchair.

Magbie died four days into a 10-day jail sentence for possessing marijuana, which he said he used to ease the discomfort caused by his disability. The jail infirmary, where he was housed for several days, wasn’t equipped with the ventilator he needed to breathe at night.

Magbie’s ordeal began Sept. 20, 2004, when D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith E. Retchin sentenced him to jail after he pleaded guilty to possessing marijuana. D.C. police found a gun and marijuana in Magbie’s pockets in April 2003 after stopping a vehicle driven by a cousin of his. Magbie admitted buying the marijuana, records show.

Magbie’s mother was furious that the judge did not give her son probation, the typical punishment for first-time offenders. Magbie, paralyzed since being hit by a drunk driver at age 4, had no criminal record. Retchin told a judicial commission that she sentenced Magbie to jail because he said he would continue to smoke marijuana to alleviate his pain. She also told the commission that she was unaware that he needed a ventilator to breathe at night. The commission cleared Retchin of wrongdoing.

Judge Judith Retchin killed Jonathan Magbie, just as surely as if she had put a plastic bag over his head.  How do you look at a paralyzed man in pain and decide that keeping him locked up without pain medicine is just the sort of incentive he needs to stop taking his pain medicine?  Magbie’s only crime was being honest to the judge about his medical use.  Had he lied and told her he’d never touch the “demon reefer” again, his lack of criminal record and disability would have gotten him probation (well, maybe – Magbie was black) and he’d be alive today.

It should be noted that the people of Washington DC by a 69% majority approved a measure to allow medical marijuana use.  I guess that means that Bob Barr also helped kill Jonathan Magbie, since he authored the Barr Amendment that killed DC’s medical marijuana initiative, and the Congressmen who approved it by voice vote are accomplices.

Related posts

• What a fabulous Freedom Rally! Now in Washington DC. (3)
• Washington DC’s first hemp store to open soon (0)
• Washington DC enjoying Capitol Hemp (0)