World War Z

I was in the Bay Area in March, and took the time to visit a marijuana speakeasy I'd joined years ago in Oakland.

A local friend and member originally took me there, apparently a boarded-up construction site on a decrepit side street. But a mail slot was hidden in plain view amid a dayglo tangle of graffiti. We tossed our IDs through, smiled for the barely visible camera, and were buzzed in by the friendly proprietor, an affable Filipino. In the blacklit showroom he plied us with bubblehash (an effective sales strategy, I assure you) and quietly explained Oakland's Measure Z, passed with over 65% of the vote, that permitted him--and many others--to operate.

Pretty simple, really.  Measure Z mandates that crimes involving private adult use, sale, distribution and cultivation of marijuana are the absolute lowest priority for law enforcement, below even jaywalking and parking tickets.

Last month--eleven years after Measure Z passed--I returned to the speakeasy. They now operate from a group of rooms hidden within a bookstore, just another storefront among many.

Did you get that?  For eleven years, Oakland has come the closest of anywhere in the nation to full-on, it-might-as-well-be-dandelions legalization--

And the Sky Has Not Fallen.

I could still see it up there.

Oregon legislators, in the meantime, perpetuate the war on marijuana smokers.  They were scheduled to vote yesterday on SB 844 which would have effectively destroyed* both the medical marijuana program passed by voters in 1998, and Measure 91 legalizing marijuana, passed--again, by the voters-- last year.  A flurry of calls and emails delayed that vote, for now.

The so-called supporters of Measure 91 asked us to plead our legislature to preserve isolated bits as though it is some ideal we are trying to attain.

It is not.

Measure 91 was deeply flawed from the outset, but at least, we thought, locked in a reasonable starting point for reform.

We do not bargain away** what little Measure 91 achieves.

Instead--and, I promise, just for starters--we pass Measure Z here, forcing it down the legislative throat, if necessary--

Peace.

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*The press has done an abysmal job reporting on the most damaging provisions of the bill.  For example, it limits the number of patients for whom a doctor may prescribe marijuana.  Federal prohibition effectively scares most physicians away from even putting in writing that marijuana might help their condition.  Most of the roughly 80,000 medical marijuana patients in Oregon will then be cut off, and forced into the heavily taxed recreational stores where prices will be prohibitive, or back to the black market.

**I am sure Alex Rogers has done some good work, but for my tastes, his plea for action yesterday amounts to this.

The Rational Basis Test Isn't

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

Thus spake Denis Diderot, a shining intellectual beacon, to be sure, but he is only partially correct.

He left out lawyers--and, by default, judges.*

Only lawyers will maintain, with straight faces, that Congress' classification of marijuana as a dangerous addictive substance with no use whatsoever is rational.

Yet this is precisely what government lawyers argued: that so long as Congress could rationally believe that their total ban on marijuana might effect (as in accomplish) the legitimate Congressional interest in promoting public health, then it does not matter if that belief is based upon bad information.

I know it sounds batshit crazy, but it is the sort of thing lawyers argue about in Constitutional-level cases every goddamned day.  Quoting from a government brief:

Rational basis review does not permit the Courts to ‘second guess’
Congress’ conclusions, but only to enjoin decisions that are totally
irrational or without an ‘imaginable’ basis.

In other words, Congress can be wrong about marijuana, demonstrably wrong, stupendously wrong, contradicted by overwhelming scientific evidence--but for the law to be constitutional under the rational basis test, Congress need only demonstrate that it believes the wrong science. (Judge's order here, if you care.)**

I propose we amend Diderot's quote to read

Humanity will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest--and force-fed--(wafer thin mint-style)--to the last lawyer

Peace.
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* There's an old joke among litigators: What do you say to an attorney with an IQ of 98?
"Your Honor, I object--" 

**In previous posts I indicated this case was before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, but I was wrong.  Judge Mueller sits on the District (trial) court for the Eastern District of California. The NORML lawyers will certainly appeal this result--and that case will be before the 9th Circuit.

On the Edge of My Seat

Update:  Judge Mueller rules Controlled Substances Act Constitutional.  This means the good guys lost. More, after I have a chance to analyze the opinion.
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Today is April 15, and 9th Circuit Judge Kimberly Mueller is about to tell us whether Congress' classification of marijuana as a Schedule I drug violates the U.S. Constitution.

I've been waiting on amphetamine tenterhooks, as it were, to see just what the hell is going to happen. No matter how the judge rules, I believe the NORML lawyers on the case (Zena Gilg and Heather Burke) will happily appeal it all the way to the SCOTUS if necessary.

Meanwhile, Congress appears to be on the verge of placing marijuana in Schedule 2--the same class as cocaine and hillbilly heroin.

If I understand NORML's position (and I probably do), Schedule 2 could also be unconstitutional, essentially because the science is overwhelming that marijuana is both non-toxic and non-addictive, key components of the Schedule 2 designation.

In the meantime, formerly pot-free zones like Oklahoma and Indiana suddenly have legal weed in their midst.  In Oklahoma, where a seed can get you jail time there are Indian Reservations, sovereign nations where Congress has just deemed it will allow marijuana cultivation and sales--

Indiana, on the other hand, blissfully (from cloistered white middle-America standards) free of Injuns, was myopic enough to pass the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), effectively granting businesses the "right" to discriminate against people if they want to--

But emphasizing first-amendment religious freedom opens the door to marijuana use as a religious sacrament, and a minister in Indiana has already jumped at the chance.

The Oregon legislature, meanwhile, seems hell-bent on continuing the War Against Marijuana, albeit with larger exemptions: the Oregon Liquor Control Commission has already requested armed police to enforce marijuana laws (how long before someone is gunned down or beaten senseless at a pot shop with their hands up in surrender?), swearing they won't use that authority to go door-to-door making sure you don't exceed four plants or eight ounces; just trust them. 

Don't know about y'all, but my days of trusting cops are long over, and the legislature and OLCC have likewise proven themselves unable to effect the Will of the People. 

Marijuana is not a dangerous drug, and indeed is not a drug at all.  It is SO SAFE, in fact, that it is impossible to name a single substance that is safer to ingest.

Alcohol?  Don't make me laugh.
Acetaminophen? Nope.
Aspirin?  Nope. 
Plain water? Wrong again--

Wait--marijuana is less toxic than drinking freakin' water?

'Fraid so.

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Judge Mueller held a five-day evidentiary hearing on the safety of marijuana, and postponed her ruling once already.  Some take this as a sign she is writing an extensive rationale for her decision, something only necessary if she rules the law unconstitutional.

The contents of that hearing--win or lose--is the basic science we will use to achieve true legalization.

Updates on this--and on the grow-adventure thread--soon.

Peace.