889 lines
54 KiB
Plaintext
889 lines
54 KiB
Plaintext
From: esterling@cdp.UUCP
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Newsgroups: alt.drugs
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Subject: Bill of Rights & Drugs Prt I
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Message-ID: <225100338@cdp>
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Date: 3 Jan 91 21:53:00 GMT
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Lines: 301
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Nf-ID: #N:cdp:225100338:000:15604
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Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!esterling Jan 3 13:53:00 1991
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Attention alt.drugs conference users: Many of us are concerned about the
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impact of the war on drugs on our constitutional rights. I was invited by the
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Colorado Bar Association to address it on this subject this fall. For ease of
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transmission, I have divided the text of the speech into three parts. The
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speech was reprinted on 7 pages in VITAL SPEECHES OF THE DAY, Nov. 1, 1990, a
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publication found in many public libraries.
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Part I of III
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"IS THE BILL OF RIGHTS
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A CASUALTY OF THE WAR ON DRUGS?"
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ERIC E. STERLING
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President, The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation
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PeaceNet: esterling
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2000 L St. N.W., Suite 702
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Washington, D.C. 20036
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Tel. 202-835-9075
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Fax. 202-223-1288
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Remarks prepared for
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delivery to the
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COLORADO BAR ASSOCIATION
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92nd Annual Convention
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Aspen, Colorado
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September 14, 1990
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(Revised, November 5, 1990)
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Good afternoon. I'm going to talk to you this afternoon about the "war on
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drugs" and its effects on the Bill of Rights. There isn't any question that
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drug abuse is one of our nation's most serious public health problems. In some
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instances, drug abuse can cause birth defects in babies, mental retardation and
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learning disabilities in children, mental illness in teenagers and adults, as
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well as death and suicide. Addiction to tobacco causes at least 300,000 deaths
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a year and billions of dollars of economic losses. Abuse of alcohol causes some
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100,000 deaths per year, and thousands more crippling injuries.
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The criminal traffic in drugs usually involves violence and murder, brib-
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ery, and tax evasion. Many drug addicts commit theft, fraud, burglary or
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robbery to get the money to buy expensive drugs. There is a tiny criminal
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traffic in alcohol, and crime committed to buy alcohol, in contrast to crime
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committed under the influence, is not great. Obviously, drug abuse and drug
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trafficking are very serious problems.
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This afternoon I'm going to be critical of our war-like approach to the
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drug problem. But that doesn't mean that I think drugs are good. I don't. I
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don't think we can win the "war on drugs," but that doesn't mean we can't be a
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lot more effective in dealing with the drug problem. Basically, we have to
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manage the drug problem -- that is, the distribution has to be regulated and
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policed and subject to the forces of law and order.
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The war on drugs is a war on all of us. Who is the enemy in the war on
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drugs? It is not the drugs because the drugs are mere chemicals. We have a
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war on drugs no more than we have a war on carbon dioxide.
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In the eyes of the government, the obvious enemy is everyone who uses ill-
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egal drugs, and everyone who gives them aid and comfort. Of course, the ob-
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vious enemy includes everyone who buys drugs, who sells drugs, who transports
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drugs, who grows marijuana.
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But there are hidden enemies. The hidden enemy is every person not act-
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ively working to purge drug users from our society. The hidden enemies include
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the employers of people who may use drugs if the employer fails to adopt steps
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to root out drug users -- even if employees are competent and perform well.
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The hidden enemy is every parent of a drug user who fails to turn their
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child over to the police or fails to use every means to coerce their child into
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stopping his or her drug use.
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The hidden enemy is every lawyer who represents a person accused of
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violating the drug law.
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The hidden enemy is everyone who makes or exhibits a motion picture that
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makes jokes about drug use. The hidden enemy is every merchant who sells
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cigarette rolling papers. The enemy hidden is every radio station that plays
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rock 'n' roll from the 1960s and 70s.
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The hidden enemy is our next door neighbor, our bowling buddy or golfing
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partner, our mail carrier, our secretary, our spouse. We are the government's
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hidden enemy.
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When you have a hidden enemy, you need to use extremely powerful weapons.
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As in Vietnam, when you can't find the hidden enemy, sometimes weapons are
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used that injure the innocent. A foundation of our system of justice is that
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it is to protect the innocent. That foundation has been filled by the termites
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of the war on drugs.
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This afternoon let's examine the weapons being used by the government
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against its enemies in the war on drugs and examine the casualty list.
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It is my thesis that among the most tragic casualties in the "war on drugs
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" are our constitutional liberties. To start, let's go through the Bill of
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Rights in the Constitution one-by-one to see how they have been affected by the
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war on drugs.
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The First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establish-
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ment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the
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freedom of speech, or of the press..." "What does the First Amendment have to
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do with drugs?" you ask.
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I want to bring two examples to your attention: the first is the decision
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of the United States Supreme Court, Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith
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(--U.S.--, 110 S.Ct. 1595, No. 88-1213, April 17, 1990). In that case two
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Native Americans were discharged from employment in the drug treatment program
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for which they worked because they used peyote as part of their participation
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in the religious practices of the Native American Church. Peyote is the sacra-
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ment in that church. They applied for unemployment benefits after they were
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fired, and the State of Oregon turned them down. The Oregon Supreme Court,
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however, found that as participants in the Native American Church they had a
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right to use peyote, and said they were entitled to benefits.
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But the Oregon Attorney General, Dave Frohnmeyer, Republican candidate for
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Governor, saw the case differently. In his view, the war on drugs can not
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tolerate drug use. If a drug treatment program demands a "drug-free" staff,
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Native Americans who worship with their sacrament ought to be fired. And an
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appropriate government weapon in the war on drugs is to deny such people
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unemployment benefits.
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Notwithstanding well settled Supreme Court precedents that denial of these
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benefits impermissibly restricts the free exercise of religion, Attorney
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General/gubernatorial candidate Frohnmeyer appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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It is important to stress that peyote is the sacrament in the Native Amer-
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ican Church -- it is used by over 250,000 Native American worshippers. They
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don't consider it a drug anymore than Catholics think of communion wine as a
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drug, or as a refreshing beverage.
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The Supreme Court, 5 to 4, reversed the Oregon Supreme Court, and in the
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process threw out the long-standing doctrine that a State's burden upon the
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free exercise of religion can only be justified by a State "compelling interest
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" that cannot be served by less restrictive means (Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S.
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398, 406 (1963), Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940)). Consider the
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background: the respondents were never prosecuted by Oregon for their use of
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peyote. There is no evidence that anyone has ever been harmed by the religious
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use of peyote. 23 States and the Federal government exempt the religious use
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of peyote from the Controlled Substances Act. Indians who use peyote as part
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of the Native American Church are less likely to abuse drugs or be alcoholic
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than those who do not.
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Here is a case where use of a religious sacrament, because it has been
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classified by law enforcement authorities as a drug, but nevertheless an
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essential component of the way in which people worship and have worshipped for
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hundreds of years, became the basis for denying unemployment benefits. From
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the perspective of the international, multi-billion dollar war on drugs, this
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case was totally insignificant. Unlike crack or heroin, the use of peyote is
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not destroying people, their families, or cities like New York, or nations like
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Colombia.
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Most importantly, this case was a purely a symbolic battlefield in the war
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on drugs. Yet this totally insignificant drug case became the occasion for
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restricting the religious freedom of all Americans by narrowing the applica-
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bility of the Free Exercise clause. Justice Blackmun wrote ironically in his
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dissent, "One hopes that the Court is aware of the consequences, and that its
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result is not a product of overreaction to the serious problems the country's
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drug crisis has generated." (Dissenting Slip Opinion at 2.)
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Justice Blackmun put his finger on the problem: this trashing of the Free
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Exercise of Religion was purely an overreaction to the drug problem, and the
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Bill of Rights was a casualty. As we will see, this result is hardly new.
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Let's look at another way in which the First Amendment is being undermined
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by the war on drugs -- in this instance, the freedom of the press. This summer
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, a magazine about drugs and the drug culture -- High Times -- is being invest-
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igated by the U.S. Attorney in Louisiana for aiding and abetting the illegal
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cultivation of marijuana. The magazine prints a column called "Ask Ed" that
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gives tips on improving marijuana cultivation. High Times is also being in-
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vestigated for printing advertisements for "grow lights," irrigation equipment
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that can be used for growing, among other plants, marijuana, and an advertise-
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ment for "The Seed Bank", a business in the Netherlands that would mail seeds
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for growing marijuana.
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This investigation is not an obscenity case. This is not an investigation
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of an "incitement to imminent lawless action" under Brandenburg v. Ohio
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(395 U.S. 444 (1969)). This is an old-fashioned threat of prosecution for
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seditious writing. This harks back to the dark days of the 1918 Sedition Act
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and the prosecution of filmmaker Robert Goldstein, sentenced to 10 years in
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prison for his unbecoming portrayal of the British (then U.S. wartime allies)
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in a film about the American Revolution, and the conviction of Eugene Debs for
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criticizing Teddy Roosevelt's support of World War I.
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Once again, in the charged atmosphere of war, the fundamental freedom of
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press is endangered.
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The second amendment says, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to
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the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,
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shall not be infringed." Gun control advocates argue that this amendment does
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not guarantee an individual right. (Quilici v. Village of Morton Grove,
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695 F.2d 261 (7th Cir. 1982), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 863 (1983), and U.S. v.
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Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939).) However, having been responsible for Federal gun
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control legislation between 1981 and 1989 and having read many of the law re-
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view articles on the origins and meaning of the Second Amendment (See e.g.
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Stephen P. Halbrook, Ph.D., J.D., THAT EVERY MAN BE ARMED: THE EVOLUTION OF A
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CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT (University of New Mexico Press 1984); To Keep and Bear
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Their Private Arms: The Adoption of the Second Amendment, 1787 - 1791, 10
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Northern Kentucky Law Review 13-39 (1982) reprinted in 131 CONG. REC., 99th
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Cong., 1st Sess., S9105-9111, July 9, 1985); The Right to Bear Arms in the
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First State Bills of Rights, 10 VERMONT LAW REVIEW 255-320 (1985).), I think
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there is an individual right to keep and bear some arms. There are scores of
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millions of Americans who possess a .22 rifle for target practice, a handgun
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for personal or family protection, or a shotgun for hunting. Perhaps there are
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a few such Americans in this room today. I think that such firearms possession
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is protected by the Second Amendment.
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But the extremism of the war on drugs manages to infringe on that right.
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If, after surgery let's say, you use your wife's Valium or your husband's pain
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medication, and the prescription was not issued to you, you are an unlawful
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user of drugs. If you also happen to be exercising your Second Amendment
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rights and possess a firearm in your closet or gun cabinet, your possession of
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the firearm makes you, at that moment, a Federal felon subject to a ten-year
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sentence and a quarter million dollar fine (18 U.S.C. 922(g) and 924(a)(2)).
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This penalty also applies to the millions of American gun owners who use mari-
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juana, even those who live in states for which the penalty for possessing
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marijuana is a minor civil offense as it is here in Colorado. If you receive
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a shotgun for Christmas and accept it, having twice been convicted of possess-
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ion of marijuana or another drug, you are subject to a mandatory five years in
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prison (18 U.S.C. 924(c) and 21 U.S.C. 844(a)).
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The politically manufactured fear (See Kaplan, MARIJUANA --THE NEW PROHI-
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BITION, (1970) 91-146, and materials cited therein.) of the blood-thirsty
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maniac killer of "Reefer Madness," led Congress to prohibit any person who was
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addicted to or used illegal drugs from receiving a firearm. The blunderbuss
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weapon of an overbroad law was created. Thus, millions of Americans, whose
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illegal use of drugs is a minor or technical violation, are felons and potent-
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ial casualties because of their exercise of Second Amendment right to posses
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firearms.
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Incidentally, common sense is also a casualty in the war on drugs. Prison
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is one place we don't want convicts to have firearms. In 1984, a ten year
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prison term was established for possessing or bringing a firearm or bomb into
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a Federal prison. In 1988, Senator Phil Gramm of Texas insisted that the pen-
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alty for bringing heroin, cocaine or LSD into prison be raised from 3 years to
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20 years. Now possession of drugs in prison is twice as serious as possessing
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a firearm or a bomb, rocket or grenade. When the stupidity of this amendment
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was pointed out, the Senator's counsel insisted that it was Gramm's contribu-
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tion to the 1988 Anti-Drug Abuse Act and it had to be in the bill. (18 U.S.C.
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1791(b)(1); P.L. 100-690, sec. 6468(a), (b).
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The Third Amendment prohibits in time of peace the quartering of soldiers
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in any house. You recall, of course, that in the 18th century the King of
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England quartered soldiers in homes to keep an eye on the unruly, disloyal
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colonists. About all the King had were soldiers -- he had few other officials
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to police the behavior of citizens. Police as we know them today were not
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invented until the 19th century. Well, today government mandated urine testing
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is the contemporary equivalent of quartering troops in homes. The disloyal
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person who smokes marijuana in his home Saturday night while watching a home
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video, who is urine tested by government order on Tuesday, suffers the same
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degrading, invasive surveillance as if the King's soldier were sitting there
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in the living room monitoring the citizen's private activity.
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Now the government uses infra red cameras in military satellites designed
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to find the hot engines of enemy vehicles moving at night to look over houses
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in America to find those that show up as excessively warm. This evidence is
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used for obtaining records of electricity use to see if someone might be
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growing something indoors that he or she shouldn't be. Now instead of merely
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stationing soldiers in homes, the war on drugs uses "Buck Rogers" weapons --
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the technology of 21st century warfare -- to look right through the ceiling
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into our homes. The privacy from military surveillance embodied in the third
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amendment is another casualty.
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End Part I of II
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Farimir's Forum (Over 18)] Read:(1-150, Current Msg >:19)
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<W>rite Public Response, <A>nswer privately
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Move to next <B>oard, <Q>uit scan, <?> for options. >
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20/150: The war on drugs and rights PT2
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Name: Faramir #12 @17458
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Date: Sun Apr 07 00:47:46 1991
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From: Gentle Rain Electronic Forum (Southern California)
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Part II of III
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"IS THE BILL OF RIGHTS
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A CASUALTY OF THE WAR ON DRUGS?"
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The Fourth Amendment states that "The right of the people to be secure in
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their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and
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seizures, shall not be violated." Then the amendment spells out the procedure
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for issuing warrants. Every member of this audience who practices criminal law
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knows that every interpretation of this amendment that ever extended the "right
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of the people to be secure" has been reversed in the 18 years since President
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Richard Nixon declared war on drugs. From the first days of the war on drugs,
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new exceptions to the warrant requirements, to the probable cause requirements,
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to the particularity requirements, have been created -- and almost all of these
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have been in drug cases. Those of you who do not practice criminal law, who
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studied criminal procedure in law school ten or fifteen years ago would be
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< >Pause< >//<2F> shocked. Lead cases you knew such as Aguilar v. Texas (378 U.S. 108 (1964)),
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and Spinelli v. U.S. (393 U.S. 410 (1969)), are gone, overruled in drug cases,
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rationalized by the exigencies of the war on drugs. (See e.g. Wisotsky,
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Exposing the War on Cocaine: The Futility and Destructiveness of Prohibition,
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1983 WISCONSIN LAW REVIEW 1305, 1418-1420.)
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The Fourth Amendment has been so watered down that the search of a person
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for evidence of drug use -- without any evidence of drug use, without any ind-
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ividualized suspicion -- is, in the words of Justice Scalia, "a kind of immol-
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ation of privacy and human dignity in symbolic opposition to drug use."
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(National Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656, 109 S.Ct. 1384
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(No. 86-1879, March 21, 1989)).
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By this time, you must be wondering if the Bar Association turned this
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program over to some radicals who cooked up the inflammatory title, "Is the
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Bill of Rights a casualty of the war on drugs?" Well, a fairly conservative
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newspaper, USA Today, on November 15, 1989 entitled its lead, cover story "The
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War on Drugs--Are Our Rights on the Line?" On the cover was a photograph of
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the Broward County, Florida Sheriff manufacturing crack cocaine to sell in
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stings of drug buyers. The subheadline is "Some Worry Police Out of Control."
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The story begins, "As the war on drugs intensifies, there is growing
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concern that the battle is claiming an unintended victim,
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our Constitutional rights. Emboldened by recent Supreme
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Court rulings, police across the U.S.A. are adopting
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aggressive tactics including neighborhood sweeps, no-
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knock searches, reverse stings and property seizures.
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'I've lived through a lot of crime crises but we've never
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gone out of control like this,' says University of
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Michigan law professor Yale Kamisar, an expert on police
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searches."
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"In Detroit, police raided a food market in a drug
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neighborhood, held the owner and seized his profits after
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dogs sniffed cocaine on three one dollar bills in his
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cash register. Quoting Denver Federal Judge Richard
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Matsch, a Nixon appointee, 'I wonder where the United
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States is headed. My concern is that the real victim of
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the war on drugs might be the Constitutional rights of
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the American people.'"
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The Fourth Amendment, in its requirement that warrants "particularly
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describe" the place to be searched and the objects of the search requires that
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the information that sustains a search be recent, Rugendorf v. U.S. (376 U.S.
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528 (1964)), Sgro v. U.S. (287 U.S. 206 (1932)). If an informant tells a
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police officer, "You know, it seems to me that last winter I remember that Joe
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had some marijuana on the table in his living room," it is not permissible to
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rely on that information as the basis for a search today to find marijuana.
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Now consider the case reported in the article in USA Today, from Hudson,
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New Hampshire. At 5:00 a.m., August 3, 1989, police came to the home of Bruce
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Lavoie, 34, a machinist with a wife and three children. Without announcing
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themselves and without evidence that Lavoie might be armed, police smashed the
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door with a battering ram. Police had a search warrant based in part on an
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informant's tip that was 20 months old. "As he rose from his bed, apparently
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resisting the intruders, Mr. Lavoie was fatally shot as his son watched. A
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single marijuana cigarette was found."
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The casualties are not just abstractions, they have children, now orphans,
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who will never feel their father's hugs again, all innocent victims of the war
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on drugs. Incidentally, pickets later defending the police use of deadly force
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carried signs reading, "Druggies have no rights."
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The Fifth Amendment sets forth many rights and procedures including the pro-
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hibition against depriving any person of "life, liberty or, property, without
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due process of law." In the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, Congress created a
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scheme of mandatory sentences in drug cases (which I played a major part in
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drafting). Two levels of mandatory sentences were set forth for transactions
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in quantities of drugs greater than certain threshold quantities which was in-
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tended to give U.S. Attorneys the direction to focus on the highest level
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traffickers, and not waste time on the small fry. Unfortunately the enacted
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thresholds, as watered down by the Senate and in conference, are no longer
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based on the realities of the drug marketplace. They were adopted without
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consideration of their effect in sentencing real defendants, without consider-
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ation of the effect on prison populations, and without study of their potential
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effectiveness in deterring drug trafficking or drug use.
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Now those mandatory penalties are used to coerce plea bargains. They give
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prosecutors the power to say, "Here's your choice: I can charge you with this
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offense which carries a mandatory sentence. If you go to trial and you lose,
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you will get a mandatory 10 years without parole up to life imprisonment for a
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first offense (21 U.S.C. 841(b)(1)(A). (Congress specifically prohibited par-
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ole in these kinds of cases.) Alternatively, if you plead guilty to this less-
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er included offense which only carries a maximum of 20 years, cooperate with us
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by becoming an informant for us, we'll recommend a lower sentence in the guide-
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lines such as five years or something like that (21 U.S.C. 841(b)(1)(C)."
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Very simply, faced with that kind of choice, a guilty plea is coerced, and
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the fifth amendment protection against denial of due process of law is lost.
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Let's think of another example of the erosion of the fifth amendment pro-
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tection. Due process in criminal cases includes the presumption of innocence,
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In re Winship (397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068 (1970)). However, in drug cases,
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Congress granted to the government the power to seize the property of suspects
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in advance of trial. Indeed, in advance of indictment (21 U.S.C. 853(e)).
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Another way in which due process is denied and the accused are unable to
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get a fair trial in some drug cases is by means of the "megatrial." Under the
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continuing criminal enterprise section of the Controlled Substances Act (21
|
||
U.S.C. 848) and RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations
|
||
Statute (18 U.S.C. 1961), there are monstrous trials, in which a score of de-
|
||
fendants are tried together in dozens of counts of indictments alleging hun-
|
||
dreds of different acts. Former Chief Judge Jack Weinstein of the Eastern
|
||
District of New York in his opinion in U.S. v. Gallo spelled out how putting
|
||
many defendants together in a "megatrial" undermines the presumption of inno-
|
||
cence (National Law Journal, Dec. 7, 1988 at 13). If the government accuses
|
||
twenty Italian-American men with being members of an organized crime family and
|
||
requires them to sit together at the same table in a courtroom for half a year
|
||
and presents a continuous stream of testimony about conversations between and
|
||
about Italian surnamed citizens, what jury isn't going to believe that they are
|
||
all members of the "Mafia?" Even when the evidence only applies to a few de-
|
||
fendants, the innocent defendants are the victims of "spillover prejudice."
|
||
|
||
Another megatrial, the "Pizza Connection" heroin trial (U.S. v.
|
||
Badalamenti) in New York, lasted over 17 months. There were something like 21
|
||
defendants. The name of one defendant was not mentioned in the evidence or
|
||
testimony until six months had elapsed. How does someone defend oneself in a
|
||
megatrial? How can a jury process evidence in a complex trial that takes 17
|
||
months and sort the truth from the lies in dozens of counts? How can due proc-
|
||
ess of law be said to exist in that situation? Yet these abuses are being tol-
|
||
erated in the prosecution of the war on drugs. The casualties include thousands
|
||
of accused (including some who are innocent) with good defenses, who rightly
|
||
feared that the risk of conviction coupled with mandatory penalties made a neg-
|
||
otiated guilty plea look more attractive.
|
||
|
||
The Sixth Amendment, among many specific rights, guarantees that "the
|
||
accused shall enjoy the right ... to have the assistance of counsel for his de-
|
||
fence." Yet even such a fundamental right is under attack by the government
|
||
and the courts in the course of the war on drugs. In U.S. v. Morrison (449
|
||
U.S. 361 (1981)), Drug Enforcement Administration special agents knowingly met
|
||
with the defendant, without counsel being present, to denigrate counsel's abil-
|
||
ity and threaten conviction, thus invading and undermining the lawyer-client
|
||
relationship. Yet the Supreme Court said a sixth amendment violation could not
|
||
be established without a "showing of prejudice" to the outcome (in effect re-
|
||
quiring the defendant to lose) -- thus weakening the protection of an individ-
|
||
ual's right to counsel.
|
||
|
||
Congress has also joined the assault on the right to counsel. It gave pro-
|
||
secutors the power to seize the fees of the attorneys who represent the accused
|
||
in drug cases. Justice Blackmun in describing this law said "Had it been Con-
|
||
gress' express aim to undermine the adversary system as we know it, it could
|
||
hardly have found a better engine of destruction than attorney's-fee forfeiture
|
||
." Caplin & Drysdale, Chartered v. U.S. (dissenting opinion, 109 S.Ct. 2667,
|
||
2674 (1989)).
|
||
|
||
In order to seize those fees, the government has begun to issue subpoenas
|
||
to defense attorneys about their fees. This forces the defense attorney to
|
||
become a witness in the government's forfeiture case, and forces the attorney
|
||
to withdraw as counsel. This has been found to give the government the ability
|
||
to eliminate highly competent counsel from trying certain cases.
|
||
|
||
Another frightening example is that the government is demanding and
|
||
attempting to force attorneys to provide it with evidence against their clients
|
||
in circumstances rationalized by the war on drugs, but which involve all types
|
||
of cases.
|
||
|
||
This is the background: under the Currency and Foreign Transaction Re-
|
||
porting Act of 1970 (also known as the Bank Secrecy Act, 31 U.S.C. 5311 et seq.
|
||
), if you went to a bank and made a $10,000 or larger cash transaction, the
|
||
bank had to report that transaction to the Treasury Department. But if you
|
||
bought a large ticket item like a car and paid cash, that did not have to be
|
||
reported to Treasury. Now the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (26 U.S.C. 6050I)
|
||
requires all such cash transactions to be reported to IRS. It enables the gov-
|
||
ernment to get intelligence about people who buy a Mercedes-Benz with $55,000
|
||
in cash. Then the government specifically applied this reporting requirement
|
||
to criminal defense lawyers. The special tax return under this section
|
||
requires extensive detailing of who the customer is and the nature of the
|
||
transaction. Look at how this works for lawyers and their prospective clients.
|
||
|
||
Let's assume that you believe that you may be under surveillance or in-
|
||
vestigation by the government. You keep hearing mysterious clicks on your
|
||
telephone, and you think you are being followed. You go to a famous criminal
|
||
defense attorney for advice and possible representation, and she wants $10,000,
|
||
by no means an unheard of fee. You borrow a few thousands dollars from three
|
||
or four close friends and relatives, you pawn your stereo, and pay the attorney
|
||
the $10,000 in cash you've collected. The attorney however sends the required
|
||
form to the Internal Revenue Service about you. You haven't been indicted.
|
||
You don't even know if you're being investigated. Your attorney sends govern-
|
||
ment investigators a form saying, "My name is Mary Smith, famous criminal
|
||
defense lawyer. I've just been retained by Mr. Jones, who paid me $10,000 in
|
||
cash to represent him."
|
||
|
||
Does anybody doubt that lights and bells will go off at the IRS when that
|
||
report comes in? Of course they will. If there is no investigation pending on
|
||
Mr. Jones, IRS or another Federal agency will put an agent on him right away.
|
||
The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 (sec. 7601(b)) created a major exception to the
|
||
usual rule of confidentiality of income tax information to permit the return
|
||
filed under 26 U.S.C. 6050I to be turned over to any Federal law enforcement
|
||
agency (26 U.S.C. 6103(i)(8)). How can the traditional protection of counsel
|
||
of choice and the right to have counsel continue to exist if counsel are put in
|
||
the position of becoming informants against their own clients?
|
||
|
||
The Washington Post reported on November 15, 1989, that nine hundred lett-
|
||
ers had been sent to criminal defense lawyers around the country by IRS saying,
|
||
"We want more information about your clients." Quite justifiably, criminal
|
||
defense lawyers are in an uproar -- but so should everyone who values the Sixth
|
||
Amendment right to counsel.
|
||
|
||
The war on drugs has also become the pretext for an assault on the crimin-
|
||
al defense bar itself. Sentencing of Federal defendants is pursuant to guide-
|
||
lines promulgated by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, but a judge may impose a
|
||
sentence lower than the stated guidelines by stating the reasons. However, a
|
||
court can impose a sentence below a statutory mandatory minimum sentence
|
||
(which Congress has created almost exclusively for drug cases) only upon the
|
||
motion of the prosecutor that the defendant provided "substantial assistance in
|
||
the investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense
|
||
." (18 U.S.C. 3553 (e)).
|
||
|
||
Consider the temptation upon the defendant awaiting sentence in such a
|
||
drug case to find somebody, anybody, who they can inform against, in order to
|
||
induce the prosecutor to move for a sentence reduction below the mandatory 5,
|
||
10 or 20 years. In fact, many defendants are secretly encouraged by the gov-
|
||
ernment to attempt to incriminate their own defense counsel.
|
||
|
||
The Seventh Amendment guarantees that "In suits at common law, where the
|
||
value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury
|
||
shall be preserved." If you think about it a second, this right is essential
|
||
for protecting other rights. If you want to bring a Federal civil rights case,
|
||
for example, you have a right to a jury trial under the Seventh Amendment. If
|
||
you are the victim of an environmental hazard, or product liability, or any
|
||
kind of case in which you have been harmed, you have a guaranteed opportunity
|
||
to sue.
|
||
|
||
The Sixth Amendment guarantees that criminal trials must be "speedy,"
|
||
consequently they have priority over almost every other matter. Recently a
|
||
Federal Magistrate in Los Angeles told me that in the United States District
|
||
Court for the Central District of California, the volume of drug cases is so
|
||
great the judges are concerned that soon they will be unable to try any civil
|
||
cases. The number of attorneys in the U.S. Attorney's criminal division has
|
||
just been doubled which promises a new influx of drug cases, but few new judge-
|
||
ships are being created. The Supreme Court of Vermont declared a six month
|
||
moratorium on all civil jury trials. (Administrative Directive #17, "Temporary
|
||
Postponement of Civil Jury Trials." January Term, 1990. Signed by all 5
|
||
justices on January 11, 1990, effective January 22, 1990. All civil jury
|
||
trials for which jurors have not been drawn are postponed until after July 1,
|
||
1990. The moratorium was amended on March 28, 1990 when it appeared that the
|
||
legislature would appropriate additional funds.) Many other federal and State
|
||
courts are in a similar bind.
|
||
|
||
How can your right to a civil jury trial -- any kind of civil litigation
|
||
-- be maintained if the docket is jammed with drug cases? Obviously, that
|
||
right is lost.
|
||
|
||
The Eighth Amendment guarantees that "Excessive bail shall not be required
|
||
,...nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." In 1984, in the Comprehensive
|
||
Bail Reform Act, the Congress said that in most felonious drug cases (see 21
|
||
U.S.C. 841(b)), there is a rebuttable presumption that defendants are dangerous
|
||
to the community and can be held without bail (18 U.S.C. 3142(e)). Those pro-
|
||
visions are being used throughout the federal court system to detain accused
|
||
persons before trial. This undermines their ability to work on their defense,
|
||
to assist their counsel and to obtain a fair trial.
|
||
|
||
Regarding the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment: The
|
||
Supreme Court has struck down, as cruel and unusual punishment, the death pen-
|
||
alty for crimes that do not involve an intent to kill (Coker v. Georgia,
|
||
(433 U.S. 584, 1977, rape); Enmund v. Florida (458 U.S. 782, 1982, co-defendant
|
||
in a robbery and murder); Cabana v. Bullock, (474 U.S. 376, 1986, instructions
|
||
to jury require finding an intent to commit murder).; cf. Tison v. Arizona
|
||
(481 U.S. 137, 1987).
|
||
|
||
However, on June 28, 1990 the Senate, by a 66 to 32 vote, adopted the
|
||
D'Amato amendment to S. 1970 providing for the death penalty for a person
|
||
convicted of any drug violation committed as part of a large scale continuing
|
||
criminal enterprise (21 U.S.C. 848(b) and (c)(1) (involving for example 30,000
|
||
kilograms of marijuana, or only 1.5 kilograms of cocaine base, 300 grams of
|
||
LSD, 30 kilograms of heroin, etc.), even where no homicide has been committed.
|
||
While these are significant quantities, by no means are they earth-shaking
|
||
quantities. And considering the purity of the drug is not considered, a
|
||
mid-level operative may be chargeable with a capital offense. When it comes to
|
||
fighting the war on drugs, the Senate is prepared to inflict punishments the
|
||
Supreme Court has held are cruel and unusual. Only the presence of controver-
|
||
sial amendments to ban semi-automatic assault weapons and a provision in the
|
||
House crime bill to allow the introduction of evidence of racial disparity in
|
||
the imposition of the death penalty, combined with the exhaustion of Congress
|
||
in the October 1990 budget deadlock, resulted in the elimination of these death
|
||
penalty provisions in the enacted legislation (S.3266).
|
||
|
||
Unless the political climate is forced to change, it is only a matter of
|
||
time before the death penalty for these types of offenses will be imposed.
|
||
(Parenthetically, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument on November 5,
|
||
1990 in Harmelin v. Michigan (No. 89-7272), on the question of whether the
|
||
Michigan law requiring a sentence of mandatory life in prison without possibil-
|
||
ity of parole for the simple possession of more than 650 grams of cocaine
|
||
constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. The only other offenses in Michigan
|
||
which carry the same sentence are first degree murder, as well as possession of
|
||
cocaine with intent to deliver, and distribution of cocaine.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
[Faramir's Forum (Over 18)] Read:(1-150, Current Msg >:20)
|
||
<W>rite Public Response, <A>nswer privately
|
||
Move to next <B>oard, <Q>uit scan, <?> for options. >
|
||
|
||
21/150: The war on drugs AND rights Pt3
|
||
Name: Faramir #12 @17458
|
||
Date: Sun Apr 07 00:49:42 1991
|
||
From: Gentle Rain Electronic Forum (Southern California)
|
||
|
||
|
||
199/200: Steal this concluding post!
|
||
Name: Midnight Tree Bandit #2 @18407
|
||
Date: Thu Jan 10 08:54:46 1991
|
||
From:*The Vaporboard (Virginia)
|
||
Part III of III
|
||
"IS THE BILL OF RIGHTS
|
||
A CASUALTY OF THE WAR ON DRUGS?"
|
||
|
||
|
||
Let me skip the Ninth and Tenth Amendments for a moment. The Thirteenth
|
||
Amendment prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude, and the Fourteenth
|
||
Amendment, guarantees equal protection of the laws. Those amendments have been
|
||
read to prohibit government behavior which continues the badges of slavery --
|
||
the treatment of African American citizens as second class citizens (See City
|
||
of Memphis v. Greene, 451 U.S. 100, 126 (1981). When the police get the
|
||
license to crack down on suspects as part of the war on drugs, in any community
|
||
. They stop people without any cause whatsoever. In what communities do the
|
||
drag nets take place? You know the answer. Overwhelmingly, it is in minority
|
||
communities. The Los Angeles Times ("Blacks Feel Brunt of Drug War", April 22,
|
||
1990, p.1) has shown that this is the case throughout the nation.
|
||
|
||
Consider the National High School Senior Survey of the National Institute
|
||
on Drug Abuse shows white youth use drugs at higher rates than black youth.
|
||
However, the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
|
||
reported that minority youth detained for drug offenses increased by 71 percent
|
||
between 1983 and 1985. The rate of detention of white youth was stable. This
|
||
is typical of how the burden of enforcement of the drug laws is inflicted on
|
||
Blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans. Even though many more pregnant white
|
||
women use cocaine than pregnant Black women, 80% of all of the arrests of women
|
||
for endangering their fetus or delivering cocaine to their fetus are of Black
|
||
women.
|
||
|
||
The spirit of the 13th and 14th Amendments is violated everyday because
|
||
the police are carrying out the war on drugs much more heavy-handedly in
|
||
communities of color. Equal protection of the law is being denied.
|
||
|
||
Returning to the Bill of Rights.
|
||
The Ninth Amendment provides that "The enumeration in the Constitution of
|
||
certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by
|
||
the people." What are those other rights? Those are every other right.
|
||
|
||
Now, when we think about rights, let's ask, "where do rights come from?"
|
||
Do our rights come from Constitutional amendments? Are those our only rights?
|
||
Or does the existence of our rights precede the First Amendment? Wasn't it the
|
||
Declaration of Independence that said, "we hold these truths to be self evident
|
||
" -- that we are "endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights?"
|
||
|
||
Those rights don't flow from Congress. Uncle Sam doesn't give us our
|
||
rights. We had our rights before the government was created.
|
||
|
||
Consider the right to vote. The Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to
|
||
the Constitution say that the right to vote shall not be abridged on account of
|
||
race or on account of sex. Did those rights come into existence because white
|
||
males suddenly thought it would be a neat idea to give those rights to the rest
|
||
of us? Did those rights come into existence because Congress finally decided
|
||
to vote for them? No. Those rights always existed. They were not recognized
|
||
by the society. But those rights were always there. Was it Black Americans or
|
||
women that changed in 1870 or 1920? No, society changed -- it recognized that
|
||
a right which existed, the exercise of which was being denied, must now be
|
||
guaranteed. Society's recognition of our rights is slow, it evolves.
|
||
|
||
I argue that there is a right to use drugs. Last night a few of you drank
|
||
alcohol -- a drug. Today, a few of you have used nicotine, a drug. We don't
|
||
urine test people to prevent them from using nicotine. We don't lock up the
|
||
nicotine dealers. Most of us have had caffeine today, a very powerful central
|
||
nervous system stimulant. We drink it in very carefully measured dosages,
|
||
usually in common six ounce ceramic cups or ubiquitous styrofoam cups. Coffee
|
||
cups are drug paraphernalia. A wine glass, a beer bottle, they are drug para-
|
||
phernalia. An ashtray is drug paraphernalia.
|
||
|
||
We use drugs in our society legally and illegally to an enormous degree.
|
||
|
||
Why are the drug laws violated by tens of millions of our fellow citizens?
|
||
Because they intuitively know that they have a right to engage in conduct that
|
||
gives them pleasurable sensations even though it is prohibited -- that those
|
||
laws are unjust.
|
||
|
||
Many of us in this audience, probably a majority, recognize a woman's
|
||
right to control her reproductive freedom, to control her reproductive tissues,
|
||
to control her womb. How is the right of all us to control our brains any less
|
||
? Don't we have a right to control our cerebral tissue?
|
||
|
||
To say that exercise of personal control over something so intrinsically
|
||
personal as one's brain and central nervous system is not a right reserved
|
||
under the Ninth Amendment means that the Ninth Amendment is almost meaningless.
|
||
|
||
The Tenth Amendment says that "the powers not delegated to the United
|
||
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved to
|
||
the States respectively, or to the people."
|
||
|
||
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution are re-
|
||
served to the people. Where is the power in Article I, Section 8 of the Con-
|
||
stitution that allows Congress to say, "We declare that your brain is off
|
||
limits to you. You cannot use those cells in your brain that opium can affect,
|
||
or that marijuana stimulates. Your brain is not really yours to control. The
|
||
space between your ears -- that's not really yours to control. We're the
|
||
Congress. That's our space. You are prohibited from using your brain in
|
||
unapproved ways." Is this a power that the Congress has? If so, where did it
|
||
get it and when?
|
||
|
||
Let's think about the First amendment broadly for a moment, and think
|
||
about the policy that underlies the First Amendment. Ultimately, the First
|
||
amendment is designed to guarantee our right to make up our minds. ("Those who
|
||
won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men
|
||
free to develop their faculties . . . . They valued liberty both as an end and
|
||
as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to
|
||
be the secret of liberty. . . ." Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)
|
||
(concurring opinion of Justice Brandeis, joined by Justice Holmes, 274 U.S. at
|
||
375). Brandeis defended the "freedom to think as you will and to speak as you
|
||
think" as "indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth....."
|
||
(274 U.S. at 375).)
|
||
|
||
How do our minds work? As you hear me speaking or if you read this, there
|
||
are biochemical changes taking place in your brain. That's what's happening.
|
||
Your brain is changing chemically. If you remember what I say or wrote, your
|
||
brain has been permanently changed.
|
||
|
||
In fact, what I'm saying is more dangerous than any drug you can take
|
||
-- much more dangerous. You might get angry at your members of Congress for
|
||
deliberately or carelessly embracing a policy that systematically degrades your
|
||
hard won freedoms and liberties. You might protest or take action and chall-
|
||
enge the government. Even though what I'm saying is very dangerous because
|
||
it's affecting your brain, and affects your ability to make up your mind about
|
||
drug laws, what I'm saying is protected by the First Amendment.
|
||
|
||
Do you have a right to listen or a right to read? Even though the First
|
||
Amendment doesn't explicitly say "the freedom to listen shall not be abridged,
|
||
isn't it obvious that you have a right to listen. If so, in material terms
|
||
you have a right to chose to have your brain changed by what you want to listen
|
||
to or what you read.
|
||
|
||
Two centuries ago the King of England did not try to prevent Americans
|
||
from directly using their brains. He did what he could do, which was to punish
|
||
seditious speech and treasonous writings -- things which profoundly influenced
|
||
the minds of revolutionaries through the chemical changes they caused in their
|
||
brains.
|
||
|
||
Today, we know how the brain functions as a biological processor of
|
||
chemicals. But since Congress has by law acted to intervene in your choice of
|
||
brain-effecting chemicals, forbidding you from choosing certain drugs that
|
||
millions of Americans desire, we must ask, "What is Congress' constitutional
|
||
power for doing this?"
|
||
|
||
Congress' legislative powers are set forth in Article I, Section 8 of the
|
||
Constitution. The authority to ban drugs is no longer based on the power to
|
||
tax, as it was from 1914 until 1970. Congress now asserts its power to forbid
|
||
the use of drugs in the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C 801; titles II and
|
||
III of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, Public
|
||
Law 91-513.) is based on it's power to regulate interstate and foreign commerce
|
||
. (United States v. Scales, 464 F.2d 371,373 (6th Cir. 1972); United States v.
|
||
Montes-Zarate, 552 F.2d 1330, 1331 (9th Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 947
|
||
(1978).) Now what, pray tell, does that have to do with your brain?
|
||
|
||
Congress recognized that if you grew marijuana in your backyard for your
|
||
own use, there would be a very strong claim that such activities did not affect
|
||
interstate or foreign commerce. Therefore Congress asserted that "local dis-
|
||
tribution, and possession, nonetheless have a substantial and direct effect
|
||
upon interstate commerce" and declared that it could not "feasibly different-
|
||
iate" or "distinguish" purely intrastate activity with respect to drugs from
|
||
the interstate or foreign commerce in drugs. Therefore, it claimed jurisdiction
|
||
over drugs grown in your backyard, or always possessed by you in local, intra-
|
||
state commerce. (21 U.S.C. 801(3),(4),(5),(6)).
|
||
|
||
Now, is your brain interstate commerce? Is your bedroom interstate comm-
|
||
erce?
|
||
|
||
Consider the implications of this expansion of the Congressional power to
|
||
regulate interstate commerce. Beginning in 1933, Congress at the urging of
|
||
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt asserted an enormously expanded role in
|
||
regulating interstate commerce. Conservatives considered it an almost revol-
|
||
utionary expansion. Only after a number of deaths and resignations, and the
|
||
electoral sweep of 1936 was this enormously expanded claim of Federal power
|
||
under the interstate commerce clause upheld by the Supreme Court (NLRB v. Jones
|
||
& Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1 (1937)).
|
||
|
||
We therefore accepted the expansion of the power of Congress to regulate
|
||
interstate commerce to the maximum. Even if an individual's act is trivial,
|
||
that is irrelevant if it is a type of act, when cumulated with other similar
|
||
acts, might reasonably be deemed by the Congress to have substantial national
|
||
consequences. (See, e.g., Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942); Katzenbach
|
||
v. McClung, 379 U.S. 294 (1964); Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146 (1971)).
|
||
|
||
There was also created the theory that Congress could enact prohibitions
|
||
to "protect" interstate commerce. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938
|
||
excluded from interstate commerce goods made in plants with did not meet Fed-
|
||
eral standards for wages and hours of employees. (This was upheld in United
|
||
States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100 (1941): "Congress, following its own conception
|
||
of public policy concerning the restrictions which may appropriately be imposed
|
||
on interstate commerce, is free to exclude from [such] commerce articles whose
|
||
use in the states for which they are destined it may conceive to be injurious
|
||
to the public health, morals, or welfare..." (312 U.S. at 114).) In the 1960's
|
||
Congress used the interstate commerce power to guarantee civil rights in inter-
|
||
state travel and accommodations. (e.g. Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc, v. United
|
||
States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964)).
|
||
|
||
It is time to consider, where does interstate commerce end? I'm standing
|
||
here in this conference center, a facility of interstate commerce. I'm carry-
|
||
ing an airplane ticket to Washington. My pocket is full of credit cards, tools
|
||
of interstate commerce. However, I spent the night here, I've had a beautiful
|
||
hike, I've had a couple of meals here. Am I actually here in Colorado, or am I
|
||
still in the limbo of interstate commerce? If I am still in interstate comm-
|
||
erce now, when do I leave interstate commerce? Can I ever leave interstate
|
||
commerce? (Notably, Justice Rehnquist suggested that "it would be a mistake to
|
||
conclude that Congress' power to regulate pursuant to the Commerce Clause is
|
||
unlimited. Some activities may be so private or local in nature that they
|
||
simply may not be in commerce. Nor is it sufficient that the person or activ-
|
||
ity reached have some nexus with interstate commerce." Hodel v. Virginia Sur-
|
||
face Mining & Reclamation Assn., Inc., 452 U.S. 264 (1981) (concurring opinion
|
||
at 310). Departing from the post New Deal line of cases he concluded, the
|
||
commerce power "does not reach activity which merely 'affects' interstate
|
||
commerce. There must be a showing that a regulated activity has a substantial
|
||
effect on that commerce." 452 U.S. at 312. (Bold in the original, underlining
|
||
added.) So far, no other justices have joined this argument.)
|
||
|
||
But if I am in interstate commerce, what about those of you who have not
|
||
left your home state to come to this conference. Are you in interstate
|
||
commerce?
|
||
|
||
If interstate commerce can constitutionally be claimed to be the basis for
|
||
anything that Congress wants to regulate, what part of our lives is not reg-
|
||
ulatable by Congress? If Congress can use this power this broadly in the reg-
|
||
ulation of our brains, then the Federal government is omnipotent and the notion
|
||
of constitutional checks and balances is non-existent.
|
||
|
||
If our brain is regulatable as interstate commerce, then certainly our
|
||
wombs and genitals are too, aren't they, and our blood, our heart, our lips,
|
||
our fingers, our eyes, and our ears? Is there any part of us that is not in
|
||
interstate commerce?
|
||
|
||
I believe that at some point the tissues inside our skin must be totally
|
||
outside interstate commerce, or else Congress has unlimited power to tell us to
|
||
do whatever it wants us to do.
|
||
|
||
It is this, it seems to me, that is the most dangerous heart of the war on
|
||
drugs and which strips the Ninth and Tenth Amendments of their meaning.
|
||
Essentially the legal basis for the war on drugs depends upon the assumption of
|
||
total power by the Congress and the Federal Government to regulate the most
|
||
intimate aspects of our lives, the very dreams that we have. And the propa-
|
||
ganda arm of the war on drugs has been successful persuading us to unwittingly
|
||
surrender this vital power over ourselves to the Federal government. Indeed
|
||
the propaganda of the urgency of the war on drugs has been so successful, many
|
||
of our fellow citizens consciously believe we must surrender ourselves for the
|
||
good of the state.
|
||
|
||
Seen in this light, the war on drugs is the corner stone of an as yet
|
||
unbuilt edifice of totalitarianism.
|
||
|
||
Challenging the war on drugs is the most important issue facing civil
|
||
liberties and the preservation of the Bill of Rights.
|
||
|
||
You are lawyers. You know that aside from the questions of due process
|
||
and constitutionally required criminal procedure, the criminal justice system
|
||
is going down the tubes. The American Bar Association issued a special report,
|
||
Criminal Justice in Crisis, which found the criminal justice system is being
|
||
overwhelmed with drug cases. (CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN CRISIS, American Bar Assoc-
|
||
iation, Section on Criminal Justice, Special Committee on Criminal Justice in a
|
||
Free Society, 1988, p.6.) It functions as an assembly line. No longer does
|
||
individualized justice takes place. The attorneys -- prosecutors, defense
|
||
counsel, and judges -- are mere mechanics that keep the machine of arrest and
|
||
imprisonment functioning.
|
||
|
||
I won't discuss today the many serious costs our society is suffering from
|
||
undertaking the prohibition approach to the problem of drugs -- the increased
|
||
crime, the spread of disease, the economic price of enriching organized crime
|
||
by $100 billion per year. I won't analyze our national drug control strategy
|
||
to explain how it cannot succeed in stopping the cultivation and shipment of
|
||
drugs into the United States. Someone who might be indifferent to the hits
|
||
taken by the Bill of Rights, should be alarmed by the problems caused our
|
||
nation by drug prohibition because they effect everyone -- in their pocketbook,
|
||
in their personal safety, in the availability of quality health care.
|
||
|
||
The organized bar, such as the Colorado Bar Association, is one of the
|
||
institutions in the society that is sensitive to the Bill of Rights
|
||
implications of the war on drugs. Next year will be the bicentennial of the
|
||
ratification of the Bill of Rights. Many bar associations are planning programs
|
||
to commemorate the Bill of Rights. Now is the time for bar associations to
|
||
begin to educate the public about the jeopardy our heritage of liberty faces
|
||
from the war on drugs. If the bar fails to do this, who will do it? If no one
|
||
does it, then surely the celebration of the bicentennial of the Bill of Rights
|
||
on December 15, 1991 will be a hollow exercise.
|
||
|
||
It should be obvious that all of these comments do not deny that drug
|
||
abuse is not a terribly tragic situation. As is alcoholism. As are 300,000
|
||
annual deaths from tobacco and cigarette addiction. Those are terrible things
|
||
too. But we are not going to solve any of these problems by allowing the war
|
||
on drugs to make our Bill of Rights into a shattered remnant of the vital
|
||
shield it once was.
|
||
|
||
End Part III of III
|
||
|
||
|
||
|