Lately, the first thing I do when I receive my local newspaper is go to the police report section and despair because I am seeing way too many of these every week.
John Doe, 19, Ruratania, arrested for possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia, June 23
This young man’s life has now been put behind the 8-ball. If he chooses to fight the charge, here in Iowa he will loose as the “back the blue” is strong in this state. The likely outcome in this case will be he pleads guilty and gets off with a fine after they stick him in the county jail for a few days to prove a point. But what if he doesn’t have the money for the fine? What if he looses his job because he missed work while in the county lockup? The median income in this town is $31k and you know very well a 19 year old is not earning anything close to the median income. Given these realities any fine will instantly be the source of financial hardship, one which will be hard to climb out from underneath.
The majority of drug possession convictions in the State of Iowa are marijuana related. So it is no Herculean jump to assume this dude had a small baggie of weed and a pipe or papers in his pocket or in his vehicle. There is no mention of OWI charges or speeding so the cops clearly had no proof that what was in his pocket was threatening the lives of others. This begs the question of how the police came about knowing he was in possession of a “controlled substance” if there were no other extenuating circumstances? Was the search and seizure legal? If not, how does a young teenager acquire quality legal representation to expose any 4th Amendment violations? Answer, he does not and any cycle of policing abuse continues and will appear in newspaper next week but this time it will be Jane Doe.
There is no mention of drugs, substances, intoxicants, plants or even spirits in the Constitution. They actually tried adding that once with prohibition, but it didn’t go well, clearly. By what authority can the state presume control over plants? Why some plants and not others? Spooner makes this point in his letter to Grover Cleveland:
And why are the lawmakers dangerous to “our liberty”? Because it is a natural impossibility that they can make any law—that is, any law of their own invention—that does not violate “our liberty.
The law of justice is the one only law that does not violate “our liberty.” And that is not a law that was made by the lawmakers.
By the stroke of a pen bureaucrats have classified marijuana as a Schedule I drug, which is defined as the following:
Schedule I Controlled Substances have no accepted medical use and high potential for abuse. Other drug schedules, such as Schedule II and Schedule III, may be legal for certain medical uses but it’s illegal to possess them or use them without a prescription. Misusing any substances—whether illegal drugs or legal—can have detrimental consequences on your physical and mental health.
I’ll save the “no accepted medical use” for later, but what about the rest of this definition. The term “abuse” is not directly defined, but is implied as a misuse of a substance that can have detrimental consequences on an individuals physical and mental health. Under that definition all college fraternities or dorms should be classified as drug dens or shooting galleries. But why limit the definition to “substances”. Climbing up a ladder without having someone hold it can have detrimental consequences on your physical health. Working late, ignoring the family, not finding a healthy work-life balance can have detrimental consequences on your mental health. Obviously, these classifications are arbitrary and as such basing the entire assumption on what “can” happen is a whole bunch of woulda-coulda-shoulda.
The bold conclusion that marijuana has no medical use is nothing short of peddling in falsehoods. For decades it has been common knowledge in the medical community that compounds in marijuana have immediate medical benefits for cancer patients especially those undergoing chemotherapy. For arthritis sufferers, which according to the CDC account for 22.7% of Americans, not only does marijuana provide pain relief but also acts as an effective anti-inflammatory allowing for the reduction or elimination of NSAIDs which require constant medical supervision and testing to avoid liver damage. Studies have also proven pain-relief for endometriosis, fibromyalgia and all those that suffer from migraines which according to recent studies effects over 35 million people in the United States, and approximately 1 billion sufferers worldwide, making migraines #3 on the list of most common diseases worldwide.
Which brings us back to our teenager, John Doe from Ruratania, IA. This young man now faces both legal and financial hardships. Odds are high his 4th Amendment rights were violated by a questionable illegal search and with a drug charge on his record he will be denied his rights to purchase a firearm or exercise his 2nd Amendments rights. Quite literally an illegal law based on false medial assumptions written by unscrupulous authoritarians could result in his death because he has been denied his right to self-defense. You may criticize me for jumping to conclusions about John’s fate, but I am just following the same logic of supposition that the State has used to justify an unconstitutional law made by illegitimate lawmakers that sought no justice, only control. Remember, it's just a plant for f*** sake.