I'll harp on this issue again: no government has the right to tell its citizens what they can put into their bodies.

I'll extend this comment to say that no government official has the right to tell its citizens what they can keep in their own homes. If I want to keep a basement full of decapitated mannequins strapped into medieval torture devices and covered in pigs blood, that's my right because it's my basement (although putting actual live people in such devices without their consent would be obviously against the law because then I would be imposing upon the rights of another human being). Anyone else would have the right to call me names and write articles in the paper about what a sick and depraved person I am to keep such things in my basement, but forcibly removing said items from my basement would be an imposition on my right to do in my home what I want to do there.

The same is true for cactus buttons. If the Kubbys want to fill their entire guest room with cactus buttons, that is their right. It wouldn't interfere with anyone else's rights in any way.

I could say that Bill Lockyer is wrong to pursue a felony charge for Steve Kubby's alleged possession of these items, but such a statement would be inadequate. The state of California is wrong for imposing such a law upon its citizens in the first place, and the federal government is wrong to set the precedent of imposing such laws.

In a free society, there are no anti-drug laws. Period.

Not only do the Kubbys claim that they have never seen this alleged peyote button, but the "conviction was for possession of mescaline." This is absurd! The conviction should be overturned: "The mescaline had been extracted from the cactus buttons by an expert for the prosecution," not by Steve Kubby, or even by an unsuspected guest.

Next, they will be charging people with possession of LSD, a Schedule One Psychedelic, because the police "found" a piece of moldy bread with ergot fungus, or a packet of morning glory seeds for the garden. Don't you know, LSD can be "extracted by an expert for the prosecution" from these innocent items?

Or what about that poppy seed bagel? Opium can be "extracted" from a poppy seed "by an expert for the prosecution," and worse still morphine can be "extracted" from that opium "extracted" from that poppy seed "by an expert for the prosecution."

What's the matter with Attorney General Bill Lockyer? He appeals to Judge Charles Breyer to be lenient with Ed Rosenthal, and then, tries to crucify Steve Kubby.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=%2Farts%2F2003%2F06%2F22%2Fboboo22.xml

Here's an excerpt:

"Booth has no axe to grind, and treads a scrupulous path between the claims of anti-drug propaganda and hippie myth, but the weight of evidence finally forces his hand. The politics of cannabis, he concludes, have been driven by a Big Lie of almost Stalinist proportions, which has had a far more detrimental effect on medicine and the hemp fibre industry than on recreational drug consumption."