cannabisnews.com: Making War On Free Speech 





Making War On Free Speech 
Posted by FoM on June 09, 2000 at 23:03:07 PT
By Alan Bock
Source: WorldNetDaily
Civil liberties advocates at WorldNetDaily and elsewhere can be pleased and grateful that a certain amount of lobbying and agitation seems to have gotten the "sneak and peek" search without notification provisions out of the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act (S. 486/H.R. 2987). But the bill, which passed the Senate unanimously, still contains limitations on free speech that are breathtaking in their breadth. 
The shocking thing is that such an effort to control speech could have been introduced and passed through the Senate so casually, as if the First Amendment were some sort of historic artifact to which legislators need pay no never-mind. Not to mention that few interest groups beyond the hard-core drug press seem to have paid more than casual attention to the proposed crackdown, and the mainstream press seemed not the least bit interested even in reporting on it, let alone viewing it askance. S. 486 includes a provision that makes it a federal crime "to teach or demonstrate the manufacturing of a controlled substance, or to distribute by any means information pertaining to, in whole or in part, the manufacture or use of a controlled substance." Wow. The declared intent of the provision is to prevent the publication on the Internet of instructions on how to make methamphetamine. But the language is so broad that it could criminalize almost any published speech about illegal drugs. Perhaps including some passages from my forthcoming book on the politics of medical marijuana, which includes alternatives to smoking that I have seen demonstrated with patients. Could it apply to advice from a doctor who writes in a newsletter or goes on the radio to warn about how certain other substances interact with illegal drugs? Even if the intention of the doctor is to discourage the use of illegal drugs by pointing out their dangers, could he get in trouble if he talks or writes about the dosages at which a drug becomes especially dangerous (perhaps implying to censorious souls that usage at a lower dose is hunky-dory?) or explains how the use of an illegal drug becomes even more dangerous in combination with another drug? The Controlled Substances Act, one should remember, covers not only drugs on Schedule I, which it is illegal under federal law for a doctor to prescribe or for anyone to use. It also covers common prescription drugs like Valium and Tylenol with codeine. Could it become a federal crime to talk or write about how they are manufactured? Marijuana is a controlled substance, stubbornly and unscientifically kept on Schedule I by federal drug warriors. Yet voters in California and six other states -- and the state legislature in Hawaii -- have authorized its use by patients with a recommendation from a licensed physician. None of those laws has been challenged in federal court by the federal government or anybody else, so presumably they are valid as state laws, and thousands of patients are now using cannabis. Yet, as Barry McCaffrey and others keep reminding us any use of marijuana is still illegal under federal law. Could this bill make it a federal crime to give advice to patients as to how they can minimize the risks involved in using a medicine declared legitimate in six states with more than 20 percent of the nation's population? If the words "manufacture or use of a controlled substance" mean anything, it just might. Heck, it might make those voluminous information leaflets that come packed with many prescription medicines, explaining how they should be used and warning of side effects and interactions with other drugs in great detail a federal crime. Although the ACLU and the American Booksellers Association saw some dangers and lobbied against the speech infringements, hardly anybody else paid much attention. And mainstream publishers might not be at much risk. But publishers on the fringes -- the very people the First Amendment was designed to protect -- might be very much at risk. And there's little question that a limitation on speech or writing about manufacture and use would spill over into restrictions on political speech as well. High Times magazine celebrates marijuana and includes user tips on how to grow and process it, along with numerous articles about the insidiousness of the drug war. But it might be that the "consumer tips" are the main reason many people buy the magazine. If those were excised, would the magazine -- which has bankrolled a perfectly legal and legitimate effort to get marijuana rescheduled that is currently bouncing around in the caves of the bureaucracy and has done some of the most solid reporting on abuses of power by government agents to be found -- be able to survive economically? That such a sweeping limitation on free speech, such a clear and obvious violation of the First Amendment could pass the Senate unanimously and evoke barely a news story, let alone a murmur of dissent from the "respectable" media is another example of just how pervasive the Drug War Exception to the Bill of Rights has become. This particular assault on the Fourth Amendment might have been halted (or perhaps just stalled), but demands from law enforcement for ways to carry out drug war have already driven gaping holes through our Fourth Amendment protections against unwarranted search and seizure. The Fifth Amendment requirement that property can only be taken by the government through due process and with just compensation has been made a joke with federal asset forfeiture laws, which even after reform are so broad that peoples' property can be seized without them ever having been convicted of a crime or even formally charged with one. There's a reason such violations of constitutional rights are virtually inevitable so long as the federal government thinks it has to conduct a War on Drugs. Use of drugs is almost always a private act done in private places, as are sales of drugs and the laws increase the incentives to make them as private as possible. When the "crime" of selling a drug takes place there is almost never a complaining victim, as in a burglary, to go to the police, provide as much information as possible to lead to the arrest of the perpetrator, and to hound them if they don't do anything about it. In order even to make an arrest on a drug crime, therefore, police must find ways to penetrate private places through use of undercover agents, sting operations, no-knock searches and "dynamic entries" which have given federal agents plenty of practice at the kinds of skills they needed to seize young Elian Gonzalez. None of this is consistent with the system of recognized individual rights -- rights to be protected rather than constantly violated by the government -- that was contemplated by the founders. And, indeed, I haven't found anybody who can tell me where, in a government of enumerated (and therefore limited) powers, the U.S. Constitution gives the federal government the legitimate power to ban the possession of certain substances. In the early part of the 20th century there was enough residual understanding of and respect for the constitution that everybody acknowledged that a constitutional amendment would be required to prohibit beverage alcohol. Why isn't an amendment required to prohibit marijuana? The U.S. Constitution never contemplated that the federal government would ever have the power to legislate prohibition against drugs or other substances (though some states, depending on particular constitutional provisions, might have such authority). It's no wonder, then, that to conduct the War on Drugs requires that various provisions of the constitution be shredded or reduced to ineffectiveness.Alan Bock is senior editorial writer and columnist at the Orange County Register, Senior Contributing Editor at the National Educator, a contributing editor at Liberty magazine and author of "Ambush at Ruby Ridge." Published: June 9, 2000© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.  Related Articles:Knowledge Control - Reason Magazinehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5990.shtmlPolitical Opposites Attract In House Drug-Bill http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5987.shtmlFederal Anti-Ecstasy Bill Extends Zero-Tolerancehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5971.shtmlDrug-War Casualtieshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5964.shtmlDrug War a Failure http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5963.shtmlReject Meth Bill http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5957.shtml
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Comment #8 posted by joel mcconnell on May 21, 2001 at 08:23:29 PT
people smoking marijuana
people smoke so much damn weed, including me, that if they legalize weed or not it is still going to be smoked, eaten, and growed.about 30% of people at my school smoke and over the years the numbers are gonna go up because getting high is so fun
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on June 11, 2000 at 21:22:07 PT
Hi Freedom!
Hi Freedom! You just seem to disappear for a long time and then show up. Don't make yourself so scare. It is really complicated trying to keep up with what they are doing. I love the Internet and the way they can't hide things from us very easily any more! Power to the people!!!!Peace, FoM!
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Comment #6 posted by Freedom on June 11, 2000 at 20:09:46 PT
Hmmm...
  Hi Fom, There is so much going on, who could be on top of it all?I had read that Rep. Barr had the provision stripped from the House version of the Anti-Meth bill, but that is all I have read. The article I am relying on is the one you linked last, Bill is a Sneak Attack on Our Digital Liberties.I hope you are right. On a positive note, there are quite a few gun-loving marijuana-despising social conservatives I have witnessed getting quite irked by this provision.Can't have too many friends. We keep saying that we will all lose our freedom to this ideology of zero tolerance. Situations like this make it clearer to the naysayers.
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Comment #5 posted by FoM on June 11, 2000 at 19:02:36 PT
Bankrupcy Bill Info.
Hi Freedom & MikEEEEE,Here is a little on The Bankrupcy Bill. I thought that the Sneak n Peek part of The Bankrupcy Bill was removed but I wasn't able to find where I read it so I'm not sure.Peace, FoM!ACLU Urges Congress to End Use of Secret Evidence http://www.aclu.org/news/2000/n052300a.htmlThe ACLU's Testimony is Available At:http://www.aclu.org/congress/l052300a.htmlThe most immediate threat this time appears to be in the bankruptcy legislation, which goes by the designation HR 833. The House and Senate have passed differing versions of the bill, and it is now in conference committee. There, lawmakers might still be persuaded to strip out the secret search proposal and other attacks on the Bill of Rights, which appear to have been copied wholesale into the Senate version from an unrelated anti-drug bill that's not quite as far along in the legislative process.In a section titled ``Notice; Clarification'' the bankruptcy and anti-drug bills say that ``Section 3103a of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new sentence: `With respect to any issuance under this section or any other provision of law (including section 3117 and any rule), any notice required, or that may be required, to be given may be delayed pursuant to the standards, terms, and conditions set forth in section 2705, unless otherwise expressly provided by statute.' ''That obscure language, according to experts who've studied it, would dramatically expand the government's authority to conduct what are called ``sneak and peek'' searches.Bill is a Sneak Attack on Our Digital Libertieshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5821.shtml
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Comment #4 posted by MikeEEEEE on June 10, 2000 at 18:51:16 PT
Really Sneaky
This policial system is really fu!ked up when these guys are sneaky weasels, they sneak stuff into bills hoping it passes. What really amazes me is that they keep doing it, it will be a very sad day if they succeed.
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Comment #3 posted by Freedom on June 10, 2000 at 15:13:13 PT
One problem.
Sneak-n-peek is also in the Bankruptcy Reform Act, which is already in conference.
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Comment #2 posted by kaptinemo on June 10, 2000 at 07:24:59 PT:
Shock Therapy
Holland is justly famous for a lot of things, not the least of which is her artwork. If you travel to Amsterdam and just spend all your time in the 'cafes' without checking out the sights like the Rijksmuseum, IMHO you've wasted a good part of your trip.But there's a piece of sculpture that never gets much play anywhere in the world, perhaps because of it's message: Between two giant glass panes is a large fly. Surrounding it is a hand that seems about to crush it... but doesn't. Beneath it, inscribed in the stone, is the word, "Tolerance".No nation has ever been able to completely eradicate drug usage. Not even Communist China (which oddly enough, gets high marks from our Red-baiting "Conservatives" for her methodology of brutalizing and murdering addicts; fascist envy, perhaps?).Despite the absolutely vicious crackdowns before and after the rise of the Communists, there, they had as much luck as stopping the sunrise. In Beijing and (in supreme irony) Shanghai, their nouveau riche class is developing a taste for odd alkaloids that their opium puffing grandfathers would have found quite familiar, indeed. But every nation tries.Some nations make a realization that to tolerate a small 'evil' of having certain drugs present but under controlled conditions (restricted sales to adults, no public usage or usage confined to certain areas, etc.) has proven to be much more efficacious than outright banning. Which invariably leeds to the greater evil of totalitarian control. The reason that some nations are able to do this is largely historical: they have either suffered through the tragedy of home-grown fascism or had that system imposed upon them from outside, such as happened in Nazi occupied countries. They know all too well the terrible truth of the adage that The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions The Nazis didn't think of themselves as evil; they thought of themselves as being noble crusaders. They thought their chief enemy weren't human beings but sub-human vermin, to be disposed of in the same way you would with annoying insects. And tens of millions died in their Holy War. Our DrugWarriors feel the same way about *you and me*; is it any wonder why they behave the way they do? And why, despite some protestaions here about the analogy (some taking umbrage that to lump DrugWarriors in with Nazis is to somehow insult the memories of those who perished in the Holocaust) it remains quite valid? Because, ultimately, the *intent is the same: eradication of both behavior and those seen fostering it*.Nations that have not yet experienced the degradation of civil liberties and the horrors that inevitably follow are often smug and judgemental about those nations that have. They often think that they wil not succumb to the siren song of fascism. And they view those nations with a more liberal viewpoint on such matters as drug usage as being "soft" and "permissive". They fail to realize in their ignorance and zeal that those nations viewed as "permissive" have learned a very hard lesson indeed: that tolerance is better than having a jackboot crushing your throat, while the owner of said jackboot smiles down at you and says it's for your own good.The Anti-Meth Bill might just be the shock therapy America needs before it slides down that slippery slope to fascism. Because if enough people wake up to it in time, we just might avoid History's scrapheap, where the bones of other nations that forgot that lesson are located.I hope so. I sincerely do.
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Comment #1 posted by dddd on June 10, 2000 at 00:11:46 PT
good article
 I like the strangely obvious point;"In the early part of the 20th century there was enough residual understanding of and respect for the constitution thateverybody acknowledged that a constitutional amendment would be required to prohibit beverage alcohol. Why isn't anamendment required to prohibit marijuana?" It's a good basic example of the new age of a corrupt,outlaw and criminal majority amongst our "elected officils". This new era of demockassee,has gradually gone from "not good",to "quite fu*ked!"....dddd 
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