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| Kidwell Case Proves MMJ is First Amendment Issue! |
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Posted by FoM on July 10, 1999 at 17:25:07 PT Author: Jim Rosenfield Source: LA Times 
Your June 24 article about courageous medical marijuana activist Joe Kidwell includes the question, "Since when is marijuana use a First Amendment issue?" When millions of Americans have been intimidated into silence on this issue, marijuana use, the primary target of the drug War, is highly controversial and certainly political.
We have the right to discuss openly the public policies about our bodies, our privacy, our minds and our chemistry. In 1996, voters of California overwhelmingly.approved medical marijuana, yet Kidwell has faced harassment, prosecution and official intimidation for using, growing and speaking about it. Kidwell should never have been brought to trial. While the judge now accepts his right to use marijuana, he is forbidding Kidwell to grow it, despite the fact that cultivation is specifically permitted under the law. The judge's forbidding speech about this topic shows that marijuana is a profoundly political issue. This is a plain violation of the Constitutional right to free speech in an area that badly needs discussion, The phenomenally expensive war on drugs has totally failed to help any drug addicts or to make anyone safer. The resulting black markets have brought us massive organized crime, mountains of official corruption and the world's largest prison population. Murderers walk to make room for potheads. Denying Kidwell's fight to speak on this topic amounts to clear political repression and it must be stopped in Santa Monica. Jim Rosenfield Judge Matthew's Reefer Madness Ruling - June 24, 1999 Newshawk: Cryote http://www.ourtimes.com/home/ourtimes/santamonica/ Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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