cannabisnews.com: The Year of Common Sense? The Year of Common Sense? Posted by FoM on February 27, 2001 at 06:35:08 PT By Steve Sebelius Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal This year was shaping up to be the year that Nevada finally started to inject some common sense into its Draconian drug laws, albeit a small, narrowly tailored and entirely conventional bit of common sense. But on an issue that has so long gone without, a single step in the right direction can make up for years of ignoring reality. Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, had reintroduced her bill to reduce the penalty for possessing one ounce or less of marijuana from a felony to a misdemeanor. She'd tried it back in 1999, and it went nowhere. Voters in neighboring California, meanwhile, had overwhelmingly voted to legalize marijuana for medical use, for patients who had cancer, AIDS, glaucoma or other ailments that the drug seems to help. Voters in Nevada, required to twice pass constitutional amendments, had at the end of 2000 reaffirmed their 1998 support of medical marijuana. And buttressing these developments, a commission empaneled by the Nevada Supreme Court last summer also recommended that those caught with small amounts of marijuana be charged with misdemeanors, not felonies. It was a repeat of a 1994 commission recommendation that never went anywhere in Carson City. Everything, it seemed, was going the right way -- assuming you believe that casual marijuana users shouldn't be technically classified as felons, even if most arrests of small time users in Clark County are eventually pleaded down to misdemeanors anyway. And then came Jessica Williams. The former exotic dancer who'd been smoking marijuana before running down six teens doing roadside trash pickup as community service brought the illicit use of the drug to the fore. Day after day, headlines and newscasts explored what effect, if any, the drug had had on her ability to drive, and whether it was responsible for the March 19 accident. Jurors eventually decided not to find Williams guilty of driving under the influence of marijuana; instead, they cited her for driving with a prohibited substance in her blood, which carries the same penalty. That law, Williams attorney John Watkins says, won't stand up on appeal, nor should it. But will Giunchigliani's bill be dragged down because of the Williams case? The assemblywoman says no. "I just don't see it as an issue here," she says. "It really doesn't fit to what we're trying to do." What she's trying to do, she says, is mirror the current practice in Clark County, which is to plead each small-amount case to a misdemeanor anyway. District Attorney Stewart Bell says his office is too busy focusing on violent crime and repeat offenders to worry about casual marijuana users. "It (the Giunchigliani bill) isn't going to make much difference to us," he says. It may be a different story in the rural areas of the state, which have few violent crimes but take offenses like marijuana use a little more seriously. Giunchigliani says the Nevada Division of Investigations, the statewide drug-fighting agency, opposed her bill in 1999. In addition to the "de-felonization" of small amounts of marijuana, Giunchigliani's bill would codify how medical patients get marijuana, including a statewide registry, a criminal background check (to weed out would-be traffickers) and a special card identifying patients eligible to get the drug. She says she has to be careful, because the federal government (which has at least two major agencies, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration, dedicated to fighting drugs) isn't too keen on states that actually exercise the 10th Amendment states' rights doctrine and allow sick people to smoke dope. Although the conventional wisdom is that politicians who take on the drug laws do so at their electoral peril, Giunchigliani isn't worried. "My people know where I stand on this issue. I don't hide it," she says. "It (her bill) doesn't condone (marijuana use). It doesn't advocate drug use. It just says that we don't think you're a criminal just because you have an ounce or less or marijuana." It's a little bit of common sense. But is anybody listening? Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist. His column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at 383-0283 or by e-mail at: Steve_Sebelius lasvegas.comSource: Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV)Author: Steve Sebelius Published: Tuesday, February 27, 2001Copyright: 2001 Las Vegas Review-JournalAddress: P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125Fax: (702) 383-4676Contact: letters lvrj.comWebsite: http://www.lvrj.com/CannabisNews Articles - Las Vegashttp://cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=las+vegas Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #2 posted by Duzt on February 27, 2001 at 08:46:44 PT Jessica What you failed to note is that she didn't practically fall asleep, she did fall asleep. She had been up for over 24 hours, and had a girl with her. There is no doubt she fell asleep, they blamed her falling asleep on the marijuana and MDMA. A warm glass of milk can help a person sleep, next we'll be banning it before driving. I can see it already, "3 kids die after woman, high on milk, falls asleep at the wheel." A minimal amount of common sense tells us that drug laws exist for reason other than that they can be dangerous. We can buy liquid drano at the supermarket, it's more dangerous than every illegal drug mixed together. They want to control us, and the chemicals, it's a trillion dollar industry, that's all this war is about, plain and simple. [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by greenfox on February 27, 2001 at 07:50:09 PT Interesting to note When Steve (of High Times) debated the narc at Kent State, this girl was brought up as an "example" of how dangerous marijuana use is. The narc used her to illistrate the point that marijuana is, indeed, not a victimless crime.However, what this article (and many like it) fail to realize was that she was EXHAUSTED at the time; practically falling asleep at the wheel. She even admitted this in court! However, the papers only pick up what they want to... (not to mention the fact that she was also on painkillers.) But you don't see people lining up to "criminalize" pharmies... hell no. They're too profitable. :)sly in green, foxy in kind-gf (and you know it, too!) 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