by Sean Cockerham, Anchorage Daily News, (Source:Anchorage Daily News) 22 Jan 2005 Possession: A Bill to Outlaw Small Amounts for Personal Use Is Before the Legislature. JUNEAU -- Gov. Frank Murkowski on Friday asked the Legislature to overrule a court ruling that adult Alaskans have the right to possess marijuana for personal use in their homes. Murkowski introduced a bill that challenges the state court's ruling and that would significantly tighten other state marijuana laws -- making a lot more pot crimes into felonies. "The Legislature finds that marijuana poses a threat to the public health that justifies prohibiting its use in this state, even by adults in private," the bill declares. Everyone expects the fight to go back to the courts if the Legislature passes the bill. The ruling that made at-home pot possession of up to four ounces legal for personal use was based on the right to privacy in the state constitution. The Legislature cannot change the constitution without a statewide vote. But the governor hopes the bill and hearings over it will show the courts that pot is a lot more powerful than it used to be and that the state has an overriding interest in forbidding it. William Satterberg, the Fairbanks lawyer who argued the case that toppled the state prohibition on at-home pot, said he doesn't think the courts will backtrack. "Unconstitutional still remains unconstitutional no matter what the Legislature thinks," Satterberg said. The Alaska Supreme Court in September let stand a lower court ruling last year that adult Alaskans have the right to possess up to four ounces of marijuana in their homes for personal use. The lower court based its opinion on a 1975 decision, known as Ravin v. State, which declared the strong right to privacy from government interference that is guaranteed under the Alaska Constitution outweighed any social harm that might be caused by the small at-home use of marijuana by adults. Ravin remained the law in Alaska until 1990, when voters passed an initiative outlawing all amounts of marijuana. But last year's court ruling said a constitutionally protected right -- in this case at-home pot -- cannot be taken away by an initiative. Murkowski argues that marijuana is a lot stronger and more harmful nowadays than in 1975 when the courts said the right to privacy outweighed the social harm. The governor said the bill he introduced Friday will help the state make it clear to the courts that this is the case. "The bill would provide a forum for the Legislature to hear expert testimony on the effects of marijuana and to make findings that the courts can rely on," the governor said in a letter to lawmakers. Rep. Norm Rokeberg, R-Anchorage and a member of the House leadership, said the court overruled the will of the Legislature and Alaska voters when it declared some at-home use of marijuana to be legal. He said he expects the Legislature will be interested in taking a good look at Murkowski's bill. The bill would also make possession of more than four ounces of pot a felony. The felony cutoff under current law is a pound. The bill would also make it a felony to give or sell any marijuana to anyone under the age of 21. The Alaska public defender's agency said it would need another $160,000 a year in state funds to meet its increased workload under the bill. "We handle 500 misdemeanor drug cases, primarily involving marijuana," the agency said in a written statement. "At least half of these would become felonies. Felonies take more work than misdemeanors." [size=-1]Pubdate: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 Source: Anchorage Daily News (AK) Copyright: 2005 The Anchorage Daily News Contact: letters@adn.com Website: http://www.adn.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/18 Author: Sean Cockerham, Anchorage Daily News Note: The text of the bill is at http://www.legis.state.ak.us/PDF/24/Bills/HB0096A.PDF Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Ravin[/SIZE]
By Matt Volz, Associated Press Source: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner Juneau -- Stymied by the courts, Alaska's governor is looking for other ways to toughen Alaska's anti-marijuana laws. Pot laws are looser in Alaska than just about anywhere else in the country. Possessing small amounts of the drug for personal use is a privacy right protected under the state's constitution, the Alaska Supreme Court has upheld. Alaska is one of 11 states that allows the use of medical marijuana. Republican Gov. Frank Murkowski wants state lawmakers to re-criminalize the drug, asking them to consider evidence of the marijuana's dangers that he contends should trump the right-to-privacy rulings. The "Alaska Supreme Court has shown an unwillingness to reconsider the latest scientific evidence on the harmful effects of marijuana," Murkowski wrote to Senate President Ben Stevens in introducing his proposed legislation. "A rational evaluation of marijuana's harmful effects must occur, and the Legislature should do that--not the courts." The state's marijuana laws have been shaped by 30 years of court decisions and voter referendums. In 1975, the state Supreme Court made it legal for adult Alaskans to possess a small amount of marijuana in their homes for personal use in the case of Ravin v. State. In 1990 a successful voter initiative criminalized all amounts of pot. Then in 2003, the Alaska Court of Appeals reversed that in the case of North Pole resident David Noy. The court said privacy rights guaranteed in the Alaska Constitution can't be taken away by voters or legislators. The Supreme Court declined the state's request last September to reconsider the Noy case, setting the legal possession limit at 4 ounces of marijuana. Bill Satterberg, the Fairbanks attorney who filed the Appeals Court petition in the Noy case, says the debate has swung from one side to the other, but the appellate court's decision in Noy strikes a balance. And in November, a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana and possibly tax it similar to alcohol and cigarettes failed to pass with 44 percent of the vote. "I think the pendulum has swung to too permissive--the (legalization initiative) was too permissive, in my opinion," Satterberg said. "Then it swings the other way, and it is too restrictive." Murkowski's bill would make possession of 4 ounces of marijuana or more a felony, and possession of up to 4 ounces a misdemeanor. Current law makes it a misdemeanor to possess up to a half-pound of marijuana. But most importantly, one of the bill's authors contends, going through the Legislature will allow a weighty body of evidence on the dangers of marijuana to be entered into the record. The state can take the record of evidence back to the courts, where such information was missing when earlier rulings were made, said Dean Guaneli, chief assistant attorney general. The hearings spurred by the bill will allow the state to enter evidence that marijuana poses a threat to public health "that justifies prohibiting its use and possession in this state, even by adults in private," the bill's language says. That way, the courts will be able to look at that evidence the next time the privacy issue is considered in a marijuana case. "The first thing the courts do is look to the legislative record," Guaneli said. "If the legislative reasons are better, the courts' constitutional analysis will change." Satterberg said he doubts the state's efforts to re-criminalize marijuana are a good use of resources, saying there are better things to do than debate marijuana's effects. The bill, if it passes, would raise police and court costs, and make instant felons out many Alaska residents, he said. But he can see the Murkowski bill passing through the Legislature--lawmakers may be reluctant to be seen as coming out in favor of drugs, he said. "The problem is, it's a mother, God, apple pie thing," he said. Tim Hinterberger, a University of Alaska Anchorage professor and one of the campaign organizers of the failed initiative to legalize marijuana, said lawmakers should consider that 134,647 voters supported the measure in November. "I'm hopeful that our legislators are a bit more in tune with the will of the people than that," he said. "I don't think the momentum is on the side of returning to prohibition." Guaneli said he believes Murkowski's bill will pass and be upheld in the courts, ending the state's 30-year debate over privacy and pot. "I think once the courts say the Legislature has good grounds for doing this, the issue will be put to rest," he said. Source: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (AK) Author: Matt Volz, Associated Press Published: Saturday, February 05, 2005 Copyright: 2005 Fairbanks Publishing Company, Inc. Contact: letters@newsminer.com Website: http://www.news-miner.com/
By Dirk Nelson Source: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner Gov. Frank Murkowski recognizes the potential advantages of distortions: Harsh truths can kill a respectable political legacy. In his recent State of the State address, Murkowski attributed Alaska's fiscal health to "sound and responsible fiscal management, with a little help from oil." Giggling could be heard throughout the Arctic when he uttered that revisionist statement. The fact is that between Murkowski's offering of "incentives" to oil corporations that are already enjoying sweetheart deals on revenues and the governor's liberal spending habits, if it weren't for the high price of oil, Alaska would be flat broke. Then, in a recent Associated Press article concerning Murkowski's attempts to defy the Alaska Supreme Court in his attacks on Alaskans' rights to privacy, Murkowski again used distortion to mask his failed attempts to subvert the Ravin decision's protections for possession of marijuana by adults in their homes. The governor claims in the article that the opponents of marijuana decriminalization have never had their side of the debate heard. He further states that he is only doing what the voters want him to do, based upon Measure 2's failure in the most recent statewide election. Both claims are false. Measure 2 on the November 2004 ballot would have legalized open sales of cannabis for anyone over 21 years of age and would have permitted possession outside of one's home. The Ravin decision of 1975, as codified by the Legislature in 1983, permitted possession of 4 ounces of cannabis but only in the homes of adults over the age of 19, with no sales or gifting permitted. Alaskans rejected Measure 2 but weren't asked about the Ravin decision's stance on privacy for adults in their own homes. The two are distinctly different, though Mr. Murkowski is apparently unable to perceive the dissimilarities. In addition to his apparent comprehension deficiencies, his claim that opponents of decriminalization have never had their side of the argument heard is false. During Ravin's 1975 trial, both sides were afforded the opportunity to have their best arguments and expert witnesses heard. Both sides engaged in that debate, and Ravin emerged victorious. In 1987 and 1988, the Alaska Legislature held hearings on the "dangers" of cannabis use and concluded those sessions without passing a law forbidding cannabis possession and use by adults in their homes. But of especially peculiar interest is Mr. Murkowski's claim that in the recent case of North Pole resident David Noy, the courts refused to hear arguments about the harms of marijuana. The courts, in fact, clearly invited such arguments in the future. Under standard protocol, any challenges of fact would have needed to be entered into during the trial. Any C-grade attorney knows that one cannot typically change points of argument on appeal. Nonetheless, the esteemed legal staff at the Department of Law attempted to do just that. And the court properly told them that they could not. The Alaska Supreme Court has clearly told Gov. Murkowski that there are two avenues to changing a constitutionally protected right such as Ravin: They can either sponsor a constitutional amendment or they can properly put forth a case to the Alaska Supreme Court proving that the facts are different than originally thought to be. The state has had both of these legal remedies at its disposal for the 30 years since the Ravin decision became law. But instead of following the legal parameters defined by the court, the state has repeatedly attempted to violate state law, ironically while complaining about lawlessness. Perhaps Mr. Murkowski fears that he cannot win an honest debate in the courts concerning the alleged dangers of cannabis. Numerous governments have recently held lengthy committee hearings and researched volumes of evidence concerning the allegations of the harmful effects of marijuana use. The results included the United Kingdom's downgrading of marijuana use to a ticketable offense and a Canadian senate committee advising open, taxed, regulated sales for persons over the age of 16. In the process, they debunked the mythical "gateway drug theory" various potency myths and other falsehoods routinely perpetuated by prohibitionists looking to fuel their $58 billion-a-year war on privacy that's now responsible for America incarcerating more persons per capita than any other country in the world. If Mr. Murkowski succeeds in his planned violation of state law, he'll cost Alaskans over $260 million in revenues, put our children's futures at risk and set another example of the government not following its own law, while failing miserably at decreasing any marijuana use in Alaska. Dirk Nelson is a former licensed clinical social worker who has lived in Alaska 27 years. He resides near Ester. Newshawk: Jose Melendez Source: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (AK) Author: Dirk Nelson Published: Saturday, February 19, 2005 Copyright: 2005 Fairbanks Publishing Company, Inc. Contact: letters@newsminer.com Website: http://www.news-miner.com/ Link to article: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread20263.shtml nor Wrong on Marijuana