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Saturday, February 19, 2005
 

Recrim governor needs to check his facts

An opinion piece in the Fairbanks News-Miner says Gov. Frank Murkowski isn't being straight in making a case for harsher marijuana possession penalties in the state. Such penalties would clearly violate the state constitution, and indeed, such laws have been struck down.

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.


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