HAS RABINOWITZ'S FAMOUS RAVIN DECISION GONE UP IN SMOKE?

Four times in the last week the Daily News has mentioned the late Chief
Justice Jay Rabinowitz without mentioning that he was the author of the
Ravin decision. In 1975, the Alaska Supreme Court unanimously ruled that
our constitutional right to privacy includes the right to use marijuana.
The Daily News editorial board even quoted from this landmark decision
without referencing it.

On June 23 the Voice of the Times chose to laud Justice Rabinowitz but they
too chose to ignore the decision for which he is probably most famous. Is
this omission just an oversight? Or could it be that the Daily News and the
Voice of the Times do not wish to publicize the fact that the Ravin
decision is still law and that everyone busted for small amounts of
marijuana since 1990 have had their constitutional rights violated?

In the same issue, the editorial board is lamenting the House districts
"illegally drawn" in 1991 by then Gov. Wally Hickel. Not only did Gov.
Hickel pretend that the constitution can be amended by an initiative (an
error set right in 1993 by Judge Michael Thompson in McNeil vs. State of
Alaska when he ruled that Ravin is still the law) but he also drew House
districts that violated the law. Of course in the former deception he was
aided and abetted by both newspapers.

Al Anders, chair Alaska Libertarian Party Anchorage