A Price To High?

When Governor Kitzhaber put his name on the latest law recriminalizing
marijuana, it wasn't just a marijuana law he was signing. In fact, the
criminalization of marijuana is probably the smallest impact this bill will
have. Some 80 percent of possession cases in Oregon will continue to be
treated as violations, public safety officials estimate.

It is another law that will go on the books and essentially be ignored by
law enforcement officers, simply because they have too many other things to
do of a higher priority in the public safety scheme of things.

What this bill really does and what public safety people are looking
forward to most is the expanded power of search and seizure that go along
with this bill. Those powers give the law enforcement community new powers
to catch the bad guys, but they do so at the expense of the civil liberties
of U.S. citizens.

It is easy to say a bill like this will help children, as Gov. Kitzhaber
did in his statement on signing the bill. Don't we all want to help
children grow up healthy and not addicted to drugs? But such statements are
manipulative nobrainers designed to elicit a gutlevel supporting
response. They fail to take into account the larger implications and the
larger message that the end justifies the means which damage the
credibility of law enforcement and put another chink in the rights granted
under the Constitution.

Deterioration of individual rights doesn't happen all at once. It happens
with tiny bits and pieces chipped away day by day. It is an insidious game
played by the lawmakers, who, in the effort to create a more orderly and
manageable society, attack the freedoms they are sworn to uphold.

Granted, search and seizure laws like this one have been upheld in the past
by a conservative U.S. Supreme Court. But that court, too, makes new law
as it decides individual cases, altering legal rights as society is altered.

Certainly, the Constitution is a living document, changing to meet new
circumstances and eventualities. But how far can it change before the
original meaning is lost? The Fourth Amendment, specifically protecting
citizens from unreasonable search and seizure, was a provision rooted in
the heart of the revolutionary struggle. It was designed to protect people
from the extreme governmental powers that were taken under British rule.

Many would say those dangers from government no longer exist today, but the
more constitutionals rights are battered and restricted, the greater
possibility for governmental abuse.

Any time government gives itself more power over individuals the decision
needs close examination.

The price of such action may be more than we care to pay.