EXPERTS DEBATE PRIVACY, POT

State Chief Assistant Attorney General Spars With Privacy Lawyer.

Alaska -- Alaskans who smoke pot proudly point to a clause in the
state constitution that the courts say allows them to keep up to 4
ounces in their homes.

But state Chief Assistant Attorney General Dean Guaneli said the
constitutional right to privacy was not designed to permit residents
to harbor drugs. Guaneli and Juneau civil rights attorney Doug Mertz
swapped barbs on the issue Thursday at the Bill Egan Forum luncheon
at the Baranof Hotel.

A bill in the Alaska Legislature this session aims to overturn a 1975
court decision that said Alaskans' right to privacy outweighs the
state's interest in criminalizing marijuana. Guaneli said the courts
ruled that an Alaskan has the right to keep private from the public
what he or she puts into his or her body.

Alaska voters amended the constitution in 1972 to explicitly
guarantee the right to privacy.

"You might think the right to privacy in the Alaska Constitution
floated out of the frontier free spirit in Alaska," Guaneli said.

But according to newspaper articles he read from the era, Guaneli
said, the amendment was a reaction to a new criminal justice system
being created in the 1960s to fight organized crime. In 1968, federal
legislation was passed to give states funding for criminal
investigation tools. Undercover agents spying on suspects were using
computers and recording devices for the first time in some districts.

"All of the sudden people were nervous," Guaneli said. Sponsors of
the amendment proposed the change to the constitution to address the
public's fear over losing its privacy.

Mertz, who was also in Alaska during the 1970s, said people were
standing up for their freedom to make their own decisions on
everything from growing long hair to smoking marijuana.

He added that today the far right and far left both argue for
freedoms but not the same ones. Missed opportunities go by because
the two sides fight against each other instead of working on the same
goals, he said.

"Big Brother government is all too happy to control our freedom of
speech," Mertz said.

The 1975 court decision known as Ravin v. State was one of the first
cases to test the new amendment and tell the government it should not
go places where it doesn't belong, Mertz said.

The courts have not been clear on whether it says marijuana is
harmless or presents a danger to users and society, Guaneli said.

Guaneli said if the court case on allowing small amounts of pot is
reopened, the debate will not analyze the right to privacy but
instead take a look at the facts on marijuana.

Last year, testimony was taken on the bill with experts saying
marijuana is more potent than it was decades ago. Guaneli said that
fact and others he plans to present to the courts didn't exist in 1975.

Mertz said the courts have been silent on whether pot is more harmful
than alcohol, though some groups maintain it is not.

"The courts have really not grabbed onto that distinction," he said.

Courts reserve judgments on the right to privacy for issues that are
critically important, Guaneli said.

The case in which the student fought to keep his long hair was an
issue over controlling one's personal appearance, he said.

"When it comes to taking drugs, particularly illegal drugs, that's
not critically important," Guaneli said.