GOVERNOR WRONG ON MARIJUANA

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.