Know Your Rights

To the Cigar,

It upset me very much to see that Jacob Feiner was arrested late
Sunday night for possession of marijuana after getting pulled over for
an illegal u-turn on Butterfield Road ("Campus Police Report;" March
23). If Jacob would have known his rights, the outcome of this police
encounter would have turned out very different.

In the police report it states that the police notice brownies
sticking out from underneath a seat and asked Jacob if they were
"normal." Jacob supposedly said no, they were hashish brownies. If
Jacob did in fact admit that the brownies contained hash, then he gave
up his Fifth Amendment rights. And I quote from the Constitution, "No
person shall be...compelled in any criminal case to be a witness
against himself, nor be deprived life, liberty, or property, without
due process of the law...".

The police should have no reason to search one's car if all they see
on the floor is brownies. Based on this logic, perhaps the police
should start raiding the Ram's Den, which daily has many baked goods
on sale which may or may not contain controlled substances.

Without the search of the car, Jacob would not have been arrested for
other items that the police discovered.

Over half of drug arrests are made on the grounds that people give up
their rights. Learn and know your rights. Visit www.flexyourrights.org
and please come to Students for Sensible Drug Policy meetings, which
are held every Tuesday at 6 p.m. in room 128 of the Memorial Union, to
get more information.

Dan Rosenkrantz

Students for Sensible Drug Policy

www.ssdp.org