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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 21166
[Civil]
Date Posted:
9/15/2009
5:58:28 pm EDT
Wvox Stats
Views: 3,036
RSS: 19,945
Comments: 8
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Court Extinguishes Pot Church Member's Smoke
Author: Jon Johnson Source: Eastern Arizona Courier
Title: COURT EXTINGUISHES POT CHURCH MEMBER'S SMOKE
The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the state's interest in banning marijuana outweighed beliefs of people who want to use it as a religious sacrament wherever and whenever they wish.
Danny Ray Hardesty, 43, formerly of Thatcher, was pulled over by police in Yavapai County in 2005 for driving with a burned-out headlight on his van. The officer smelled burned marijuana, and Hardesty admitted he was smoking a joint and had thrown it out the window. The officer found the joint and seized a baggie of marijuana from the back of Hardesty's van. Hardesty was then charged with possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia – class six-felonies.
Hardesty appealed his subsequent conviction and took his case all the way to the State Supreme Court, where he lost his appeal for his right to smoke cannabis in any amount, anywhere and at any time.
Hardesty said his membership in the Church of Cognizance granted him use of cannabis wherever because it is the church's sacrament. He equated it to the Catholic communion of a sip of sacramental wine.
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Community Thoughts: There are 8 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| Important Issues, Badly Handled By Both Sides | Sep 18th. at 10:00:54 pm EDT
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Terry (Irvington, Virginia) - Email Me
This appears to be a very badly handled case on both sides.
It appears the judge evaluated the case as a poorly prepared stoner, making claims that are unjustifiable extrapolations on what could be serious civil rights issues, and so engaged in what in theory could arguably be both judicial misconduct and typical court process of rejecting arguments inadequately supported by evidence, and that are blatant Constitutional end runs of US public policy.
I wish more pagans (and everyone treated as an adult entitled to vote or serve as a juror, and especially legislators and judges) "got it" that public policies and laws that presume anything less than many religions hold it to be an individual right to do whatever one chooses are serious violations of Constitutional rights. As such, all mala prohibita (loosely, victimless crime laws, or laws that define particular actions as criminal not because of any inherent evil in the act, but merely by the law defining a prohibition) unavoidably infringe civil rights and should not be tolerated. A key problem with this litigant, and court, is that no effort was made on either side to analyze at what point government may have some legitimate and compelling interest in protecting public safety on highways, versus no valid interest in blanket drug or other policies that trample a wide range of religious and cultural practices and in most cases serve no valid public purpose. That's compounded by the underlying history of drug laws to be intended to reflect Puritanical religious dogma, and racial prejudices, as excuses to enable economic policies that empower politicians and their larger campaign donors.
Overall, US drug policy of a power and profit scheme used to prop up grossly unConstitutional laws, that cannot stand an honest evaluation of legal theory and accurate findings of fact. They're long overdue to be toppled, but are supported by a medical industry that overall spends 250% more money on DC lobbyists than any of the next largest few industries, and by a prison industrial complex that hides its power and money base among government entities and some of the largest construction and government operations contractors in the nation. Those factions likely exert more political corruption influence than historic racist and religious bigotry enabling factors in broad drug policy oppression, linked to anti-sexuality oppression, and related body-phobia and censorship practices. Under any honest application of Constitutional law, judges, legislators, and cops scheming in those systems of void statutes in effect conspire in a violent criminal racket to deprive citizens of core civil rights, and in many cases steal or extort massive cash seizures and tax subsidized operating funding of what in effect are armed gangs of violent felons with badges and guns.
That mess deserves to be challenged and torn to shreds, but an approach of acting like an addict stoner with no concern for highway safety issues is certainly a tactically reckless and ethically bankrupt approach.
Were it possible to in effect get high level courts to do their duty and tear down unjustifiable drug policies, there remains a serious set of issues as to what are realistic criteria for public safety on our shared highways. Anyone who seriously studies such issues soon finds that's not an easy thing to define, in ways simple enough for average drivers to determine compliance or noncompliance (else "void for vagueness" failures under law) , and that are narrowly tailored to only restrict adequate hazards to meet "strict scrutiny" criteria to burden religious or privacy rights (IOW, compelling state interest, imposed by least restrictive means) .
Some drivers who are moderately "high" on pot, or over a typical statutory BAC (blood alcohol content) , drive better than others who have no such legal traits, but are impaired from aging, hyperactive personalities encouraged by current cel phone and other electronic tools habits, stress from work, family, etc, tiredness, or generally bad physical and mental condition including poor or variable blood flow to the brain related to bad diet and exercise habits, or disease. Some people cope with such factors compromising driving skills in chronic or variable ways better than others, making a public policy that's narrowly crafted to only restrict practices that violate some rationally defined level of driving safety representing a compelling government standard of protection incredibly difficult to define in consistent, valid legal form.
In theory we're entitled to expect all of legislators, courts, cops, and highway safety administrators to do no less than reject oppressive existing drug policy, and find narrow, substantively justifiable means of determining and defining only actual safety hazards as cause to restrict motor vehicle operators. Stoners with half a clue how FUBAR the existing systems are don't tend to do well jumping incredibly tedious and exclusionary hoops documenting such issues in ways courts are obligated to consider. Still, the judge as in this case apparently just perpetrating a fraud to pretend overbroad law is a least restrictive (and therefore Constitutional) means is outright wrong. This judge deserves to be removed from the bench for that, but likely knows that given the momentum of the institutional corruption of existing laws, combined with the difficulty developing good alternatives even among highly skilled and devoted groups of public policy and litigation experts, it's unlikely the judge will be held accountable for what in reality are far worse crimes from the bench than one immature stoner behind the wheel.
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| Bad Excuse | Sep 17th. at 12:42:29 pm EDT
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Lil Mecca (Selkirk, Manitoba) - Email Me
I can understand useing pyote during rituals, drinking wine with communion, using marijuana with a prayer, etc. But are you praying while you are driving, are you smugging you car? No...you just wanted to smoke a joint.
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| So... | Sep 17th. at 5:49:47 am EDT
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Lunaschylde (Palmyra, Pennsylvania) - Email Me
religions such as Rastafarianism are religions of convenience?
How about someone dedicated to Bacchus practicing religious drunkenness? Is that a religion of convenience? How about if we move this person back to the 1920s during Prohibition, still a religion of convenience?
Do I think the individual chose a bad place and time to be partaking of a sacrament of his faith? Yes. I'd feel the same if the above Bacchanalian drank and drive. There is a place and time for things, but to call his religion one of convenience is not only rude to him, but disrespectful of his faith, and all members of his religion.
Marijuana wasn't always illegal. Get this through your skulls, and many ancients used it in religious rites (the Tungus shamans used hemp seeds roasted over coals to induce trance, for one) . This isn't new, it's just illegal now.
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| Lets Think About It | Sep 16th. at 4:27:16 pm EDT
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Carousel Maker (Onaway, Michigan) - Email Me
Well, its the "LAW", but the problem with that is that all attempts to revise the "LAW" are stonewalled by a significant MINORITY. If if fact we are a nation ruled by the people, not the zelots (no matter what the issue of zelotry is) , then the majority would rule. While I myself have never tired the stuff, it is common, and the vast majority have at least tried the substance. The issue here is that the "LAW" is being used to oppress even what is publicly acceptable. Why does this matter to us here at WV? Simple, when we get to the point that a very small percentage of the population can make a rule, and no matter how hard the remainder try to reverese it we are unable because the ruling eliete have had their way. I could pontificate on various related issues that have been forced down the throats of the public over the last 25 years or so, all of which prove that the "LAW" is made by the minority for the minority to serve the minority, irrelivant of what the people want. If it is that easy for them to bend the system to their wants on issues such as pot, how much longer until one one the abarhamic religions is offically recognized by the courts (hint - the words say "Congress shall not") or executive order?
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| Flasback | Sep 16th. at 12:45:36 am EDT
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Nemesis (Frostproof, Florida) - Email Me
Flashback to the "genital sacrifice" of the Psychedelic Venus Church.
::shudders::
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| Big Difference ... | Sep 15th. at 9:59:44 pm EDT
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Emerald Tiger (Jamestown, North Dakota) - Email Me
... a sip of wine during communion and smoking pot while driving.
I fully agree with the previous two posters that this is a religion of convenience designed to skirt the law.
I believe in religious freedom. And we do have the right to it. However, to use it as the reason to engage in actions that are dangerous or reprehensible is just plain wrong. Be it smoking pot or bad mouthing someone else's religion or lifestyle makes a mockery of both the freedom and the religion.
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| In Agreement | Sep 15th. at 7:30:52 pm EDT
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Aritimi Morgana (RotterdamJct/Schdy/Scotia, New York) - Email Me
I am with the 1st poster on this. This is pathetic. That someone would use the institution of religion to disguise an illegal drug habit is despicable. I do not understand what is so wonderful about getting high. To me,that immediately signals the person is a total moron and loser. It means destroying your brain for fun is better than using your brain to think. People like that utterly disgust me. You smoke pot, to me you are an addict and engagin in illegal activity. I don't care if you smoked once a week or every day--you are breaking the LAW! Using the excuse of 'religious practice' is total BS. That goes for us pagans too.
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| A Convinence Religion | Sep 15th. at 7:08:19 pm EDT
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Arie Willow (Sydney, New South Wales) - Email Me
Please this is an obvious religion of Convenience. As far as I understand it some states in the US have laws allowing certain drugs as part of religious observance to accommodate Native American practices. Pleaple setting up religions that endorse particular drugs as a sacrament are their purely and solely to abuse this law in order to get high. I think the courts got this one right.
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