Medical Cannabis Growing & Life Style

Court Hears Bong Hits 4 Jesus Case

2007-07-19T05:03:00.002-07:00

Washington, DC -- In its first major student free-speech rights case in almost 20 years, U.S. Supreme Court justices struggled on Monday with how far schools can go in censoring students.

In a case involving a Juneau, Alaska, high school student suspended for unfurling a banner that read "Bong Hits 4 Jesus," several justices seemed wary about giving a principal too much authority at the expense of the student's right to express his views.

"It's political speech, it seems to me. I don't see what it disrupts," a skeptical Justice David Souter said.

"And no one was smoking pot in that crowd," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, referring to the group of students standing near the banner as the Winter Olympic torch relay passed by in January 2002.

The incident occurred during school hours but on a public sidewalk across from the school.

Student Joseph Frederick says the banner's language was meant to be meaningless and funny in an effort to get on television.

Principal Deborah Morse said the phrase "bong hits" referred to smoking marijuana. She suspended Frederick for 10 days because the banner advocated or promoted illegal drug use in violation of school policy.

Justice Stephen Breyer said he was struggling with the case.

A ruling for Frederick could result in students "testing limits all over the place in the high schools" while a ruling against Frederick "may really limit people's rights on free speech," Breyer said.

Kenneth Starr, the former special prosecutor who investigated former President Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, said Morse acted reasonably and in accord with the school's anti-drug mission.

A Bush administration lawyer, Edwin Kneedler, argued for a broad rule that public schools do not have to tolerate a message inconsistent with its basic educational mission.

"I find that a very, very disturbing argument," Justice Samuel Alito said, adding that schools could define their educational mission so broadly to suppress political speech and speech expressing fundamental student values.

Justice Anthony Kennedy asked Kneedler if the principal could have required the banner be taken down if it had said "vote Republican, vote Democrat."

Kneedler replied the principal has that authority.

Frederick's lawyer, Douglas Mertz of Juneau, said: "This is a case about free speech. It is not a case about drugs."

Mertz argued the court should not abandon its famous 1969 ruling that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate," a decision that allowed students to wear black armbands in class to protest the Vietnam War.

But the Supreme Court's last major rulings on the issue went against the students.

The court ruled in 1986 that a student does not have a free-speech right to give a sexually suggestive speech at an assembly and in 1988 that school newspapers can be censored.

A decision in the case is expected by the end of June.

Source: Reuters (Wire)
Author: James Vicini
Published: March 19, 2007
Copyright: 2007 Reuters Limited

Court To Hear 'Bong Hits 4 Jesus' Case
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread22770.shtml

Student Free Speech vs. School Drug Policy
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread22767.shtml

Supreme Court Hears Arguments in Free Speech Case

2007-07-19T05:03:00.001-07:00

Source: Albuquerque Tribune

Santa Fe, NM -- It took years, a lot of wrangling and considerable grief, but finally New Mexico will join 11 other progressive and caring states that allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

Way overdue, it is the right thing to do, because its intent is solely to bring comfort and relief to patients for whom marijuana is a painkiller. It is such a simple, human thing to do that we are moved to ask: What the heck took so long?

For the better part of a decade, repressive views have held sway in this otherwise typically progressive state, which previously twice elected a popular Republican governor who favored decriminalizing virtually all illicit drugs.

Now, another popular governor, Democrat Bill Richardson, says he plans to sign legislation that will allow patients in pain, who have a doctor's recommendation, to use marijuana supplied by the state Health Department.

This is, after all, a medical matter - between doctor and patient - and the state and federal governments have no business banning anything that can be legitimately used by physicians to improve the health or well-being of their patients. On such questions, medicine, not politics, should rule. And finally, in New Mexico, it will.

Reflecting the contentious history of the measure, Richardson said he intends to sign the bill despite the political risk.

What political risk? Like so many squeaky issues in this country that seem to get all the political grease, the reality is that most New Mexicans and most Americans are sympathetic to people in pain and have no problem with the notion that marijuana might be used to provide relief.

What they want is a politician with half a brain and the political courage to stand up and use it for public benefit, in the face of a little ranting and raving.

Political wisdom holds that this is a contentious and highly controversial issue and that Richardson, in supporting the medical marijuana law, is gambling not only his popularity in New Mexico but also his shot at the Democratic presidential nomination.

There may be political courage involved, but more probably it is shrewd political insight that this governor once again displays. In his own words, the law is for people who "are suffering. My God, let's be reasonable."

Let's, indeed. Richardson noted that only about 160 people in New Mexico might initially use the new law.

Richardson and the Legislature deserve praise for cutting through the nonsense, finally standing up and doing the right thing - even if in the face of a regressive federal government that has refused to compromise in its inhumane declaration that marijuana is an illegal, controlled substance with no medicinal value.

While federal courts continue to sanction that inhumanity with rulings against patients, doctors and medicinal marijuana, in New Mexico people in need of medical marijuana will at least know that their state government, governor and Legislature are on their side.

Source: Albuquerque Tribune (NM)
Published: March 19, 2007
Copyright: 2007 The Albuquerque Tribune
Contact: letters@abqtrib.com
Website: http://www.abqtrib.com/

! Cannabis News !

2007-03-19T18:34:00.000-07:00

! Cannabis News !

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NORML's Weekly News Bulletin - March 15, 2007

Will a New Study Force Changes in Drug Law?

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GROW F.A.Q. CONTENTS

2007-03-19T18:32:00.000-07:00

So here is the list of things that I think one should read when going into the growing world .

**GROW F.A.Q. CONTENTS**

Hello & Welcome .

2007-03-19T16:01:00.000-07:00

This is my Medical Cannabis Blog .

I dedicate this to the guys over at www.marijuana-ro.com . thanks guys ofr all the help and stuff :) .
By the way, you can find there many many great grow guides and help with your problems .
I will be reffering to those guides when talking about stuff That I will be showing to you .

SO ! let be the start of a great growing blog .

peace !

www.marijuana-ro.com