The awful RAVE Act, snuck unethically through Congress a few months ago as an amendment to the irrelevant but enormously popular Amber Alert bill (thanks, Joe Biden), is now being used — predictably — to curtail the lawful activities of legal political groups who happen to support marijuana legalization:
An agent of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) used threats of RAVE Act prosecutions to intimidate the owners of a Billings, Montana, venue into a canceling a combined benefit for the Montana chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and Students for Sensible Drug Policy last week. …
While the Billings event was advertised as a benefit concert for two local groups interested in drug law reform — not as a drug-taking orgy — it still attracted the attention of the DEA. On May 30, the day the event was set to take place, a Billings-based DEA agent showed up at the Eagle Lodge, which had booked the concert. Waving a copy of the RAVE Act in one hand, the agent warned that the lodge could face a fine of $250,000 if someone smoked a joint during the benefit, according to Eagle Lodge manager Kelly, who asked that her last name not be used.
“He freaked me out,” Kelly told DRCNet. “He didn’t tell us we couldn’t have the event, but he showed me the law and told us what could happen if we did. I talked to our trustees, they talked to our lawyers, and our lawyers said not to risk it, so we canceled,” she said. “I felt bad. I knew the guys in the bands.”
Hmm… can you say “chilling effect”?
“The right of the people peaceably to assemble,” anyone? And how about the right “to petition the government for a redress of grievances”?
InstaPundit is right. Shame on everyone who has a hand in this outrageous debacle, both on the legislative end and the enforcement end.
Let’s hope the outrage will build in the blogosphere. If blogs are really the Mice that Roared, we should be able to make a difference on this issue, too.
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Categories: The Law & The Courts
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June 6th, 2003 at 9:20:48 pm
Hell, even I, of all people, have my name on a NORML web site. Of course, they never did ask my permission… or pay me…
http://www.mapinc.org/newsnorml/v03/n266/a08.html
June 6th, 2003 at 11:44:05 pm
Argh… stupid Joseph Biden… I guess he didn’t get the hint when I wrote nasty things about the bill last year in the Daily Trojan. Hey, I know! Maybe if you guys all write really nasty things about it on your web sites it’ll cause the law to be repealed.
Hey, it could happen! MacWorld! :D
June 6th, 2003 at 11:47:45 pm
By the way, not to dredge up comments of yours from two days ago, but I just can’t resist:
“The Man is NOT keeping you and your ideological allies down, Craig. I’m sorry, I know you’d like to be a victim of The Man, but you’re not. You’re just not.”
Fight on, Loy. ;)
June 6th, 2003 at 11:58:34 pm
I think the law is pretty despicable too, but at least I can say, “Hey, it’s the Democrats’ fault it got passed!” Ugh, still, I don’t know how that got through the legislative process, it’s ridiculous.
June 7th, 2003 at 2:01:56 am
Touché, Craig. :)
June 7th, 2003 at 2:44:50 am
Speaking of issues of unconstitutionality, I’ve been reading an article (a 30-page article, no less) published in the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review about the statutes in the Patriot Act that allow us to detain people based on their providing funds to terrorist organizations. It’s really very interesting. I recommend you give it a read:
http://www.law.harvard.edu/studorgs/crcl/v.38/cole.pdf
June 19th, 2003 at 9:55:12 am
Fuck the fucking fuckers. I am so sending a bitchy letter to that bastard Biden. Wait till he gets a hold of my wrath!