ACLU Fights for City Marijuana Department

(Santa Cruz, California) The American Civil Liberties Union is trying once again to get dope-smoking legalized at the federal level. This time, the ACLU is teaming with the city of Santa Cruz to get authorization to create a department of marijuana distribution.

From MercuryNews.com:

The city of Santa Cruz and a local medical marijuana collective on Tuesday asked a federal court in San Jose to approve the city's plan to provide marijuana directly to sick and dying patients.

The amended complaint represents a renewed legal fight to force the U.S. government to honor medical marijuana laws passed by California and 11 other states.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Drug Policy Alliance, the national law firm of Bingham McCutchen and a handful of private attorneys filed legal documents outlining new constitutional arguments based on an ordinance recently enacted by the Santa Cruz City Council creating the first medical marijuana department in the country. The department is known as the Office of Compassionate Use, but the city has made clear it has no intention of actually distributing marijuana unless it wins the legal battle.

Far out, man. Smoking weed is a civil liberty. Maybe next, California will launch an effort to create a department of opiates and hallucinogens.

In other news this week, the ACLU is pestering officials at Monson High School in Massachusetts about its policy of administering Breathalyzer tests to students upon admission to school dances. Other area schools have been giving Breathalyzer tests for years without complaint yet, for some unknown reason, the ACLU now protests.

And, in Oklahoma City, the ACLU intervened in the case against homosexual Rev. Lonnie Latham, 60, stating that he shouldn't have been arrested for propositioning an undercover policeman because the Supreme Court has ruled that sodomy laws are not legal. Latham pleaded not guilty and asserts that he was only pastoring to male police officers in the area when he was arrested.

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