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Best Law of the Past Two Decades
Selling marihuana may actually be legal in Arizona thanks
to an obscure law passed in 1983. In that year, the state
legislature thought it had a clever idea. Not only would
they arrest marihuana dealers, they would also charge them
with selling without a "Cannabis and Controlled Substances
Dealers License" and failing to pay a state tax of $10 per
ounce. Many years later Peter Wilson, chair of the state
National Organization for the Reform of Marihuana Laws,
decided to take the law to court. He argued that the state
could not have such a perfect Catch-22, it could not first
make you pay ($100) for the privilege of dealing pot and
then arrest you for it. By issuing licenses to sell
marihuana, he argued, the state had tacitly accepted it's
legality. The court agreed. The case has since become a
legal potato, bouncing from court to court. But now for the
rest of the story.... Guess who made it possible for
marihuana selling to become legal? Guess who opened the
door to lives of terrible addiction? Yes, it was a
Republican legislature. Shocking but true. (NYT 10/6/97.)
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klaus
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