2/6/99
RE: Kubby Arrest
The arrest of 1998 gubernatorial candidate Steve Kubby
on marijuana charges revives the question of California's
right to self-determination as guaranteed by the 9th and
10th Amendments. If Bill Lockyer follows his oath of
office to enforce the laws of California, then he will
recognize that Prop 215, the medical marijuana initiative,
is the law and that Kubby should never have been arrested.
The first move should be for Lockyer to counsel the Placer DA
on California law, but the bigger question will be if Lockyer
does all Americans a favor by taking the DEA to task for
violating the civil rights of a California citizen. The federal
government's insistence that federal law supercedes state
law, even in areas not specifically granted in the Constitution,
deserves to be decided by the Supreme Court. Maybe someday
we will all thank Kubby and Lockyer when the DEA and the FDA
are abolished because they exceed the bounds of the 9th and 10th
Amendments.
--Gerald Klaas, Carmichael