As Americans grow increasingly disgusted by the waste and injustice of the War on Drugs, it seems inevitable that we'll reach a point at which the public no longer accepts the embarrassing excesses of prohibition. That's exactly what just happened in Montana, and it's a story that ought to terrify the drug war establishment.
A funny thing happened on the way to a trial in Missoula County District Court last week.
Jurors – well, potential jurors – staged a revolt.
They took the law into their own hands, as it were, and made it clear they weren’t about to convict anybody for having a couple of buds of marijuana. Never mind that the defendant in question also faced a felony charge of criminal distribution of dangerous drugs.
The tiny amount of marijuana police found while searching Touray Cornell’s home on April 23 became a huge issue for some members of the jury panel.
No, they said, one after the other. No way would they convict somebody for having a 16th of an ounce.
In fact, one juror wondered why the county was wasting time and money prosecuting the case at all, said a flummoxed Deputy Missoula County Attorney Andrew Paul. [Missoulian]
Whether we like it or not, the War on Drugs belongs to us all. We pay for it with our tax dollars and many of us contribute portions of our paycheck to the "enemy" as well. We live with the consequences when drug trade violence erupts in our communities, when our friends and family are placed behind bars, when our rights are violated, our institutions are corrupted, and the truth is held hostage lest we might question the continued sacrifices this war demands from us day after day.
Rarely is the burden of all this more palpable than the moment when we're called upon to stand in judgment of our peers and enforce laws that many among us consider reprehensible. What happened in Montana is significant not only for the pleasantly surprised defendant and his family, but also because it shows that the conscience of a community can literally stop the drug war juggernaut dead in its tracks. This madness can't and won't continue without the cooperation of the American people, and that support is fading before our eyes.
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