n a t b s

I have just come up to my room after a grisly hassle with Brother Hank… and I decided it would only be fair to give my nerve endings the solace of a joint.  The pot was safe where I Had secured it—cuddled in a cold cream jar at the bottom of the shaving kit Mona gave me—but where the bleeding papers: pot without papers, man, what kind of funny shit is that? It is beer without an opener.  It is opium without a pipe.  Our thermosed lives are, at best, nine-tenths of the time padded by vacuum and sealed by silver silicon, but, for all their artificiality, we are generally able to find means for unstoppering them now and then, and enjoy at least some portion of addlepated freedom. Are we not? I mean, even the most square moral-ridden and socially-middled saddle-brow manages at some moment to drink enough to pop his stopper and enjoy romp in the primroses. And that just with crude booze.  So how can something so hip as a Pond jar full of pot be cursed to unfulfilled frustration by a lack of papers?

I rant, I rave with frustration.  I even consider rolling it in magazine paper.  Then . . . a flashbulb of remembrance; my wallet!  Of course didn’t I put a pack of zig-zag gummed wheatstraws in my wallet that night we all got so zonked at Jan’s and the three of us composed that immortal children’s classic Fuckleberry Hen? I quick to my trousers and feel for my wallet. Ah. Ah yes.  There are the papers, and there the typed story still folded about them—”See. See Rooster Booster run. See him jump Fuckelberry Hen. See him jam it in. Jam, jam, jam.”—and what else flits out of the little package and flutters to the floor like a dying moth? A scrap of lipsticked Kleenex on which is written Peters’ department phone number. I sigh. I languish with memories. Good old Peters . . . back there enjoying the good academic life. Hmm . . . y’know, do the tortured soul good to commune with him. I believe I shall drop him a line.

So, I transcribe here that line (if this damned unreliable ballpoint pen stops skipping) while I blow up the three joints I have rolled. Three, I hear him gasp, three joints? Alone up in his room? Three?

Yes, three, I answer calmly. For after this particular day I feel entitled to the 1st, I want the 2nd and of God I need the 3rd! The 1st is just a payment for being good and working hard. The 2nd for enjoyment. The 3rd is to remind me to never never never again be duped into believing anything but the worst of one’s relatives. As a variation of W.C. Fields’ great truth, How can anyone who likes dogs and little children be anything but all bad?

Recently, juries in Illinois and D.C. acquitted two people of crimes they clearly committed: a marijuana offence and a firearms possession offense respectively.  How did they do this?  Through the magic of Jury Nullification of course.

Jury nullification is a power that juries have to ignore, or nullify the law.  Basically, if they think a law is unjust, all they have to do is acquit the defendant.  Doesn’t matter if they’re clearly guilty, once they’ve been acquitted they cannot be retried thanks to the double jeopardy clause in the fifth amendment.  It’s really that simple. It gives power to the people to not enforce unjust laws.  The only problem, is that not many people know about this and judges certainly don’t tell them.  One does wonder why more defense attorneys don’t take this approach though.

Imagine what would happen to the war on drugs if juries started acquitting non-violent offenders en masse.  We would effectively kill it without ever passing a law.  I personally vow that if I’m ever on a jury in a non-violent drug case I will vote to acquit.  If you know anybody with jury duty, tell them about this.  Only ignorance is keeping us down.