Leave the Birds of Paradise Alone
Syndicated Internationally by Universal Press Syndicate,
By William F. Buckley Jr
August 16, 1998
The general mess created by our drug laws has reached a tropical low in Los Angeles,
where the storm center gathers over the head of Peter McWilliams.
Here is the political background:
In November 1996, the California voters endorsed a plebiscite (Proposition 215) that
authorizes the purchase of marijuana by any Californian with a doctor’s recommendation.
Doctors are supposed to write out that prescription only when cannabis provides unique
relief. That law conflicted with federal statutes that make the smoking of marijuana
a crime at any time, including - to observe the language - on your deathbed.
The question immediately arose: What do we do about these conflicting jurisdictions?
Everybody waited for everybody else to act. The most that Attorney General Dan Lungren
would do (he is running for governor) was promise to observe the new law "minimally."
But of course the reciprocal gears of justice do not here interlock glibly. The marijuana
lobby in California is sincerely interested in making the weed available to the sick,
who are said to profit greatly from it. But the marijuana lobby in California is
also sincerely interested in anybody’s getting marijuana who wants marijuana, and
the political story here took flesh and blood in Peter McWilliams.
McWilliams is a middle-aged literary man-about-town. He has written 30 books that
range in concern from poetry to love to computers to moral anarchy. He is a self
described libertarian who believes that no law should be passed that gets in the
way of anybody doing anything he wants to do, provided it doesn’t hurt somebody else;
and that such laws as are on the books that conflict with libertarian doctrine should
be treated only with just such as much respect as is necessary to keep you out of
jail.
On July 23, the feds concluded that McWilliams and partners were not sufficiently
complying with the law. McWilliams, who has always appreciated the lighter side of
life and thought, had lent money from his tiny publishing firm to an entrepreneur
who used it to nurture 4,000 marijuana plants.
Why? Well, if a doctor is entitled under the law to prescribe marijuana, then he
has to get it somewhere, does he not? Parthenogenesis won’t give you fresh supplies
of marijuana, even in California.
So the feds announced themselves at 6 in the morning, with handcuffs, and took away
not only McWilliams but also his computer with all its records. They demanded bail
of $250,000. His lawyer pleaded against the draconian extreme of the bail demanded.
The defense was perfectly glad to give up Peter’s passport. Did anybody really think
he would not show up at his trial?
Pressures of another kind were inflicted. McWilliams has AIDS and also a form of
lymphoma. The treatment prescribed by his doctor is complex and delicately balanced
and is required six times every day. The failure of the prison authorities to give
him the doses as called for has resulted in frequent nausea, no trivial complaint
given that in that condition, those who suffer from that combination of maladies
McWilliams suffers from run the risk of contracting a terminal case of tuberculosis.
The meltdown is therefore now scheduled. A few months from now, McWilliams and his
fellow defendants will insist that they were not guilty of any criminal intent. No
money changed hands. True, McWilliams did at one point pass off the wisecrack that
he wished to become the "Bill Gates of medical marijuana." But you don’t go to prison
for making wild statements about a fantasy life, any more than Bill Clinton goes
to prison for making wild statements about celibate behavior.
But in ruling on McWilliams vs. the United States, prosecutors are going to have
to face headlong the California argument. At one level, California will argue the
Ninth and 10th level, Amendments to the Constitution, which prohibit federal activity
in areas reserved to the states under the Constitution.
That defense will be half-hearted, because the justice establishment in California
never liked Proposition 215, and don’t like McWilliams, who is an enthusiast for
marijuana, which he proclaims (in publications protected by the First Amendment)
as suitable to give relief for most adult aches and pains.
It will be a very interesting trial, and it is likely that many institutions will
weigh in with amici curiae pleading their own judgments of law, conflicts, drugs
and liberty. Meanwhile, one hopes that Peter McWilliams, something if a bird of paradise,
is left alone to take proper care of himself.