What would (a Jedi) Master Jesus do regarding medical marijuana?

I'm not trying to get Jedi to say anything except their own thoughts on the matter.

As for mine personally: Jedi do not blindly follow unjust and wrong laws. At some point (each must decide for themselves) a Jedi will face breaking a law for the greater good or because it is not justifiable and wrong.

Far too often a law is a crime in itself.


Where would we be today without heroes (Jedi by another name) like Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King, all the folks who illegally helped American slaves escape and the people who illegally helped the Jews escape Nazi persecution in Germany? Those are just a very few of examples and I'm sure you get the idea.

As Jedi we are above the law when The Living Force and Our Conscience demands it.

I'll use some parables from Star Wars. The Rebels were breaking the law fighting against The Empire. Luke and the droids were wanted by The Empire but Obi Wan mind tricked the storm troopers and did not turn them in. Mace Windu was going to kill Palpatine without a trial. Was he wrong? I admit this was an extreme circumstances but it shows my point.

A Jedi certainly does not go around breaking laws for no reason but if we are not able to rise above the law when we are needed most then we are useless and not even worthy to be called pawns.

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p.s. This is one of the longest p.s.' in history but it's such a good example of where the law is the crime that I must post it here. This was well within my lifetime as I was 7 at the time of this Supreme Court decision. Should the Loving's just have obeyed the law? Read on.

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LOVING ET UX. v. VIRGINIA
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
388 U.S. 1
June 12, 1967, Decided
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case presents a constitutional question never addressed by this Court: whether a statutory scheme adopted by the State of Virginia to prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. For reasons which seem to us to reflect the central meaning of those constitutional commands, we conclude that these statutes cannot stand consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment.

In June 1958, two residents of Virginia, Mildred Jeter, a Negro woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were married in the District of Columbia pursuant to its laws. Shortly after their marriage, the Lovings returned to Virginia and established their marital abode in Caroline County. At the October Term, 1958, of the Circuit Court of Caroline County, a grand jury issued an indictment charging the Lovings with violating Virginia's ban on interracial marriages. On January 6, 1959, the Lovings pleaded guilty to the charge and were sentenced to one year in jail; however, the trial judge suspended the sentence for a period of 25 years on the condition that the Lovings leave the State and not return to Virginia together for 25 years. He stated in an opinion that:

\"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.\"

After their convictions, the Lovings took up residence in the District of Columbia. On November 6, 1963, they filed a motion in the state trial court to vacate the judgment and set aside the sentence on the ground that the statutes which they had violated were repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment....

The two statutes under which appellants were convicted and sentenced are part of a comprehensive statutory scheme aimed at prohibiting and punishing interracial marriages. The Lovings were convicted of violating § 20-58 of the Virginia Code:

\"Leaving State to evade law. -- If any white person and colored person shall go out of this State, for the purpose of being married, and with the intention of returning, and be married out of it, and afterwards return to and reside in it, cohabiting as man and wife, they shall be punished as provided in § 20-59, and the marriage shall be governed by the same law as if it had been solemnized in this State. The fact of their cohabitation here as man and wife shall be evidence of their marriage.\"

Section 20-59, which defines the penalty for miscegenation, provides:

\"Punishment for marriage. -- If any white person intermarry with a colored person, or any colored person intermarry with a white person, he shall be guilty of a felony and shall be punished by confinement in the penitentiary for not less than one nor more than five years.\"

Other central provisions in the Virginia statutory scheme are § 20-57, which automatically voids all marriages between \"a white person and a colored person\" without any judicial proceeding, and §§ 20-54 and 1-14 which, respectively, define \"white persons\" and \"colored persons and Indians\" for purposes of the statutory prohibitions. The Lovings have never disputed in the course of this litigation that Mrs. Loving is a \"colored person\" or that Mr. Loving is a \"white person\" within the meanings given those terms by the Virginia statutes.

Virginia is now one of 16 States which prohibit and punish marriages on the basis of racial classifications. The present statutory scheme dates from the adoption of the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, passed during the period of extreme nativism which followed the end of the First World War. The central features of this Act, and current Virginia law, are the absolute prohibition of a \"white person\" marrying other than another \"white person,\" a prohibition against issuing marriage licenses until the issuing official is satisfied that the applicants' statements as to their race are correct, certificates of \"racial composition\" to be kept by both local and state registrars, and the carrying forward of earlier prohibitions against racial intermarriage.

I.

In upholding the constitutionality of these provisions in the decision below, the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia referred to its 1955 decision in Naim v. Naim as stating the reasons supporting the validity of these laws. In Naim, the state court concluded that the State's legitimate purposes were \"to preserve the racial integrity of its citizens,\" and to prevent \"the corruption of blood,\" \"a mongrel breed of citizens,\" and \"the obliteration of racial pride,\" obviously an endorsement of the doctrine of White Supremacy. The court also reasoned that marriage has traditionally been subject to state regulation without federal intervention, and, consequently, the regulation of marriage should be left to exclusive state control by the Tenth Amendment.

The State does not contend in its argument before this Court that its powers to regulate marriage are unlimited notwithstanding the commands of the Fourteenth Amendment. Nor could it do so. Instead, the State argues that the meaning of the Equal Protection Clause, as illuminated by the statements of the Framers, is only that state penal laws containing an interracial element as part of the definition of the offense must apply equally to whites and Negroes in the sense that members of each race are punished to the same degree. Thus, the State contends that, because its miscegenation statutes punish equally both the white and the Negro participants in an interracial marriage, these statutes, despite their reliance on racial classifications, do not constitute an invidious discrimination based upon race. The second argument advanced by the State assumes the validity of its equal application theory. The argument is that, if the Equal Protection Clause does not outlaw miscegenation statutes because of their reliance on racial classifications, the question of constitutionality would thus become whether there was any rational basis for a State to treat interracial marriages differently from other marriages. On this question, the State argues, the scientific evidence is substantially in doubt and, consequently, this Court should defer to the wisdom of the state legislature in adopting its policy of discouraging interracial marriages.

Because we reject the notion that the mere \"equal application\" of a statute containing racial classifications is enough to remove the classifications from the Fourteenth Amendment's proscription of all invidious racial discriminations, we do not accept the State's contention that these statutes should be upheld if there is any possible basis for concluding that they serve a rational purpose. The mere fact of equal application does not mean that our analysis of these statutes should follow the approach we have taken in cases involving no racial discrimination where the Equal Protection Clause has been arrayed against a statute discriminating between the kinds of advertising which may be displayed on trucks in New York City or an exemption in Ohio's ad valorem tax for merchandise owned by a nonresident in a storage warehouse. In these cases, involving distinctions not drawn according to race, the Court has merely asked whether there is any rational foundation for the discriminations, and has deferred to the wisdom of the state legislatures. In the case at bar, however, we deal with statutes containing racial classifications, and the fact of equal application does not immunize the statute from the very heavy burden of justification which the Fourteenth Amendment has traditionally required of state statutes drawn according to race.

The State argues that statements in the Thirty-ninth Congress about the time of the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment indicate that the Framers did not intend the Amendment to make unconstitutional state miscegenation laws. Many of the statements alluded to by the State concern the debates over the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, which President Johnson vetoed, and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, enacted over his veto. While these statements have some relevance to the intention of Congress in submitting the Fourteenth Amendment, it must be understood that they pertained to the passage of specific statutes and not to the broader, organic purpose of a constitutional amendment. As for the various statements directly concerning the Fourteenth Amendment, we have said in connection with a related problem, that although these historical sources \"cast some light\" they are not sufficient to resolve the problem; \"[at] best, they are inconclusive. The most avid proponents of the post-War Amendments undoubtedly intended them to remove all legal distinctions among 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States.' Their opponents, just as certainly, were antagonistic to both the letter and the spirit of the Amendments and wished them to have the most limited effect.\" We have rejected the proposition that the debates in the Thirty-ninth Congress or in the state legislatures which ratified the Fourteenth Amendment supported the theory advanced by the State, that the requirement of equal protection of the laws is satisfied by penal laws defining offenses based on racial classifications so long as white and Negro participants in the offense were similarly punished....

The Equal Protection Clause requires the consideration of whether the classifications drawn by any statute constitute an arbitrary and invidious discrimination. The clear and central purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to eliminate all official state sources of invidious racial discrimination in the States.

There can be no question but that Virginia's miscegenation statutes rest solely upon distinctions drawn according to race. The statutes proscribe generally accepted conduct if engaged in by members of different races. Over the years, this Court has consistently repudiated \"distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry\" as being \"odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.\" At the very least, the Equal Protection Clause demands that racial classifications, especially suspect in criminal statutes, be subjected to the \"most rigid scrutiny,\" Korematsu v. United States (1944), and, if they are ever to be upheld, they must be shown to be necessary to the accomplishment of some permissible state objective, independent of the racial discrimination which it was the object of the Fourteenth Amendment to eliminate. Indeed, two members of this Court have already stated that they \"cannot conceive of a valid legislative purpose . . . which makes the color of a person's skin the test of whether his conduct is a criminal offense.\"

There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy. We have consistently denied the constitutionality of measures which restrict the rights of citizens on account of race. There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry solely because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the Equal Protection Clause.

II.

These statutes also deprive the Lovings of liberty without due process of law in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.

Marriage is one of the \"basic civil rights of man,\" fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

These convictions must be reversed.

MR. JUSTICE STEWART, concurring.

I have previously expressed the belief that \"it is simply not possible for a state law to be valid under our Constitution which makes the criminality of an act depend upon the race of the actor.\" Because I adhere to that belief, I concur in the judgment of the Court.

:laugh: Holy Cow :laugh: I think we have a new world record P. S. !!!!

I admit that you have some very good examples of bigitry and narrow mindedness. And I agree that wrongs have been addressed over the history of the world by thoughs who have had the guts to stand up for moral wrongs. I just won't agree with you on the marijuana.

Of course, that is what makes most of our countries and this Order so great, we can disagree!!!

mtfbwy

Maruk wrote:

:laugh: Holy Cow :laugh: I think we have a new world record P. S. !!!!

I admit that you have some very good examples of bigitry and narrow mindedness. And I agree that wrongs have been addressed over the history of the world by thoughs who have had the guts to stand up for moral wrongs. I just won't agree with you on the marijuana.

Of course, that is what makes most of our countries and this Order so great, we can disagree!!!

mtfbwy

AMEN! Look at all the different faiths here together in harmony. Weed is a small issue compared to the hot topic of religion.

I want to reintegrate that a Jedi must decide for herself if breaking the law is warranted in a particular situation.

Thank you for a lively conversation that I'm sure made lot's of folks think.

I think to put it simply, \"It's not what goeth in to a man that defiles him, but what cometh out\" Moderation is always the key.

\"I don't drink alcohol or smoke. I have seen too many family members and friends suffer from addiction.\"

Now while I respect your choice here brother it seems your implying everyone that smokes or drinks is addicted? Again the common drink was wine in Jesus time, not unfermented grape juice as I've been told by some Christians. The whole reason they fermented anything was because they didn't get sick from it. They didn't know microbiology but they did know that water could sometimes kill you, but wine didn't.

When you say moderation is key, you hit it on the dot along with your last part as well, Br.Merin

Back in Jesus' time wine as translated was something along the lines of 9 parts water, one part wine

not nearly as strong as what we drink today, albeit, even though wine today still isnt all too strong

abusus non tollit usum

Pronunciation:
\Èä-Ìbü-sus-ÌnMn-Ìto-lit-Èü-sum\

Function:
foreign term

Etymology:
Latin

: abuse does not take away use, i.e., is not an argument against proper use

Right Master Merrin?

Well, in the time of Jesus, hash was used commonly. Hash is still widely used in the in most parts of the world. If you don't know what hash is, it a concentrate of cannabis formed as an oily powder. I don't think Jesus would have a big problem with medical cannabis. I have many friends that are medical cannabis patients, and it has changed their lives for the better, they both work and use cannabis to control pain, sleep habits, depression, and to counter cancer meds.

Thats all i got for now.

MTFBWYA

Cool. I found in researching this part of history you discuss that the holy oil used for consecrations was almost certainly cannabis oil which has no psychoactive properties but can be burned for light and is a cholesterol free cooking oil.

The roasted or raw seeds of marijuana have no medical effect except that they are so nutritions with an amazing amount of protein, vitamins and minerals; a person could survive for months on a diet of water and weed seeds alone.

The hemp fibers make fantastic paper and long lasting soft cloth. Jeans made from hemp would last decades instead of years and the Indiana State Troopers official uniform hats are required to be made of hemp because they don't wear out. They order them from outside the United States.

Well that was a lot of fun and we've not even smoked any yet. I can see why marijuana is a threat to the cotton indu$try especially since a hemp mill comparable to the cotton gin was perfected right before the first real laws against weed were enacted. That was also around the time when DuPont had just received a patent on polye$ter.

Without getting into a drug issue at all why cant we use the stuff to cloth and feed people? There are very low THC varieties that would do the job well and you'd have to smoke an ounce just to think you were feeling something thus no danger for abuse.

When are we going to see the Wiccan Jedi Book of Shadows?

Bro. John, this was an interesting topic. Another topic no less controversial, illegal imagration. What do Jedi think about those who enter a coutry to better themselves and there family. Who work hard, and support the communities they live in.

Who get free education and health care, who studies show keep wages down and take jobs.

Should they be allowed to get drivers license, vote, or should they be deported? This question is raging in the USA and is probably no less controversial then marijuana.

Well for one the way you explained their role in society immigrants certainly do not have much justification. Is this really an objective analysis of the situation? Yet others may say what to do with immigrants who work unwanted jobs for sub-human wages or do jobs which are below human dignity. I mean who worked in the cotton fields, built the railways, built the sky scrapers... ? Now the consideration looks different. This view is even more intensified when you think, \"why on earth are all these people emigrating?\" Is it better in the western world? Why is it better there? In these days of advanced informatics no one can seriously deny anymore that governments do not act in their own interest, so what have they done for something like this to happen? Maybe we should ask oursleves as to what we are so afraid of, and most importantly what we would do in their situation?