Happy Days Are Here Again

Via Talkleft I ran across this story about an Alaska judge dismissing a marijuana possession conviction on state constitutional grounds, citing a 1975 Alaska Supreme Court precedent. Well I'd never heard of this case, Ravin v. State (537 P.2d 494), but it is really something:

Thus, we conclude that citizens of the State of Alaska have a basic right to privacy in their homes under Alaska's constitution. This right to privacy would encompass the possession and ingestion of substances such as marijuana in a purely personal, non-commercial context in the home unless the state can meet its substantial burden and show that proscription of possession of marijuana in the home is supportable by achievement of a legitimate state interest.

However, given the relative insignificance of marijuana consumption as a health problem in our society at present, we do not believe that the potential harm generated by drivers under the influence of marijuana, standing alone, creates a close and substantial relationship between the public welfare and control of ingestion of marijuana or possession of it in the home for personal use. Thus we conclude that no adequate justification for the state's intrusion into the citizen's right to privacy by its prohibition of possession of marijuana by an adult for personal consumption in the home has been shown.

Whoa! I'd never have believed it if I hadn't read it. A 1990 state initiative tried to make all marijuana possession illegal, but the judge in this new case apparently is holding that the initiative could not overrule a constitutional right (which seems quite right, depending on what the proper constitutional amendment process actually is in Alaska).