I Am Full of Shit

I'd like to file an addendum to my National Coming Out Day post. Thank you to a good friend for pointing this out. In South Dakota you can be prosecuted for having been high. It's a concept called 'internal possession' that perverts the 4th Amendment in ways standard drug law jurisprudence never could. Armed with a search warrant and allegations of marijuana trafficking, police entered the home of Dave Johnson and, despite finding only a small pipe with marijuana resin in it, proceeded to arrest him. "The cops took me downtown and said if I didn't piss for them, they'd stick something in my dick and take it by force." Frighteningly, "the Huron police weren't lying. Under state law, they could, with probable cause, seek a warrant from a judge ordering an individual to provide a urine sample, and if he refuses, forcibly extract one from him." They found traces of cocaine in his urine and prosecuted him for possession. Indeed, the state Supreme Court recently upheld the conviction, despite arguments by his attorney that "the court has traditionally held that once a substance is in your body you can no longer exercise dominion and control, which are key elements of defining possession." The Court cited a "2001 amendment to the state's drug laws [that] erased the dichotomy between laws that make it a crime to ingest a drug and laws that make drug possession a crime."

Massachusetts also has a bill pending which, if passed, would criminalize so called 'internal possession.' This is particularly problematic in the case of marijuana, whose metabolites, which are stored in body fat, can be detected in urine for up to a month depending on frequency of use.

So, to the people of South Dakota, sit down unless you're willing to engage in an actual act of civil disobedience.

Here is the source article I used.

Also, please feel free to call me out on anything you disagree with or point out something I've missed. I'd love for this to become more than me talking to myself.