Court: No expert needed to show harm of eating illegal drugs
Associated Press
March 21, 2005
STAMFORD, Conn. -- Ingesting raw marijuana or crack cocaine is bad for children and you don't need an expert to tell you that, the Connecticut Supreme Court said Monday.
In two separate drug cases, the high court reinstated convictions on charges including risk of injury to a minor that had been thrown out by the state Appellate Court.
Both cases involved the possession or sale of drugs in homes with children. The Appellate Court had ruled that prosecutors should have introduced expert testimony to show that eating the drugs would have been harmful to the kids.
The high court said the effects of ingesting the drugs were common knowledge and common sense.
"It is still a widely known fact that marijuana is an illegal drug that will adversely affect the recipient, whether the drug is smoked, baked, sauteed, infused into alcohol, brewed in a tea, eaten raw, or consumed in any other inventive manner," Chief Justice William Sullivan wrote for the majority in one case.
Three justices disagreed with that decision, saying the state was required to prove that harm probably would have come to the children had they ingested raw marijuana within their reach. They said authorities should have been required to present an expert because the effects of eating the drug were unclear.
Chief Justice William Sullivan is declaring that science does not matter, facts do not matter and that reality does not matter.
If Connecticut Supreme Court Chief Justice William Sullivan were to go to the home of the people he is sentencing and stand before their kitchen counter where the government found marijuana, he could point his finger in any random direction and he would be pointing at something potentially more harmful to ingest than the raw (uncooked) marijuana on the counter before him.
March 21, 2005
STAMFORD, Conn. -- Ingesting raw marijuana or crack cocaine is bad for children and you don't need an expert to tell you that, the Connecticut Supreme Court said Monday.
In two separate drug cases, the high court reinstated convictions on charges including risk of injury to a minor that had been thrown out by the state Appellate Court.
Both cases involved the possession or sale of drugs in homes with children. The Appellate Court had ruled that prosecutors should have introduced expert testimony to show that eating the drugs would have been harmful to the kids.
The high court said the effects of ingesting the drugs were common knowledge and common sense.
"It is still a widely known fact that marijuana is an illegal drug that will adversely affect the recipient, whether the drug is smoked, baked, sauteed, infused into alcohol, brewed in a tea, eaten raw, or consumed in any other inventive manner," Chief Justice William Sullivan wrote for the majority in one case.
Three justices disagreed with that decision, saying the state was required to prove that harm probably would have come to the children had they ingested raw marijuana within their reach. They said authorities should have been required to present an expert because the effects of eating the drug were unclear.
Chief Justice William Sullivan is declaring that science does not matter, facts do not matter and that reality does not matter.
If Connecticut Supreme Court Chief Justice William Sullivan were to go to the home of the people he is sentencing and stand before their kitchen counter where the government found marijuana, he could point his finger in any random direction and he would be pointing at something potentially more harmful to ingest than the raw (uncooked) marijuana on the counter before him.
posted by Loretta Nall at
4:11 AM
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