Reason prevails.
Missouri's constitutional right to farm does not extend to growing marijuana, Cole County Circuit Judge Dan Green ruled Tuesday.
The judge's decision responded to a motion filed April 28 by Public Defender Justin Carver on behalf of a client facing a criminal charge of growing marijuana in her basement.
In this forum on May 1, we referred to Carver's motion as a "novel" defense strategy. The pleading also had merit, because it set in motion a judicial test of the limits, and potential dangers, of the Missouri Legislature's increasing tendency to clutter the constitution with unnecessary amendments.
In addition to a right to farm, legislative zeal to amend the state constitution created a gun rights amendment, duplicating a right already established in the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment, and buttressed a failed effort to grant parents a "fundamental right to raise and educate their children," despite our historic, cultural deference to parenting and families.
The judiciary has become the common-sense check and balance on the possible legislative mayhem created by lawmakers' insistence on duplicative, vote-getting "amendment-itis."
Green filled this role again when he ruled a right to farm does not include home-grown marijuana cultivation.
In addition to the timing factor - the defendant was charged before the right became effective - Green determined the "argument that growing marijuana in a basement constitutes a "farming or ranching practice' goes way beyond the plain meaning of" the term. "Simply put," he added, "marijuana is not considered a part of Missouri's agriculture."
In the May 1 editorial, we concluded: "Whenever a constitutional amendment is proposed, we encourage Missourians to consider whether it is necessary and, more importantly, to envision the worst-case scenario if it passes."
Unless and until public opinion subdues legislative amendment-itis, we will need to rely on the judiciary for damage control.