Northern Mariana Islands’ court throws out marijuana possession and sale charges

Mariano Bermudes won dismissal of marijuana possession and sale charges in the Mariana Islands on 23 July 1974. The territorial High Court found that the drug law used against him gave health officials too much power to decide what was prohibited. It also challenged penalties that could punish marijuana offences more severely than offences involving opium or heroin.^[1]

A prosecution exposed how drugs were selected

Bermudes’ lawyer challenged both government interference with private life and the way the drug rules had been made. Lawmakers had defined drugs broadly through their effects on consciousness, thought, mood and perception, then left the health director to choose which substances fitted that description.^[1]

The court found that this gave the director insufficient guidance and left people unable to know what the law would prohibit. It dismissed the charges on that basis and on equal-protection grounds.^[1]

The judge questioned the penalty comparison

The marijuana provisions allowed up to a year in prison, a $1,000 fine, or both. The separate opium and heroin provisions carried up to a year in prison. The court found no rational basis for making the marijuana penalty more severe.^[1]

The judge accepted that government could control marijuana. He left the separate privacy question unresolved because the charges were already being dismissed on other grounds.^[1]

The later code named marijuana expressly

The territorial code published in 1980 contained a different system. Its controlled-substances chapter named marijuana and THC in Schedule I. Marijuana possession had its own quantity-based penalties, beginning with a fine of no more than $50 for an ounce or less.^[2]

Giving away no more than an ounce without payment received the same small-possession penalty. Larger amounts could bring prison, while ordinary marijuana trafficking could bring up to five years and a $5,000 fine. At 2.2 pounds or more, possession created a presumption of trafficking that a defendant could challenge.^[2]

The code also let courts offer probation to eligible first-time possession defendants without entering a finding of guilt. Completing its conditions led to dismissal and opened a route to clearing public records of the case.^[2]

One territory left several legal histories

Those territorial rules also reached the Marshall Islands, whose earlier penalties are described in the 1980 code entry. The code’s geographical coverage included the Marshall Islands alongside the Mariana and Caroline islands.^[3]

For Bermudes, the immediate result was dismissal of his prosecution. The Northern Mariana Islands profile follows the jurisdiction’s later history, through later legislation.