Missing Peter McWilliams

Remembering a political prisoner.

June 14, 2024 marks the 24th anniversary of the passing of Peter McWilliams. The following is adapted from "We Miss You, Peter McWilliams" originally published at LewRockwell.com on June 14, 2005, the fifth anniversary of Peter's death.

Peter McWilliams (1949-2000)

The late conservative icon William F. Buckley unwittingly radicalized me. I was transformed while reading Buckley's column in the summer of 2000 about the murder of his friend Peter McWilliams. The murderer was the federal government. Buckley wrote:

Peter McWilliams is dead. Age? Fifty. Profession? Author, poet, publisher.

Particular focus of interest? The federal judge in California (George King) would decide in a few weeks how long a sentence to hand down, and whether to send McWilliams to prison or let him serve his sentence at home.

What was his offense? He collaborated in growing marijuana plants.

What was his defense? Well, the judge wouldn’t allow him to plead his defense to the jury. If given a chance, the defense would have argued that under Proposition 215, passed into California constitutional law in 1996, infirm Californians who got medical relief from marijuana were permitted to use it. The judge also forbade any mention that McWilliams suffered from AIDS and cancer, and got relief from the marijuana.

What was he doing when he died? Vomiting. The vomiting hit him while in his bathtub, and he choked to death.

Was there nothing he might have done to still the impulse to vomit? Yes, he could have taken marijuana; but the judge’s bail terms forbade him to do so, and he submitted to weekly urine tests to confirm that he was living up to the terms of his bail.

At the time I read this, I thought of myself as a Constitutionalist conservative, meaning I supported the Constitution and agreed with its limitations on federal power. Buckley's column, however, pushed me to vote for the Libertarian Party, known for its opposition to the War on Drugs. My views have only grown more radical ever since.

But was Peter a random victim of federal intrusion in our private lives? Was taking marijuana his real capital crime? The winter before he died, Peter told his side of the story:

I was questioned by four DEA Special Agents. They gave me an interesting – and telling – piece of information. All four said they had known about me for some time, because most every bust they go on, they find a copy of my book Ain’t Nobody’s Business if You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in Our Free Country. They didn’t say it, but it was clear that, to them, I was the guy who wrote the bestselling book against the Vietnam War, the DEA Special Agents were the Green Berets. I was a traitor to their cause, and I was spreading my treachery through the written word.

Also:

On December 1, 1997, I published as an advertisement in Variety a two-page essay highly critical of then-DEA Administrator Constantine’s harsh criticism of the sitcom character Murphy Brown’s use of medical marijuana to quell the nausea of chemotherapy.

As you can tell by even a quick skim of the Variety ad, the DEA was not happy with moi. Seventeen days later, on December 17, 1997, nine DEA agents came a-callin’ with the IRS and a search warrant in tow. I was handcuffed, sat in a chair, and watched as they spend the next three hours going through every piece of paper, sheet by sheet, in my home. They found an ounce or two of medical marijuana, but they didn’t seem to be looking for drugs; they were looking for information.

The DEA and IRS agents then repeated this at my brother’s house and at the office of my publishing company, Prelude Press, Inc. Of eight computers they had to choose from, they took only my personal computer, the one with my unfinished books on it. Their reason for taking this was that they were looking for records of drug transactions. If this were the case, why didn’t they take the computer in the accounting department at Prelude Press? Could they have been looking for something else, such as that book critical of the DEA I told them I was working on? They also took `eight plastic bags” of documents that I was not allowed to see and which have not yet been returned.

Peter McWilliams, harassed, hounded, and killed by the federal government for using marijuana? Or for writing libertarian, anti-government literature? We may never know for certain. 

Five years after Peter died, on June 6, 2005, the Supreme Court's Gonzales v Raich decision upheld the federal government's authority to ban medical marijuana, overruling state laws to the contrary. This is through Congress's Constitutional power to regulate commerce among the states. Which, in the Court's interpretation, is so broad as to include growing your own plants on your own property for your consumption. In other words, through the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, the federal government has absolute power over our lives, and people like Peter deserve to die.

If the majority in Raich is correct, then the Constitution does not protect our liberty or limit the size of government, but authorizes and legitimizes unlimited and tyrannical government. If, however, the majority is incorrect, then what we have is a complete breakdown of the Constitution. The Legislative Branch passes an unconstitutional law, the Executive Branch signs it and argues for it before the Supreme Court, and the Judicial Branch affirms it.

The Constitution might sound good in theory, but it needs the right people in charge to interpret it as I think it ought to be interpreted. But if it depends on the "right people" being in charge, it is no different from any other political arrangement or constitution. If the culture favors liberty, we will get it; if it does not, then no constitution will bring it about. The Constitutionalist is without his Constitution. Where will he go?

Keep in mind that although more states have legalized medical and even recreational marijuana in recent years, all Marijuana use, possession, and distribution remains illegal under federal law. Although the Feds might not be as active in pursuing cannibis users as they used to be (they claim marijuana is not a priority), the law is still a weapon they can use against people like Peter McWilliams. So in subtance nothing has changed since Peter died.

Peter McWilliams himself said it best, in an interview at mavericksofthemind.com (a now-dead link) from the autumn of 1999:

We are so far away from what the Constitution was written as, we as well just tear the whole thing up. It’s a sham. It’s ridiculous. The Constitution was based upon the fact the federal government had exceedingly limited powers. It was only allowed to do eighteen very limited things – the enumerated powers, period. And everything else belonged to the states and the individuals to regulate.

Now it’s become such that if the Constitution doesn’t specifically guarantee you can have it, it’s okay for the government to regulate it or make laws against it. That is putting the Constitution on its head. It’s like saying, if a woman doesn’t carry a sign on her back that says you can not rape me, she has permission to be raped. It is that. And boy, has lady liberty been raped – repeatedly.

I never met you, Peter, but I miss you.

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James Leroy Wilson writes The MVP Chase (subscribe) and JL Cells (subscribe) and is a monthly columnist at Meer. Thank you for your subscriptions and support! You may contact James for writing, editing, research, and other work: jamesleroywilson-at-gmail.com.