Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do : The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in Our Free Country [Paperback]

Peter McWilliams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1996 | ISBN-10: 0931580587 | ISBN-13: 978-0931580581

A refresher course on rights and personal freedom. What is your position on prostitution, pornography, gambling and other victimless crimes? This book will make readers consider their rights and the rights of others in a more humanistic and caring way.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Obsessed with a personal freedom that some would consider license, McWilliams ( How to Survive the Loss of a Love ) here contends that consensual crimes--those involving drugs, gambling, sex and unusual religious practices, among them--should be allowed if they do not physically harm others or their property. In this overlong, diffuse but often entertaining book, studded with illustrations and quotations from the likes of Elvis Presley and Saint Augustine, the author argues that not only are our constitutional rights violated by punishment for such crimes, but that enforcing ineffectual, costly laws results in the needless jailing of thousands each year, and yield suffering and social discrimination for many harmless non-conformists. Meanwhile, he wrongfully claims, violence, robbery and corruption go largely unpunished. Citing historical precedents and extensively analyzing the Bible, McWilliams calls for a "politics of change" that would separate law from religion and morality, and that would honor diversity. 100,000 first printing; $300,000 ad/promo; first serial to Playboy.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 692 pages
• Publisher: Mary Book / Prelude Pr (June 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0931580587
• ISBN-13: 978-0931580581
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (104 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,426,929 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #67 in Books > Law > Legal Theory & Systems > Conflict of Laws

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

177 of 181 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Peter McWilliams, R.I.P. July 11, 2000

By R. van Bakel

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Peter died recently in a manner he could hardly have anticipated back when he wrote this book - yet his death, in a sad and poignant way, underlines the key point he makes in this wonderful tome.

The book documents - and ridicules - U.S. bureaucrats' attempts to legislate what people can and cannot see, read, and imbibe. Peter launches a particularly formidable argument against drug prohibition.

In 1996, when AIDS and cancer entered his life, he became an advocate for medical marijuana, testifying before the National Academy of Sciences and doing numerous media interviews. "As a recent cancer, chemotherapy, and radiation survivor who uses medicinal marijuana to keep down the anti-AIDS drugs that are keeping me alive," Peter wrote in an open letter in Daily Variety, in December of 1997, "I can personally attest to marijuana's anti-nausea effect."

Exactly seventeen days after he published those words, the Government responded the only way it knows how: with a full-scale raid. A swarm of DEA agents, guns drawn, stormed Peter's house in Laurel Canyon, Calif., confiscated his computer, his backup drives, and various research materials. Peter readily admitted to growing some marijuana for his own medical use, "in the time-honored tradition of Washington, Jefferson, and Timothy Leary."

The Feds had no warrant for his arrest at the time of the raid, but they finally came for him in July 1998. The indictment against Peter stemmed in large part from the fact that as publisher of Prelude Press, his own publishing company where he employed eighteen people, Peter had given an advance to an author for a book on medical marijuana. That writer, a fellow medical marijuana patient, used a portion of the advance to grow his own medicine. The Feds saw Prelude Press as the source of the funds the man had used to finance his little crop of marijuana. So they treated Peter as a drug kingpin, and they told his employees to look for work elsewhere, "because within six months, we're going to own this place."

Did Peter really break the law? Depends on whom you ask. California *explicitly allows the use of medical marijuana* under Proposition 215, passed into California constitutional law in 1996. The Federal Government, however, does not recognize the state's right to adopt its own drug legislation. So what Peter did was perfectly legal in his own state; it just didn't sit well with some drugfighting hardliners three thousand miles away, in Washington D.C.

One of the conditions of Peter's bail was a weekly urine test. Were he to test positive for illicit drugs, he'd return to jail, pending his trial. Besides, his mother (in her seventies) had put up her house as collateral for the bond. The Feds could seize her home and evict her if Peter violated his bail terms. So he had to be content with being sick as a dog on most days - much sicker than he would have been had he been allowed to smoke marijuana, whose medical benefit to cancer and AIDS patients is well documented. Frequently unable to hold down down his medication, Peter grew weaker and became wheelchair-bound.

The HIV virus wasn't the only thing hitting Peter where it hurts. The federal judge in the case wouldn't let him plead his defense to the jury. Peter's attorney wanted to argue that under California law, infirm Californians who get medical relief from marijuana are permitted to use it. But this line of defense was verboten, the judge decreed. The judge also forbade any mention that Peter suffered from AIDS and cancer, and that the marijuana helped his condition.

The case never went to trial. On June 14, 2000, while at home, taking a bath, the nausea overcame Peter once more. He choked to death on his own vomit. He was 50 years old. He died because the Government wouldn't let him have a toke. Few things better illustrate the monumental folly that is the War on Drugs.

"Ain't Nobody's Business" is vintage McWilliams -- funny, well-researched, expertly argued, and with a pleasant surprise on each and every page (a great quote, a deft turn of phrase, a piece of common 'wisdom' beautifully gutted and turned on its head).

I hope that the thought-provoking ideas in Peter's book will resonate with many people, even when memories of the man himself begin to fade.

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An American Martyr October 14, 2000

By Petro

Format:Paperback

Peter McWilliams died in the summer of 2000 because he was denied medical marijuana to suppress nausea caused by his medication for HIV/AIDS. His home state of California legalized medical marijuana, and the Federal Government found it necessary to raid his home there (and that of his medically-challenged friend Todd McCormick, now doing five years in a Federal penitentiary), and arrest and convict him. Subject to random urine tests, Peter died choking on his own vomit. It is not a stretch for me to claim that he was murdered by this heartless government. Peter was brilliant and multi-talented, and a reading of this astonishing book will confirm that. I defy anyone to read this book and not become fundamentally enraged at the audacity with which the government has continued to encroach on the precious liberties which the Founding Fathers penned in the hopes of their eventual historical fruition. In one of his activist emailings (Peter worked until the week he died), he noted that "...four DEA agents told me they found ['Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do...'] on the shelf of every drug bust they had gone on, making me ideological enemy #1 in their eyes..." Be one of the over one million NON-drug dealers with this excellent work on your shelf.

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars I Mostly Disagree, But - SPLENDID JOB! July 30, 2000

By Bruce Boatner

Format:Paperback

This is one of the most informative and engaging books I have read in a long, long time. Every page has a quote, some of which are exceptionally enlightening besides being very entertaining. For instance George Washington in 1796: "The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." Hello Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson!

Personally I take a bit more pause over some issues, examples like the harmlessness of random jay-walking and not wearing motorcycle helmets. I think that many of these laws save lives, much of the public being too stupid to look out for themselves. But that's the whole point of this book and what makes it such a kick in the pants! Push come to shove, I'd probably take McWilliams' side any day. Be prepared to get mighty angry when the hypocrisy of many of our laws is pointed out.

Oh, by the way - at nearly 700 pages, the book's dirt cheap.