THE CANNABIS CRUSADES: MEDICAL MARIJUANA AND THE RECALL ELECTION

The California gubernatorial recall is the first election in which I will
not be voting since I turned 18, 40 years ago. It's not my disgust with
what I consider a "coup attempt" by the extreme right that keeps me from
the polls. It's my three felony convictions related to cultivating
medicinal marijuana.

Although I was spared prison time, the loss of my voting rights is cruel
punishment for me, because I have always been politically and civically active.

It is remarkable that I ended up with the felonies, since I had been
deputized by the city of Oakland and promised immunity from prosecution for
providing medicine to qualified patients.

Still, I feel a certain satisfaction about the recall campaign. I watched
one of my daydreams come true in the first debate. Medical marijuana was
the only issue that all the candidates agreed upon: all pledged to uphold
California's marijuana laws. State Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Northridge, the
most conservative, was the most ardent -- stating that the federal
government should stay out of the state's business.

When Dennis Peron opened San Francisco's first medical marijuana dispensary
nearly 10 years ago, there was virtually unanimous agreement among
politicians and the criminal justice community that marijuana wasn't a
medicine. Furthermore, the risk was too great for the medicine to be
permitted. What a difference a decade makes. In 1994, no reporter would
have asked the question, but if they had, every candidate would have
pledged to redouble efforts to eliminate "the assassin of youth."

All the candidates agreed that medical marijuana should be "legal," but
there are definite differences in their attitudes toward what legal means
and who should decide. This is significant, because some California state
agencies are still at war against this popular medicine. The California
attorney general's Medical Board is prosecuting doctors based on
complaints. Neither patients, their caregivers, nor their loved ones are
complaining. No, all the complaints are being filed by officers or
prosecutors thwarted when they attempt to arrest or prosecute a patient.
Police and prosecutors in some counties have declared war on medical
patients, spending an inordinate amount of time and taxpayers' money to
harass people whose only crime is that they are ill.

State probation and parole orders sometimes limit use of medical marijuana,
even in life-threatening cases. Could you imagine the uproar if a judge
denied a diabetic the use of insulin?

These actions are being fueled by the inflammatory rhetoric of the
California Narcotic Officers' Association. The organization denies that
marijuana has any medical use and encourages police and prosecutors to view
all medical cases as bogus. Its lobbyists use obstructionist tactics and
threaten legislators inclined to vote to implement provisions of
Proposition 215, California's medical marijuana law. CNOA functions as a
clique of verbal terrorists fighting against patient's rights.

The problem with the implementation of Proposition 215 is that it is based
on the "stakeholders theory," where all the interested parties reach a
compromise. This policy may work for water rights, but it is insane when
patients' health is compromised.

The idea that the criminal justice system is a stakeholder in a health and
medical issue is ridiculous on its face. The police have training only in
identifying marijuana and arresting its owners. They have no cultivation
expertise, know next to nothing about the herb's medical use and have no
sociological knowledge to lend to the discussion. The police's only vested
interest in marijuana is using tax dollars to arrest and incarcerate users
of any type, recreational or medical. The police industry's influence in
this medical and sociological debate is inappropriate, since their
representatives mostly deny marijuana's medical benefits and view arrests
as an employment issue.

That's why this recall campaign is such a watershed. All the candidates
accept marijuana as medicine. How each one would implement the law is of
prime importance to the 70,000 Californians holding medical marijuana
recommendations. Will patients using this exceedingly safe herbal medicine
continue to be held hostage to "stakeholders" whose interest is a high
arrest count?

Ironically, though I am now barred from voting, the issues that were
brought to the surface in my case are reverberating through this campaign.
I am hopeful of winning my appeal and having my rights restored. I would
like to vote again soon.

Learn more

The Independent Institute is sponsoring a special forum on medical pot next
week.

Topic: "The Truth about medical marijuana"

Speakers: Ed Rosenthal, Donald I. Abrams, Edwin Dobb and Robert J. MacCoun

When: Thursday, 8 p.m.

Where: Hotel Nikko, Mason and O'Farrell streets, San Francisco

Tickets: $22, available through City Box Office, (415) 392-4400, or online
at www.independent.org.