MARIJUANA MARTYR

Medicinal Grower Faces Rest Of Life In Prison

The Bush administration may have just won a case against medicinal
marijuana in a federal court, but prosecutors' shameful tactics should cost
President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft dearly in the court of
public opinion. The case was against Ed Rosenthal, a longtime medicinal
marijuana activist known as the "ganja guru." The city of Oakland had
licensed him to cultivate the crop for patients as sanctioned under
California's medicinal marijuana law, Proposition 215. But a federal
anti-drug team raided Rosenthal's property, confiscated the crop and
arrested him under federal law, which has no exemption similar to
Proposition 215 for any medicinal purpose.

Prosecutors never told the jury that they caught wind of Rosenthal thanks
to Proposition 215 or the city of Oakland. He was portrayed as any old scum
bag in the drug trade. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer refused to allow
the jury to know Rosenthal's medicinal motive, for motive can be excluded
as evidence when it comes to concluding whether a crime did or did not
occur. So jurors convicted Rosenthal.

Then they went home, picked up the newspaper and learned the full picture.
Some are now aghast at their role in sending the 58-year-old Californian to
prison for a sentence that could be as long as 85 years.

This is a situation where the court of public opinion is relevant to the
courts of justice. Proposition 215 clearly conveyed a prevailing public
sentiment that distinguishes between recreational use of marijuana and
consumption to stimulate an appetite after a grueling round of chemotherapy.

State courts are not blind to this difference, for Proposition 215 and all
its vagaries can be fully vetted in a state trial. Federal courts, at least
for now, can ignore state and local medicinal marijuana policies.

Congress could right this wrong by passing a law allowing state medicinal
marijuana statutes to be introduced as evidence in federal courts if they
are relevant to the particular case.

This change would undoubtedly bring to an end federal prosecution of
medicinal marijuana cultivators such as Rosenthal, for jurors would rarely
vote to convict. And it could even end the circus-like federal raids of
their property.

That would all be good for the real war on drugs, not the one that Bush,
through Ashcroft, is now waging against the likes of Rosenthal.