NARCOMANIA IN CALIFORNIA

Maybe The Judge Should Just Let Peter McWilliams Die

The federal narcomaniacs decided, at some point,to move in on the California scene.

Background: In 1996, a plebiscite was conducted. Proposition 215 ruled that
a Californian could take marijuana if counseled to do so for reasons of
health by his doctor.

That would seem a reasonable decision, by a self-governing state. But it
ran athwart a federal ruling. It is that marijuana is a proscribed
substance and that its use under any circumstances is therefore unlawful.

California, then, became the legal battleground. And the feds walked into a
quandary when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit last September
authorized a cannabis club in Oakland to resume providing marijuana to
patients where there was medical necessity. In such cases, said this
honorable court, medical necessity could be used as a defense against a
court injunction obtained by the Washington narcs.

What apparently happened in the past fortnight was a policy decision to
force the hand not only of California, but of the 9th Circuit. Judge George
H. King of Los Angeles was given two indictments to try: Peter McWilliams,
an author, publisher and poet (and a personal friend), and Todd McCormick,
an entrepreneur.

McWilliams and McCormick were charged with conspiring to manufacture
marijuana, which indeed is exactly what they did, growing 6,000 plants. The
design, said the defense, was to make these plants available to the
cannabis clubs to pass the drug along as authorized by Prop. 215.

The trial was scheduled to begin on Nov. 30. On the eve of the trial, Judge
King decided, so to speak, to eliminate the Bill of Rights.

Defense strategy had been to advise the jury of the reasons the defendants
thought to act as they did. They would cite Prop. 215, expressing the will
of the citizens of California. Then they would recite the medical story.

Todd McCormick has fused vertebrae from childhood cancer treatments. Peter
McWilliams has AIDS and also an AIDS-related cancer, non-Hodgkin's
lymphoma. He went through chemotherapy and radiation therapy for AIDS.

In the account of Charles Levendosky, writing in the Ventura County Star,
"The cancer treatment resulted in complete remission. The AIDS treatment
entails a mixture of chemically derived protease inhibitors and anti-viral
medications in order to prevent the spread of the AIDS virus in his body.
He must continue his AIDS treatment in order to live."

In July 1998, federal agents arrested McWilliams. They put handcuffs on
him, took him to jail, kept him there for several weeks, then released him
on bail with the proviso that he must not use marijuana, an edict the
enforcement of which called for random urine tests. Again in the account of
the Ventura County Star:

"McWilliams stopped smoking marijuana. He now takes the prescription
anti-nausea drug, Marinol, that he claims only works about a third of the
time. He vomits up much of his AIDS medications and, by the fall of 1998,
the amount of live AIDS virus in his blood had reached a critical stage.
McWilliams can no longer walk any farther than 50 feet and uses a
wheelchair. All of this since his arrest."

The judge issued his ruling: The defendants would not be permitted to
advise the jury (a) of the existence of Prop. 215, which presumably would
have served to extenuate the guilt the prosecution was asserting (one
wonders whether a juror would have been dismissed for cause if he/she had
voted for Prop. 215?) And (b) the jury would not be permitted to hear the
medical record of the defendants. McWilliams' attorney would not be
permitted even to tell the jury that he could not address certain issues in
the case, or give the reasons why he could not do so.

So ... the defense folded. There isn't much point in undertaking to defend
yourself if the reasons why you acted as you did you are prohibited to
bring up.

Obviously the high command of Narcs Inc. feared that the temptation would
be felt by the jury to "nullify." That happens, to use the language of Mr.
Levendosky, " when a jury deliberately rejects the evidence of guilt or
refuses to apply the law because it wants to send a message about a social
issue or because the result dictated by the law is contrary to the jury's
sense of justice, morality or fairness."

So the fate of Peter McWilliams and of Todd McCormick is in the hands of
Judge King. Perhaps the cool thing for him to do is delay a ruling for a
few months, and just let Peter McWilliams die.