JUDGE ORDERS RETRIAL IN MEDICAL POT CASE

Voters 'Didn't Understand Issues' Of Marijuana Proposition, S.J. Justice Says

STOCKTON -- A San Joaquin Superior Court judge Friday criticized voters for
legalizing medical marijuana and then ordered a Stockton quadriplegic to
again stand trial for cultivating and intending to sell pot.

"The voters unfortunately didn't understand the issues at all," said Judge
Terrence Van Oss, while questioning a doctor who had permitted Aaron
Paradiso to buy marijuana from a Bay Area dispensary.

Van Oss later declined to elaborate on his statement. But it reinforced
medical-marijuana pro-ponents' concerns that Proposition 215 -- a law
approved by voters eight years ago -- is not seen by San Joaquin County law
enforcers as legitimate.

"It's never a good sign when a judge questions the voters," said Bill
Pearce of the Valley Patient Alliance, a group that advocates for people
who use marijuana medicinally.

Pearce was in court Friday supporting Paradiso, 26, whom he calls "a poster
boy for this law."

Paradiso was injured in a 1998 traffic accident and now is paralyzed from
the neck down. As a result of his quadriplegia, he suffers involuntary
muscle spasms. His body went into convulsions several times during the
court hearing Friday morning, at first alarming Van Oss.

For more than three years, Paradiso has been smoking marijuana, eating it,
and incorporating it into his diet by mixing its oils with butter. It helps
him sleep, quells the pain of the spasms and has allowed him to reduce his
intake of harsh prescribed medications, he says.

"I'm not hurting nobody," Paradiso said earlier this week. "It's a
political issue that I got caught up in.

"If I were in the Bay Area, this wouldn't even be an issue."

The Sheriff's Office and Deputy District Attorney Phillip Urie don't
believe that Paradiso was growing marijuana solely for personal use. They
say the 52 plants found at his home in August 2003, together with already
cultivated, dried marijuana found there, totaled more than 100 pounds -- an
amount that would have taken Paradiso 5 1 2 years to ingest.

Paradiso said the marijuana was to be divvied up between four patients
authorized to use it. But no evidence of that was presented to Van Oss on
Friday.

Sheriff's Sgt. Steve Fontes said during the preliminary hearing Friday that
detectives believe Paradiso planned to give or sell his excess marijuana to
a collective in the Bay Area that legally dispenses the drug to patients.

During the hearing, Urie presented no evidence that Paradiso had sold
marijuana -- no large amounts of cash, accounts of sales or pagers that are
typically found in drug busts.

Paradiso's mother, Debra Paradiso, 50, is charged with the same crimes as
her son.

M. Gerald Schwartzbach, Aaron Paradiso's attorney, who on Friday was also
representing his mother, said there is no reason for Debra Paradiso to have
been charged.

"If she's guilty of anything, she's guilty of being a mother," he said.

Schwartzbach, who also is representing actor Robert Blake in Los Angeles,
asked Van Oss to dismiss the charges against the Paradiso.

"Regardless of your view of marijuana, we have a ... person here who has
been sentenced to a life of not being able to move a muscle below his
neck," Schwartzbach said. "It must be a living hell.

"And he gets some relief (from the marijuana)."

Schwartzbach also called Dr. Theodore Fong to the stand. Fong, a pulmonary
and critical-care specialist, treats Paradiso for his quadriplegia and has
written notes allowing Paradiso to get medical marijuana.

Though he described himself as "on the fence" on the plant's benefits and
as "having some ambivalence to" Paradiso's using it, he wrote a note in
2001 saying it was "OK" if Paradiso did so and another in 2003 saying he
would continue to treat Paradiso if he should choose to use marijuana for
his spasms.

Van Oss asked Fong about things such as the difference between smoking
marijuana and smoking cigarettes. It was during the questioning that Van
Oss made his comment about voters' knowledge of "the issues" -- apparently
referring to Proposition 215.

Van Oss ordered the Paradisos to stand trial on the charges.

They were tried once before, but the case ended on a legal technicality.

Pearce, the advocate, estimates there are hundreds of medicinal-marijuana
users in San Joaquin County.

He said if the district attorney can successfully prosecute a quadriplegic,
it will have a chilling effect on those other patients whose illnesses are
not as severe.

"They should be ashamed of what they're doing to Aaron Paradiso," Pearce said.