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.