DOMESTIC STEALTH BOMBS

From hounding medical-marijuana growers to stacking the courts with
conservative judges, the Bush administration is pandering to the right
while America prepares for war

BY KRISTEN LOMBARDI

A SECOND resolution on war in Iraq. A Bush post-invasion plan. Millions of
antiwar protesters take to the streets. Saddam Hussein gets feisty with
weapons inspectors. It's no surprise that stories without an Iraq angle get
little or no attention these days. The all-Iraq-all-the-time media myopia
is even understandable, given how momentous an event it would be for
President George W. Bush to send American troops off to battle.

Yet as we've learned often enough - especially with the Bush administration
- - what's going on out of sight is often just as important as what's taking
center stage on TV or the front page. While we stockpile supplies and wrap
our windows in duct tape, the Bushies are quietly advancing a frightening
domestic agenda that amounts to a far-right ideological assault on our
civil liberties and social protections - and threatens to turn the clock
back decades. Here are five Bush-administration domestic policies of
enormous consequence that have been overlooked in this time of impending
war and national-security crises.

The Assault On Medical Marijuana

This is a misguided, mean-spirited effort. But the Bush administration -
led by Attorney General John Ashcroft - seems hell-bent on preventing
states from permitting marijuana use for medical purposes. Ashcroft's
assault began in earnest in 2001, when he ordered a raid on a health-care
facility in California that distributed medical pot - something a state
ballot initiative legalized there in 1996. He's continued to frustrate the
will of California voters by pushing to revoke the licenses of doctors who
recommend marijuana to patients. That strategy faltered when a federal
court struck down Ashcroft's legal motion to do so on constitutional
grounds last fall.

Now, the attorney general has taken a different tack: arresting and
prosecuting cannabis growers who work under the California medical-pot law
known as Proposition 215. To date, Ashcroft's Justice Department has gone
after 40 such growers. Its latest victim? Ed Rosenthal. Author of cannabis
self-help books and a High Times advice column called "Ask Ed," Rosenthal
is something of a celebrity among potheads. But he's also a legitimate
Prop. 215 cultivator, a deputized "officer" who grows pot to be distributed
for medicinal purposes under the auspices of the City of Oakland, where a
local ordinance set up city-sanctioned growing facilities to implement the
state law.

Despite Rosenthal's official title, federal prosecutors arrested him on
charges of marijuana cultivation and conspiracy last year; in January, they
took him to court in San Francisco - though not many fair-minded folk would
call what happened inside the courtroom a "trial." US District Court judge
Charles Breyer refused to allow Rosenthal to raise Prop. 215 as a defense,
since it's not valid under federal law. So while he admitted growing
marijuana for distribution, Rosenthal couldn't offer up any witnesses to
explain why. Given the constraints, the jury found Rosenthal guilty on
January 31. Under mandatory sentencing, he faces a minimum of five years in
prison.

It's an extraordinary punishment for a man whom sick people regard as a
savior and whom California law defines as a caregiver. But then, within
days, jurors in his trial did something extraordinary, too. On February 4,
eight of the 14 jurors offered a public apology to the man whom they'd just
convicted. They were outraged to discover later that Rosenthal was growing
medical cannabis for Oakland. If they had known he was acting as a city
agent, they said, they would have acquitted him. The jurors, in other
words, have a lot more compassion and sense on the matter than the Bush
people do.

Americans are widely and increasingly tolerant of marijuana. Most don't
think casual pot use should be punished by more than a fine; 40 percent
would even legalize the use of marijuana in small amounts, according to a
recent Time/CNN poll. There's almost no dispute, however, about whether
patients with AIDS, cancer, and other debilitating illnesses should be
allowed whatever relief marijuana can give them. Eight out of 10 Americans
believe pot should be legal with a doctor's prescription, the poll showed.
Such popular support has led nine states, including California, to pass
ballot initiatives making marijuana available to seriously sick people.

The Bush administration's war on medical marijuana flies in the face of the
president's and Ashcroft's oft-repeated rhetoric about the importance of
states' rights - apparently, a doctrine worthy of support only when it
doesn't contradict their moralistic, father-knows-best social agenda. As
Kevin Zeese, who heads the Washington, DC-based group Common Sense for Drug
Policy, puts it, "The administration is using the issue to energize its
right-wing base." It's no accident that, of the states that permit medical
marijuana, Ashcroft has made an example only of California. Others, such as
Hawaii, Colorado, and Maine, represent Republican swing states, whose
support the president needs to win re-election in 2004. Zeese explains,
"The strategy is to write off California to mobilize [the GOP's]
conservative, far-right base across the country."

This time, though, Ashcroft and his minions may have gone too far. The
Rosenthal case has attracted more negative attention than they likely
anticipated. If anything, the trial made Rosenthal into a martyr. His
conviction has served as a rallying cry for supporters of medical marijuana
everywhere. Offers Graham Boyd, who heads the American Civil Liberties
Union Drug Policy Litigation Project, "For supporters, the issue is no
longer a nice idea. It's become one where the federal government is viewed
as being out of control and vindictive, and we have to do something to stop
it."

(snip)