ROSENTHAL VERDICT FALLOUT: ANGRY JURORS, MEDIA ATTENTION, A NEW BILL IN
CONGRESS

The conviction of marijuana cultivation guru Ed Rosenthal on marijuana
manufacture charges on January 31 may have been a pyhrric victory for
the US government. The two weeks since a federal jury wearing
court-ordered blinders convicted Rosenthal, who was growing medical
marijuana within California guidelines and with the express approval
of the Oakland City Council, have seen those same jurors react
furiously to the deception to which they were subjected, continuing
mass media attention, and the formulation of a new bill soon to be
introduced in the US Congress which would provide an effective defense
for medical marijuana providers arrested under US anti-marijuana laws.

Almost as soon as they walked out of the federal courthouse in San
Francisco following the verdict, jurors were stunned and angered to
discover that they had convicted a man deputized by the city of
Oakland to provide medical marijuana to sick patients. Some of those
jurors reacted with public outrage and a repudiation of the verdict
they delivered. And in an unprecedented move, many of them stood in
solidarity with the man they had just convicted.

"I feel like I made the biggest mistake in my life," juror Marney
Craig said at a joint news conference with Rosenthal the next day. "We
convicted a man who is not a criminal. It's the most horrible mistake
I've ever made in my entire life. The city of Oakland attempted to
give him immunity and he operated under that assumption," Craig said.
"Ed Rosenthal is not a criminal; he should never have been convicted.
He needs a jury that is allowed to hear all the evidence."

At that same event, jury foreman Charles Sackett said he hoped
Rosenthal's guilty verdict is overturned on appeal. "Some of us jurors
are upset about the way the trial was conducted... I would have liked
to have been given the opportunity to decide with all the evidence,"
he said. Sackett then read aloud a letter of apology to Rosenthal and
his family.

Two more of the six rebellious jurors who denounced the verdict also
spoke at the news conference. Kimberly Sulsar called the affair "truly
disheartening and shameful," while juror Pamela Klarkowski said she
was "absolutely appalled" upon realizing she had voted to convict
Rosenthal without knowing all the facts in the case.

Those jurors have continued to speak out, to both local and national
media, and have been joined by an avalanche of outrage from Rosenthal
supporters, California officials and activists that continues to this
day. The Media Awareness Project (http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/)
archive of drug policy-related news currently lists more than 80 news
stories devoted to the Rosenthal verdict and its aftermath, and that
does not include television and web-only reports. Even the staid New
York Times weighed in with an editorial criticizing the persecution of
medical marijuana providers and concluding that "the administration
should stop tyrannizing doctors and sick people."

The verdict has also sparked a new round of activist organizing by
groups such as Americans for Safe Access (http://www.safeaccessnow.org)
in more than a hundred cities across California and the nation. This
Tuesday saw "Evict the DEA" protests in dozens of cities as part of
ASA's broader Medical Marijuana Week organizing project.

And the Rosenthal verdict has inspired three California members of
Congress, Reps. Sam Farr (D-Carmel), Lynn Woolsey (D-Petaluma), and
Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), to draft legislation designed
to blunt the impact of the federal war on medical marijuana in the
states. The bipartisan legislation would create two categories of
marijuana under federal law -- criminal and medical. Under the draft
legislation, growers who can prove they grow their product for medical
use only would be able to use that fact as a valid defense in a
federal trial.

"In states such as California, which has a medical marijuana statute
allowing for its growth and distribution, growers are still subject to
raid, arrest and prosecution from federal agencies," said Farr at a
news conference Thursday announcing the draft legislation. "We have
seen this happen time and time again. These federal agencies,
including the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Justice
Department have no respect for the laws we here in California have
established to allow patients to live pain-free lives. The purpose of
this bill is to allow defendants in federal criminal trials to
introduce evidence that their marijuana-related activity was performed
for a valid medical purpose under state law. If a jury finds that a
defendant was following state medical marijuana law, then the
defendant should not be sent to prison. It's as simple as that," he
said.

The bill has been endorsed by California Attorney General Bill
Lockyer, who has been criticized in the past for tepid support of the
state's medical marijuana laws. "I support Congressman Farr's
bipartisan effort to change federal law so that all the facts would be
before a jury," he said after attending the event. "I think many
people are offended by the lack of due process associated with the
Rosenthal conviction. It seems to me to be just fundamental fairness
to allow his Proposition 215 defense to have been presented to the
jury," Lockyer said.

While even the proposed bill's supporters concede it will be an uphill
battle to win passage in the current conservative climate, they vowed
to fight the good fight. When formally introduced, the
Farr-Woolsey-Rohrabacher bill will be the only medical marijuana bill
on Congress' plate. Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank (D) filed a bill
in 2001 which would reschedule marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule
II, allowing it to be prescribed under federal law, but that bill
failed to gain any traction in Congress. Frank has not yet re-filed
the bill this session.

The federal government may have won the battle, but with a few more
victories like the Rosenthal verdict, it could face open rebellion in
California and the eight other states that provide for medical
marijuana. And while the feds would love to see Rosenthal behind bars
for at least the next 10 years, even that isn't a done deal yet. He
remains free on bail and is seeking a new trial or a reversal of the
verdict on appeal.

Reports on the Rosenthal Verdict:

Connie Chung on CNN: http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0302/06/cct.00.html

Dan Forbes on Manipulation of the Grand Jury, for DrugWar.com:
http://www.drugwar.com/forbesrosenthal.shtm

Ann Harrison on Jurors' Anger and Call for New Trial, on Alternet:
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15105