U.S. SHOULD ARREST PAIN, NOT PEOPLE WHO RELIEVE IT

Medical Marijuana Providers Help The Sick And Dying

CALIFORNIANS want marijuana available for use as a medication, but
that won't happen until the federal government is forced to stop
prosecuting individual residents who provide the drug to the sick and
dying.

Federal agents are rounding up those working at the behest of local
government to provide the herb to victims of cancer, AIDs, and other
debilitating diseases.

The feds want to make a political statement about illicit drugs. The
providers want to bring low-cost relief to those crippled by pain and
robbed of appetite. Californians who have watched disease attack the
bodies and spirits of loved ones care less about politics and more
about treatment.

That's why state voters enacted a law allowing marijuana to be
distributed as a painkiller and hunger-stimulant for patients under a
doctor's care.

If federal authorities now want a fight, at least make it a fair
fight.

This month's conviction of Ed Rosenthal represents the third recent
case of selective federal prosecution related to medical marijuana. In
June, Rosenthal will be sentenced to prison -- up to four decades --
for dispensing marijuana as an agent of the City of Oakland.

Rosenthal will pay a steep price, but so will the people he tried to
help: Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, neighbors, friends --
people in real pain.

Federal prosecutors are passing up hard-core drug dealers and addicts
to hunt down people like Rosenthal. That's why San Jose's police chief
took a stand last year and pulled out of a federal drug task force.
Bill Lansdowne chooses to focus instead on the illegal drug-trade that
causes violence, community decay and addicted youth.

The Bush Administration, on the other hand, is circumventing
California law by making sure these pot prosecutions take place in
federal courts where the term medicinal marijuana has so far been
banned -- as evidence and motive.

The jury that convicted Rosenthal was not allowed to hear from his
defense team as to why he grew marijuana, or who received it. After
learning the facts, several jurors angrily denounced the justice
system for turning them into puppets.

Some things can be done.

* Federal judges in states with medicinal marijuana laws should
recognize the will of residents by using discretion and allowing the
term "medical marijuana'' and circumstances to be presented in court.

* Juries should always be instructed about their constitutional right
to nullify verdicts when the facts of a case are not disputed -- which
happens with most medicinal marijuana cases -- and when they feel a
law is being unjustly applied.

* Finally, local governments, not individuals, should take on the
role of dispensing this substance.