FEDS SHOULD STAY OUT OF STATE MARIJUANA POLICIES

When California voters approved Proposition 215 (the Compassionate Use Act)
in 1996, voters must have thought, "Hey, the democratic process does work.
We, the people, feel a certain way about a certain issue, and our laws
reflect that." Last month those voters woke up to the sad reality that
democracy is defined by those who hold the most power.

During his campaign for president in 2000, George W. Bush said that
although he doesn't agree with medical marijuana, the decision should be
left up to individual states to work out. Now Dubya has decided to work it
out for the individual state of California, giving the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration the green light to
get involved with local affairs by investigating and arresting people
involved in state-sanctioned and regulated medical marijuana growing and
distribution.

I have to assume that we have not only the resources, but also the time to
allow our federal investigators to carry on this most important task of
harassing and arresting people that, by following state law, help painfully
sick, and, in most cases, dying citizens. It only makes sense; we're in a
time of war, and the threat of marijuana plants being flown into buildings
where thousands of Americans are working must be taken seriously -- serious
enough to arrest a man, deputized by the city of Oakland, Calif., to grow
medical marijuana for their regulated program.

On Jan. 31, a jury found Ed Rosenthal guilty of federal marijuana
cultivation and conspiracy charges, after U.S. District Judge Charles
Breyer denied Rosenthal's defense team the right to explain to the jury why
he was growing marijuana in the first place, including allowing city
officials to testify Rosenthal was acting as a government official.

According to an Associated Press article: "I was not allowed to tell my
story," Rosenthal appropriately complained after his trial. "If the jury
had been allowed to hear the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I
would have been acquitted."

Marney Craig, one of the now disgruntled jurors, called what she and her
colleagues did to Rosenthal a "travesty and unbelievable."

"We made a terrible mistake and he should not be going to prison for this,"
she said.

Craig claims that Judge Breyer "took over questioning of the witnesses,"
and "repeatedly cut off the defense attorney."

"What?" you say.

Exactly my reaction. But thank God the citizens and public officials in
California have not only the guts, but the democratic spine to stand up to
a repressive government.

Six of the jurors were present for Rosenthal's sentencing to show their
disgust with the judge, even though they were already excused. Afterwards,
they held a press conference where they made a public statement that was
backed by two more jurors who weren't able to make it, in which they
apologized to Rosenthal and expressed concern about their experience with
the judicial process. Members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and
the district attorney were at the press conference to show their support, too.

Last year in Santa Cruz, Calif., after the DEA raided a medical marijuana
dispensary, city officials were so upset that they gave the medicine away
on the steps of city hall.

Two examples of the proper use of local government office -- to stand up
for your constituents, and against those who claim to put those citizens'
interests first, while tucking their individual freedoms and rights in
their own back pocket, so to speak. But that's another topic.

Now I know what some of you may be thinking: "Hey, federal law supersedes
state and local law, and that's just how it is." But wasn't man (and woman)
around before the United States? Before a federalist system where power is
distributed by the most powerful, in the name of preserving freedom? How
does a government, supposedly created on and for the promotion of life,
liberty and happiness (property), get to be the supreme ruler of individual
human beings?

Do we not reserve the rights to some things? Shouldn't some issues be
off-limits to government at all, let alone by a minority of people ruling
from a small portion of our huge country? Is personal freedom just a pipe
dream, only applicable to property rights and guns?

And how do we get to the point where our government can say,
hypocritically, what does and doesn't help one person's ailments?

Right now, seven people in the United States receive medical marijuana from
the federal government. Irvin Rosenfeld, a stockbroker in Ft. Lauderdale,
Fla., has been getting 300 joints a month from Uncle Sam for 20 years. Yet
my, or your, sick, dying grandmother, writhing in pain, cannot smoke a
plant that may allay at least some of the uncomfortable effects of disease.

It just doesn't make sense. And from the looks of it, with the government
hell-bent on proving the causal linkage between marijuana use and
terrorism, the battle freedom loving citizens have to fight in the co-opted
war against drugs will be waged a little dirtier and a lot longer. Good luck.

Ben Lando, a Western Herald contributing columnist, is a junior from
Kalamazoo majoring in political science (public policy).