WAR ON ILLEGAL DRUGS CAN'T BE WON IF WE FIGHT WITH POLITICS INSTEAD OF REASON

It is not every day that a jury apologizes to a man it has just convicted.

So Ed Rosenthal should feel honored that seven of the 12 jurors that
convicted him on three federal counts of marijuana cultivation and
conspiracy are apologizing to him, and calling for their own verdict
to be overturned on appeal.

Five of them appeared and two others had statements read at a news
conference last week outside U.S. District Court in San Francisco.
They wanted to let the world know that they felt misled by the federal
judge and by prosecutors who did not allow the defense to raise issues
of state and local medical marijuana laws in Rosenthal's trial.

Rosenthal, 58, is a well-known author, magazine advice columnist and
advocate for the medicinal use of marijuana, who was growing the grass
for medicinal purposes. California is one of eight states (Oregon,
Maine, Washington, Hawaii, Alaska, Nevada and Colorado are the others)
with laws allowing the sick and dying to smoke or grow marijuana with
a doctor's recommendation.

Rosenthal was deputized by the city of Oakland to provide marijuana
for those whose doctors recommend it. Ironically, the program is
intended to help the ill and dying avoid the street dealers that the
federal drug czar's current multimillion-dollar TV ad campaign is
warning us against.

But, none of that highly pertinent information about Rosenthal's
methods or motives reached the eyes or ears of Rosenthal's jury. Judge
Charles R. Breyer of Federal District Court barred Rosenthal's defense
from mentioning the state law because he was indicted under federal
law, which does not allow the growing of marijuana for any purpose.

As a result, Rosenthal was prosecuted and convicted like a member of
the Soprano TV crime family, and faces a minimum of five years in
prison when he is sentenced in June.

It is no wonder that the jurors feel like, if I may coin an old
colloquialism, they got took. After all, they were.

And, of course, it is easy to see why prosecutors did not want
Rosenthal's motives to be revealed. In California, which legalized
medicinal use of marijuana in 1996, it must be quite difficult to find
a jury of 12 people that would convict a man whose only criminal
offense was to provide the weed to the sick and the dying.

Californians hardly are alone in this nuanced view. Although fewer
than 40 percent of Americans would legalize marijuana for recreational
use, recent polls have found that about 80 percent support legalizing
it for medicinal use.

Even presidential candidate George W. Bush told reporters in October,
1999, that on the medicinal marijuana question, "I believe each state
can (make) that decision as they so choose."

Or, maybe not. President Bush's administration is going after
California's medicinal marijuana providers with a zeal that is
appropriate for the pursuit of Colombian drug cartels. Despite
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer's pleas to former Drug
Enforcement Administration head Asa Hutchinson last year, the DEA has
stepped up raids on state-sanctioned cannabis growers and treatment
facilities.

In July, Bryan James Epis, 35, organizer of a cannabis-buyers club in
Chico, Calif., was found guilty of charges similar to Rosenthal's and
sentenced to 10 years. His conviction has been appealed.

In December, Jeff Jones, executive director of the Oakland Cannabis
Buyers' Cooperative, was found guilty of "an attempt to influence
jurors," in the words of U. S. Magistrate Judge Peter A. Nowinski,
simply for passing out leaflets in support of Epis outside the courthouse.

Nowinski dismissed Jones' free speech defense. Jones' sentencing is
scheduled for Feb. 27.

Who, I wonder, will stop this madness?

For starters, Congress should move the country toward sanity by taking
the long overdue step of downgrading marijuana from "Schedule I" of
the Controlled Substances Act. It makes no sense for cannabis to be
ranked with heroin, LSD, morphine and other drugs in Schedule I.

Or does anyone really believe that marijuana is more potent, dangerous
and devoid of redeeming medicinal value than cocaine, opium, codeine,
injectable methamphetamines and other Schedule II drugs?

Perhaps, after that step, we might be able to handle marijuana as a
properly controlled hazardous drug, instead of a political football.