FEDERAL COURTS IGNORE LEGITIMATE USES OF POT

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 who
convicted him on three federal counts of marijuana cultivation and
conspiracy are now 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 Tuesday outside U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

They wanted to let the world know that they felt misled by the federal
judge and 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. He was growing the grass
for medicinal purposes. California is one of eight states (Oregon,
Maine, Washington, Hawaii, Alaska, Nevada and Colorado are the others)
that have passed laws to allow 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 multi-million dollar TV ad campaign (your
dollars at work, fellow taxpayers!) is warning us against.

But none of that highly pertinent information about Rosenthal's
methods or motives was allowed to reach 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 like a member of the Soprano
crime family, convicted and faces a minimum of five years in prison
when he is sentenced in June.

"Last week, I did something so profoundly wrong that it will haunt me
for the rest of my life," Marney Craig, a property manager who served
as a juror in the Rosenthal trial, wrote in a San Jose Mercury-News
op-ed. "I helped send a man to prison who does not belong there."

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

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 who would convict a man whose only criminal
offense was to provide the weed to the sick and the dying.

Californians are hardly 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, was found guilty of charges similar to Rosenthal's and
sentenced to 10 years. His conviction has been appealed.

And watch what you say, buddy, as well as how you say it. 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. After all, there's a
war on drugs to be fought. Jones' sentencing is scheduled for Feb.
27.

With antics like these, prosecutors might find it harder to get any
kind of a marijuana conviction out of a jury, whether it is
medicinally related or not.

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.