BUSH ADMINISTRATION OVERLY AGGRESSIVE IN DRUG WAR

Federal agents arrested Ed Rosenthal in a Jan. 21, 2003 sweep, a man who was
growing marijuana.

You might ask, "What's the big deal? Many drug dealers get caught all the
time. Why do we need to devote our time to think about this?" We need to
devote our time here because he lives in Oakland, Calif., and under
California's Proposition 215, which legalized medical marijuana, what he was
doing was not illegal in the slightest manner. In addition to Proposition
215, Oakland city law also has provisions for growing marijuana for
medicinal purposes, and Mr. Rosenthal was in fact an officer of the city as
far as growing marijuana was concerned.

That didn't matter to the federal agents though, who arrested Rosenthal on
federal drug charges.

The prosecuting attorney portrayed him in court as a big-time drug dealer.

When a witness in Rosenthal's case testified that Rosenthal was acting "in
the context of Proposition 215", Federal Judge Charles R. Breyer told the
jury to disregard the statement.

On Jan. 31, a federal jury in the United States District Court in San
Francisco found Rosenthal guilty on drug charges, and he now faces a minimum
of five years in prison.

His case is currently on appeal.

Many of the jurors said later that they felt they had no choice but to
convict based on the evidence permitted by the judge, they sympathized with
Rosenthal, and hoped that his verdict would be overturned on appeal.

What is shocking is that the Bush administration has followed a stubborn
one-way policy in its war against drugs, and has thus paid no attention to
the laws of states like California which have legalized medical marijuana on
the basis that it eases the pain of patients who are sick or dying.

In addition to California, there are eight other states in the nation which
have legalized marijuana for medical purposes. The policy that the federal
government is carrying out now stands for everything this country is not.
The law enacted by Proposition 215 was put before the voters, not the
politicians. The people of the state of California chose to legalize medical
marijuana.

The proposition stood as a symbol of our democracy, where people made the
laws -- not politicians. All that hasn't mattered to the Bush
administration. The Bush administration has paid no attention to the
proposition, ratified by the people, and instead has pushed forth its own
doctrine as far as marijuana is concerned.

At a time when Mr. Bush called for democracy in other nations (all of them
being in his "axis of evil") in his State of the Union address, his
administration should be thinking about respecting democratic ideals here at
home first.

Democratic ideals are not respected by disregarding and overriding laws made
by the people, but this is what the Bush administration has done by
convicting innocent people like Rosenthal for crimes they didn't commit.

What's next? The death penalty for him? The Bush administration has shown
utter contempt for democracy and the ideals our nation stands for.

It hasn't stopped there.

The Bush administration has tried for even more ambitious ventures.

The administration went so far as to try to revoke the licenses of doctors
who recommended marijuana to their patients. An appeals court struck that
move on the grounds that it was unconstitutional. The Bush administration
cannot target innocent people like Rosenthal as a way of showing its
frustration at states' rights.

President Bush, the people of these states have made a decision.

Deal with it in a manner that is expected of the president of the United
States.