ROSENTHAL CONVICTION UNJUST

I once bought a book by Ed Rosenthal. I soon learned it's not easy to
cultivate marijuana on a shoestring budget in one's closet.

Ed Rosenthal now faces a life sentence in jail for being a
green-thumbed good neighbor to the sick and dying in California. "But
wait! Not so fast!" five jurors said Tuesday.

In a statement released by the dissenting, albeit tardy, jurors, they
explain: "In good faith, we as jury members allowed ourselves to be
blindfolded to weigh the evidence before us. But in this trial, the
prosecution was allowed to put all of the evidence and testimony on
one of the scales, while the defense was not allowed to put its
evidence and testimony on the other scale. Therefore we were not
allowed as a jury to properly weigh the case."

Those five members of the 12-member body were referring to the fact
that the judge in this case did not allow Rosenthal or his defense to
mention the eenie-weenie tidbit that would have swayed the jurors the
other way: What he did was legal under California law.

Yep. The federal government arrested Rosenthal and brought a case up
against him in an effort to strike down marijuana laws in California
and eight other states that contradict federal law. Rosenthal recently
told Dean Becker, host of Cultural Baggage on KPFT-FM, that his case
is clearly an interesting states' rights case, but because of the time
he faces, he wishes it weren't concerning him.

My heart goes out to Rosenthal, who could soon be rotting the rest of
his life away in a cold prison cell. My heart also goes out to the
hundreds of thousands of other American citizens who are imprisoned
for possession of drugs, usually marijuana. I also deeply empathize
with the starving masses who are suffering more severely because the
police state spends more money on convicting drug users who it does
helping the economically downtrodden.

The drug war is one of the cruelest forms of domestic terrorism the
state imposes on free people in their daily lives. The next victim of
this war could be the ability of states to write their own marijuana
laws for their own people.

The Bush administration could only provide this hostile climate toward
the pro-marijuana movement on the eve of an unjust war.

We've never had a president more sinister than Bush. I mean, this guy
puts them all to shame: Nixon, Clinton, Ronald "Darth" Reagan. These
guys know that Bush Jr. will go down harder than any of them did.

Meanwhile, the country is well distracted by the catastrophic reminder
of mortality as witnessed on television when the space shuttle
Columbia was lost Saturday.

Like the astronauts, 58-year-old Rosenthal may not see his children
grow up.

And that's a shame. And a disservice to liberty. And against
everything America should stand for.

We are now living under Emperor Bush, who must prove to the world that
he knows evil when he sees it.

Perhaps he should look within.