WHY I AM WILLING TO GO TO JAIL FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA

On June 6, reform activists organized demonstrations in 60 cities at
DEA offices across the United States to protest their continued
prosecution of community-based marijuana dispensaries, growers and
patients.

The DEA continues its prosecution even though research proves medical
marijuana is the most effective treatment available for many people
with chronic pain and other serious illness. They ignore seven
statewide referenda where the public voted overwhelmingly for medical
marijuana. They ignore court decisions that demonstrate that marijuana
should be available as a medicine. They've ignored efforts to
negotiate to resolve the matter and ensure safe access for the
seriously ill. Despite all the evidence and overwhelming public
support, our democratic will is still being pushed aside by the
Federal Government.

These are some of the reasons why I joined nine other reform leaders
in Washington, D.C. in closing down the employee entrance to the
Department of Justice. We decided to take direct action, even if it
meant risking arrest, even though my organization, Common Sense for
Drug Policy, does not advocate illegal activity nor does it encourage
its staff to engage in illegal activity. The federal government is
closing all alternatives to resolving this matter. As individuals we
must challenge them.

A religious reform leader recently posted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s
"Letter from a Birmingham Jail" to a group of reform advocates. When
Dr. King's explanation for when direct action is appropriate was
applied to medical marijuana it was evident that we had no choice but
to be civilly disobedient and stand up against the injustice of
federal government attacks on medical marijuana patients and their
dispensaries. Their refusal to follow votes, research, needs of
patients and court rulings left us no choice. Direct action against
the perpetrators of this injustice was necessary.

Medical marijuana providers in states that have voted for allowing
medical use are heroes who are risking serious criminal charges for
providing medicine to the seriously ill. Reformers across the country
need to stand up and say no more, we need zero tolerance for medical
marijuana injustice.

The medical marijuana issue is not a new one for me. In 1978 when I
first became involved in reform I worked on NORML's (National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) lawsuit in the US Court
of Appeals in Washington, D.C. We challenged the DEA's refusal to
allow medical access to marijuana. During this litigation, and others
where I represented patients being prosecuted for marijuana offenses,
I received scores of phone calls from doctors and patients who told
similar stories about how incredibly useful marijuana was to seriously
ill people who would suffer needlessly without marijuana. Regardless
of their positive experiences, they would remain criminals for their
medical use of marijuana.

After we won in the court of appeals and forced the DEA to hold an
administrative law hearing on medical marijuana I worked with the
Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics, a group of patients and their
advocates, to develop the evidence supporting medical marijuana. In
doing so we not only compiled the testimony of dozens of patients,
doctors, nurses and researchers but we also compiled the published
research in medical journals and by state departments of health that
unequivocally showed that marijuana is a safe and effective medicine.
The DEA also put forward their best case, and in hearings across the
United States we cross-examined these witnesses. The case continues to
be the largest compilation of information on medical marijuana in any
court proceeding.

Our case was overwhelming. Indeed, the Chief Administrative Law Judge
for the DEA, Francis L. Young, ended up ruling strongly in our favor.
Judge Young rejected the most common argument of the DEA as being
specious, allowing medical use will send the wrong message saying:
"The fear of sending such a signal cannot be permitted to override the
legitimate need ... of countless suffers for the relief marijuana can
provide ... "

Judge Young ruled: "The evidence in the record clearly shows that
marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of
great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety ... It
would be unreasoning, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to
stand between those sufferers and the benefit of this substance ..."

That was 14 years ago and the DEA has only escalated its efforts to
block the seriously ill from getting this much needed medicine.

Unfortunately, Judge Young's ruling was a recommendation to the
politically appointed head of the DEA. The DEA, predictably, rejected
his ruling. We appealed, and to our surprise, won. This was surprising
because administrative law strongly favors the administrative agency.
The court sent it back to the DEA for reconsideration. The DEA again
ruled against medical access. We appealed and won again. But the DEA
remained obstinate and on our final appeal we lost, not because of the
facts but because a basic tenet of administrative law is the courts
defer to the agency.

In the late-1980s research on medical marijuana was in the final phase
of a three-step process. Two states, New York and California, were
conducting large-patient population research studies that when
completed would finish the final research phase and make marijuana
available as a medicine. By this time 34 states had passed laws
allowing the use of marijuana in research programs. At this critical
moment the first Bush administration halted all research on medical
marijuana. There was no opportunity for public comment, no hearings,
just an internal agency decision that ignored state law, court
decisions, research findings and the urgent need of patients.

This frustrated medical marijuana patients, and like a kettle covered
while boiling, the pressure was building. Activists in San Francisco
put a medical marijuana referendum on the ballot in the mid 1990s,
Proposition P, which passed overwhelmingly. In 1996 California passed
proposition 215, and a series of states soon followed; Alaska,
Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Maine and Washington, DC all
passed similar laws. Every state that considered the issue voted in
favor of medical marijuana. When Hawaii became the first legislature
to pass a medical marijuana bill, other states began moving in that
direction.

Local governments began to implement the laws. Some put in place a
patient ID card system run by their Health Department or the
prosecutor investigated the medical dispensaries to ensure they were
lawful. Local medical associations began to educate their colleagues
about medical use of marijuana. Some cities began to find ways to make
the new laws work, in the midst of the federal government's war on
marijuana where the FBI estimates 735,000 were arrested last year.

The feds reacted with threats to doctors, arrests of growers, patients
and dispensaries. They put out false information, saying there was no
research supporting medical use, even after a million dollar National
Academy of Sciences research project they commissioned concluded
marijuana had medical value for some patients. Federal drug officials
escalated scares about marijuana's dangers by making exaggerated
claims of harm. In my hometown, Washington, DC, they were successful
in blocking the counting of the ballots on medical marijuana for one
year after the vote occurred. In the end, when a court forced the
count we won by a landslide but Congress blocked implementation of the
will of the people.

The feds have done everything they can to block the seriously ill from
getting their medicine.

We still hope the federal government will come to its senses, stop
punishing the seriously ill in order to prop up their failed drug war,
allow safe access to medical marijuana so that the will of the people
can become reality. But today we needed to make a statement -- we will
not go away, we will no longer tolerate this injustice, we will stand
together against their denial of medicine, and in the end, we will
prevail.