cannabisnews.com: Oakland Authority on Medical Pot Faces Trial





Oakland Authority on Medical Pot Faces Trial
Posted by CN Staff on January 21, 2003 at 08:36:14 PT
By Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Source: San Francisco Chronicle 
To his supporters, Ed Rosenthal is the sage of marijuana, the man to go to for advice on growing your own and staying out of trouble, and the city- approved supplier of medicinal pot for the desperately ill. To federal prosecutors, medical marijuana is a sham, and Rosenthal is just another drug criminal. And when the 58-year-old Oakland resident goes on trial in San Francisco federal court today, the feds will be making the rules.
Rosenthal -- the "Ask Ed" columnist for High Times and Cannabis Culture magazines, author of more than a dozen books and expert witness at numerous criminal trials -- is charged with crimes that include growing more than 100 marijuana plants and conspiring to grow more than 1,000. The conspiracy charge carries a mandatory sentence of 10 years in federal prison. The plants, confiscated by federal drug agents at an Oakland warehouse last February, were intended for patients at the Harm Reduction Center, a medical marijuana club. Agents also raided the club that day, which happened -- not coincidentally, Rosenthal's supporters say -- to be the day U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration chief Asa Hutchinson was in San Francisco to give a speech. Rosenthal had been deputized by the city of Oakland as an officer in the city's program to distribute medical marijuana under California's Proposition 215. The 1996 initiative allows patients, with a doctor's recommendation, to grow and use marijuana without facing prosecution under state drug laws. But Rosenthal's jury may not hear anything about his deputized status, his medicinal motives or even about Prop. 215. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer has ruled medical marijuana irrelevant to the case, just as other judges have ruled in recent federal pot cases in California. Complete Title: Oakland Authority on Medical Pot Faces Federal Trial Snipped: Complete Article: http://www.freedomtoexhale.com/aed.htm Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)Author:  Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff WriterPublished: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 Copyright: 2003 San Francisco Chronicle - Page A - 17 Contact: letters sfchronicle.comWebsite: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/Related Articles & Web Sites:High Times Magazinehttp://www.hightimes.com/Cannabis Culture Magazinehttp://www.cannabisculture.com/Clash on Medical Marijuana Puts a Grower in Courthttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15236.shtmlThe Trial of Ed Rosenthal http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15221.shtmlThe Right To Not Be in Pain http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15205.shtmlMedical Issues, City Law Disallowed in Pot Trial http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15200.shtml 
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on January 21, 2003 at 11:43:54 PT
Related Article From The Associated Press
Marijuana Columnist and Author Faces Federal Cultivation Charges David Kravets, AP Legal Affairs WriterTuesday, January 21, 2003 The federal marijuana cultivation trial of former High Times columnist Ed Rosenthal began Tuesday like so many drug cases. Prosecutor George Bevan told jurors that agents seized some 3,000 plants growing in Rosenthal's wharehouse in Oakland. "It's a federal offense," Bevan said. But this is no routine drug prosecution for a man whose column and books preach the gospel on tips for growing marijuana. Rosenthal, the author of how-to-grow books on growing marijuana and evading the law, says he was growing medical marijuana, "to help the sick," which is legal under California law and eight other states. Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon and Washington allow the infirm to receive, possess, grow or smoke marijuana for medical purposes without fear of state prosecution. Rosenthal's case and others are an outgrowth of the government's drug war almost two years after the U.S. Supreme Court said it was a violation of federal drug laws for medical marijuana clubs to dispense pot to the sick. Armed with the Supreme Court's ruling, the government has raided several marijuana clubs and growing operations throughout California over the objection of marijuana advocates, local prosecutors and officials. Rosenthal and other marijuana advocates have taken the offensive with fresh legal attacks of their own, opening a Pandora's box of new legal questions. And these challenges, which are failing in the lower federal courts, will soon reach the Supreme Court. Rosenthal, 58, could face a life term if convicted. Copyright: 2003 Associated Press  
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Comment #6 posted by The GCW on January 21, 2003 at 11:20:59 PT
Truth & fivepounder... jury of His pee-ers. 
It is a jury of His pee-ers. Ha!(it is not supposed to be a jury of the governments -piers)Any rational man would consider escaping this terror.Cannada has shown to be receptive to Americans escaping the terror.Oh, Cannada. 
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Comment #5 posted by John Tyler on January 21, 2003 at 10:35:44 PT
Trying to squash a social movement
This is how you try to squash a social movement. Get a big propaganda campaign going. Use a lot of police intimidation. Take down the big names. Charge them with crimes. Just about anything will do, but the bigger the better. Jerk the big names through the courts. Force them to spend all of their time and money defending themselves. Win or loose the gov has wrecked their lives at least for a while. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. At this point I think this "social movement" has reached "critical mass" and is going to continue to grow inspite of the gov. injustice and crulety. Keep the faith.  
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Comment #4 posted by p4me on January 21, 2003 at 10:27:32 PT
Today's test is one essay question
Todays test ask you to use your language in how you would answer to your son or daughter if asked, "What is the Schedule One Lie." Here is a starting point.The drug laws in this country were obscenely punitive, so punative a joint of cannabis could get you life imprisonment in Texas in 1970. The government figured that something had to change so they whipped up some guidelines in the Controlled Substances Act of 197 and put things into categories except for the four most important things. The greatest dangers of T&A were not even put on the list. Neither was caffiene. Political forces had already corrupted the process and then ignorance of grand scale came in. There was not enough research on cannabis so that crazy Nixon had cannabis put on schedule 1 temporarily until a study could be done. Nixon stacked the commission and when it reported that cannabis should not be anything to get arrested over he dismissed it. When states like North Carolina saw the studies they made cannabis legal for some conditions like glaucoma and even the federal government started a program to deliver federally grown cannabis to some sick people. Then the conservatives came and they wanted to roll back progress to 1620 and they would seek to destroy the image of cannabis as medicine and they began shouting "Dangerous drug" like they were rehearsing for the part of Chicken Litte. "Marijuana has no medical value" is the Schedule One Lie. There are three things that have to be met to be a Schedule One Substance. Marijuana is innocent of all three. It is just that the prohibitionists tell the same Lie over and over and that is that marijuana has no medical value. The lie is told over and over so many times we know it by name- The Schedule One Lie.Norml began the attack on the Schedule One Lie back in 19xx and it took until 1988 to get a ruling from Judge Joe Young that cannabis is a highly safe medicine. They ignored that too and began a policy of carrot and stick to control the media so that all the lies and studies could be buried. All you have to do is read a paper today and see that they can never mention the words "Schedule One Lie." The jig may be about up though as the words jury nullification have now been in a major newspaper. I never say that before this year, 2003. The jig is about up alright.When will the press break the story of the Schedule One Lie to the American people? When will the term come to address the big problem? If cannabis were properly classified there would not be a problem sith state and federal law over this valuable medicine. But what makes it valuable for the peasants is that it can be grown in the back yard. The plutocracy care about profits and not peasants and a lie is just a political tool to funnel money upward so they can buy Congress and a President every now and then and right many judges and laws.To tell Americans about corruption on a grand scale all you have to do is tell them about the Schedule One Lie. And if someone could explain the extent of the Schedule One Lies, I sure wish they would post it.Tonight the CBS Evening News will have a segment on pushing the Canadian Pill companies out of the US market. We don't want no stinking competition and we don't want no GD lower prices. Profits, man. Don't you want us to be able to do research and make miracle drugs?Frankly, I want the strangehold the medical community has to the pharmacy broken and I sure as hell want the best herbal remedy known to mankind to be returned to the peasant class. Fifty states need tombstones to mark the death of the Schedule One Lie. SOL - RIP. 1970-2003 
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Comment #3 posted by freddybigbee on January 21, 2003 at 09:42:38 PT:
How Do They Sleep?
Just like anyone with a career they get in deeper and deeper as time goes on, eventually having no choice but to keep doing what they're doing or give up the money and power that they've earned and upon which their status and ego depend. They're in over their heads and running on auto-pilot. To expect deliberate action from any judge, prosecutor, or career civil servant is to be out of touch with reality. They are part of a system that is bigger than they are, and they are hanging on for dear life, like most careerists.
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Comment #2 posted by fivepounder on January 21, 2003 at 09:38:43 PT
fascism knows no end
Breyer and his cohorts are going to lock up a good man. ED IT IS TIME YOU MAKE PLANS TO HEAD TO CANADA.They are going to railroad you
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Comment #1 posted by Truth on January 21, 2003 at 09:17:02 PT
Cheaters
I wonder how the feds sleep at night when they cheat the way they do. A jury on one's peers??? Yeah, right.
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