cannabisnews.com: Experts Don't See Rosenthal Pot Case as a Landmark Experts Don't See Rosenthal Pot Case as a Landmark Posted by CN Staff on June 06, 2003 at 07:18:46 PT By Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer Source: San Francisco Chronicle Analysts were skeptical Thursday of predictions by medical marijuana advocacy groups that a judge's refusal to sentence Bay Area pot icon Ed Rosenthal to prison would eventually turn around the federal government's hard- nosed policies on the drug. A rebuff in a single case -- even a high-profile prosecution like the Rosenthal case -- probably won't slow the Bush administration's crackdown on medical cannabis in California, several commentators agreed. "It seems to me unlikely that the feds are going to give up very easily on this issue," said Jeffrey Miron, an economics professor at Boston University and research associate at the libertarian Independent Institute. "I'm highly doubtful whether the Bush administration will allow one federal district judge to stop its program," said Evan Lee, a professor of criminal law and federal courts at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. But Lee said Wednesday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer "lends a great measure of legitimacy" to medical marijuana advocates' criticism of federal policies. In light of Breyer's solid judicial reputation, Lee said, some public officials may conclude that "the political center of gravity isn't where (they) thought it was," a shift that might ultimately force a change in administration policy. Breyer's stunning decision, in a packed San Francisco courtroom, spared Rosenthal from the five-year prison sentence normally required for cultivating more than 100 marijuana plants. The judge cited the "extraordinary, unique circumstances of this case" -- referring to California's medical marijuana law and to Rosenthal's belief that he was growing marijuana legally as part of a city-sponsored program in Oakland. National marijuana advocacy groups had been hungering for a legal victory and seized on Breyer's decision as an omen. Snipped: Complete Article: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/06/06/MN63135.DTL Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)Author: Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff WriterPublished: Friday, June 6, 2003Copyright: 2003 San Francisco Chronicle - Page A - 8 Contact: letters sfchronicle.comWebsite: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/Related Articles & Web Site:Ed Rosenthal's Pictures & Articles http://freedomtoexhale.com/trialpics.htmGovernment Worried by Sentence for Ganja Guruhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16548.shtmlTwist Ends Medical Marijuana Case http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16545.shtmlMarijuana Grower Sentenced To One Day in Prison http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16535.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #13 posted by Lehder on June 07, 2003 at 20:02:49 PT SoberStoner I read your comment with interest, SoberStoner, and I agree with you, especially about the good practice of playing devil's advocate. If only more people were educated to try their ideas out mentally or on paper before imposing real experiments on their fellows.... We who take pleasure in exploring the universe of possibility will as you suggest always be a little less afraid of the realities we face; and we who can imagine the very worst can also see worlds far better, and that's why we're here. I wish you well with your writing and stories. I'm sure they give you much pleasure and hope you will give free rein to your imagination and convey that excitement to many others. [ Post Comment ] Comment #12 posted by SoberStoner on June 07, 2003 at 18:22:56 PT Lehder I fully agree, a nuclear device detonating in DC would be extremely hard to accomplish.However, 3 years ago, I would have said that 4 planes being hijacked almost simultaneously and deviating from their flight plans for 90 minutes before being noticed then being flown into national landmarks was impossible too.You are correct in saying the federal government would not be destroyed because it is so decentralized. The only thing a nuke would do is give the feds reasons to pass bills that make the patriot act look like the declaration of independance.I hope for a peaceful and logical solution to the worlds problems, however, I do find it a neccessary evil to look at worse case scenarios so that we can realize why what we are fighting for is so important. In fact, my biggest flaw would be always wanting to play devil's advocate, merely so I can always feel a little better that no matter what happens, most likely it isnt as bad as what i thought it would be.SS [ Post Comment ] Comment #11 posted by Lehder on June 07, 2003 at 08:43:53 PT SoberStoner No need to fear, friend.As much as I enjoyed writing about the destruction of Washington, DC, it was really only for entertainment. I think that the events portrayed are extremely unlikely, almost comic-bookish in their naivete. First of all, it's easier to detect a nuclear weapon than it is to detect drugs or marijuana, so it's really more difficult to bring a device over the border than the media portray. In fact, people who have undergone radiation treatments for cancer have set off alarms as they passed through protected areas.Secondly, one need not fear a curtailment of government services in the event that Washington DC were to be obliterated. The executive branch of government ( the executive branch only ) continuously maintains a fully functional staff 24/7 in two underground bunkers, one in Virgina and one in Pennslyvania. A nuclear bomb could not actually end the war on drugs or any other tax supported benefits.A series of nuclear blasts over a period of several months, in fact, would be needed to cripple federal functions and incidentally end the drug war. As above ground offices - essential if government is to be taken at all seriously even by the police - were reestablished, probably in western states, these in turn would have to be destroyed by new blasts until people realized that society and commerce can function quite well, even better, without federal assistance. But even the single first attack that I wrote of is extremely unlikely, and a series of such attacks is infinitely beyond the sophistication of any terrorist organization. These outfits, as everyone should know, are really quite impotent: they use only the most primitive of weapons and they succeed only by the help of a federal blind eye.The war on drugs will be ended by the groups of people who gather to discuss the war and end it. It will be ended by the people at cannabis news and the groups of people that kaptinemo met in Vancouver. The change will be gradual, I'm unhappy to say, and it will not be achieved in isolation from other tremendously difficult social revolutions. Let me offer a quote from the book "The Seventeenth Century" by Sir George Clark, who ever that is, as he discusses the end of witch burning and the gradual collapse of what was once a very genuine belief in sorcery:>>It is easy to enumerate men of great literary gifts or of high reputation...who believed in sorcery....There were even amongst the great scientists those who casually and incidentally gave their sanction to the belief, nor were its opponents all distinguished for their powers of reasoning. But no juggling with these facts can upset the real balance of the argument: whenever the belief was seriously and candidly examined in the light of the new standards of criticism, those who denied it had the better of the contest.>>Witch-burning was ended by a change in tone of thought, but one in which direct arguments against the possibility of witchcraft were a powerful ingredient. It had been upheld by the authority of churches, the citation of biblical texts, and that ecclesiastical interpretation of the universe according to which the intervention of spirits was constant and ubiquitous. Its defeat consequently assisted and was assisted by other reverses of that spirit. Within the churches themselves, especially among the Protestants, there was much destructive criticism of the miracles of the church, and this led to the first sceptical inquiries into the miracles of the Bible itself.That is a tiny part of the vast social and pholosophical revolution that was needed three hundred years ago to end the burnings, and I would quote the whole of this chapter, "Mathematics and Science", if I could because the parallel between the belief in sorcery and the belief in marijuana as a narcotic instrument of social decline is uncanny, and much insight into our drug war can be gained by examining it.Most importantly we must continue to challenge the ignorance and unfounded beliefs that are promoted by government and television with reason, fact and even ridicule. The war on drugs will be defeated by a general tone of thought, and a general criticism of the miracles of government will assist and be assisted by the acceptance of marijuana as a useful and beneficial gift to human culture. [ Post Comment ] Comment #10 posted by SoberStoner on June 06, 2003 at 23:41:27 PT Truly Amazing Ledher,Your comments in #9 frighten me. Not because I think you are wrong, but rather, I think you are right. In fact, for a while now, I have been trying to write stories of how the drug war may end. One of them started with a noocular (copyright Dumbya) blast in DC. The feds have dug a hole so deep, that they cannot acknowledge the truth as it show how badly corrupted this country has become. The constant doom and gloom boogeyman scare tactics have desensitized the people already because people see them for what they are, scare tactics..nothing more, nothing less.Ed's case may be of note later, but for right now, the feds basically got what they wanted, Ed is now branded as a convicted federal felon. True they would have liked to cage him for a crime that is not a crime, but the stigma has already been placed, no matter how little time he served.I hope that the nation is waking up, and that americans will show something to disavow the american culture of the 'fat, stupid and lazy' label they have so rightfully deserved as of late, but I'm not very hopeful honestly. We have become so conditioned to lies being presented as truth, that the lies are easier to believe than truth. We dont even expect our 'elected'(by a minimal % of the population) leaders to tell us the truth. In fact, we EXPECT them to lie. I started this post talking about my writings, and I'll finish it that way. I'll give away the end of the story, as all I have now are the beginning and the end. We will win this war against our culture. In fact, we will prove to the world that a cannabis based economy is not only possible, but it is possibly the only way to reverse and correct all the damage our petro-industrial ways have caused. I believe this is possible, and in fact, may even be neccessary, as the world WILL run out of oil in the next century. The latest estimates place it 15-25 years in the future, but with our ever increasing usage, I would be willing to bet 15 years is wishful thinking. We MUST find alternate ways of providing for humanity, without relying on petrochemicals to do it.Cannabis can provide the way out. If Henry Ford could make a car in the 30's that was built and ran from hemp products, imagine what we could do today. I only hope that it doesnt take a noocular holocaust for the world to deviate from it's path of self-destruction.SS [ Post Comment ] Comment #9 posted by Lehder on June 06, 2003 at 13:08:44 PT optimism Thank you, kaptinemo, for pointing out what I failed to emphasize - that unity is what the drug warriors and their corporate bosses fear most. The whole purpose of the drug war and the new terror war is disunity, the atomization of society and social control. Nothing makes this plain truth clearer than the new spy-on-your-neighbor programs instituted by our Dept. of Homeland Security. As Noam Chomsky has explained, the government seeks to control two groups. First there are the dissatisfied, those who work like hell but still lack a decent home and medical care while all our treasure is dedicated to the extraction of labor, resources and profit for the global corporate empire. These dissatisfied, who teeter on the ledge between conformity and radicalization, are the people who must be intimidated, and the drug war and its sister war on terror serve that purpose. Both are now essential to our government's plans.Then there are the useless, the official system's supernumeraries who hold ambitions other than material success, or who have for whatever reason dropped out of profit system, or who refuse to work at all, who reject the purely monetary value system, or who, embracing it, create the black markets. These people must be incarcerated and the drug war again provides the means.With our recent new laws, intimidation is being intensified, and incarceration, gradually, is being transformed to extermination. The camp at Guantanamo is presently being remodeled with execution chambers, the first victims for the tribunals are being selected, and each execution will be personally approved by our president, famous for these special skills. Soon the first execution will be carried out, and then we can look forward to the first death sentence by secret tribunal issued to an American.It will take a few months for the spent missiles to be replaced and the ships to be restocked, but then, toward the end of this year, a new enemy among the sixty states identified as terrorist will be selected and the people will be conditioned again by their TV sets for war.Eventually the government will either suffer a foreign military defeat, or else a nuclear bomb, smuggled to Washington DC inside a barrel of cocaine or a truckload of marijuana, will be detonated. Only then, when the feds have been defeated by violence engendered by their own greed and stupidity, will the drug war end. When the bombs explode in Washington DC, people will again be frightened and glued to their televisions. I plan to take it all in stride. I'll know that the drug war is over, soon to be forgotten, that I did all I could have to end it peacefully, and that commerce will resume in a couple of weeks to the dawn of a golden age. It could be said that I am optimistic. [ Post Comment ] Comment #8 posted by DCP on June 06, 2003 at 12:44:04 PT Ed Rosenthal, Hero TO ED ROSENTHAL, HEROEd: I know that you feel that your conviction on federal charges of growing marijuana is unjust, and I agree with you. The laws against marijuana are wrong and everyone who has studied the matter with an open mind agrees. However, look at your conviction as a badge of honor. This badge signifies your heroic and compassionate actions: I WAS CONVICTED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF GROWING MARIJUANA FOR THE SICK AND DYING. Only a handful of other heroes share this honor and distinction with you, some, now imprisoned, are paying a much higher price. You have excellent companions in our history books: those who rebelled against King George in the 18th century, those who rebelled against the fugitive slave laws in the 19th century and, more recently those in Selma, Alabama. As a result of your courage and your compassionate actions, other growers, indicted and unindicted who have followed the path of compassion, of giving aid and comfort to those who need medical marijuana will probably never be subjected to the cruel and unjust actions of a federal government; a government that is truly infected with “reefer madness”. All those whose suffering is alleviated by medical marijuana and all those who provide medical marijuana for them salute you and thank you for you have made their lives safer and better. [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by kaptinemo on June 06, 2003 at 12:08:06 PT: Excuse me? Come again? I didn't catch that. Was that a criticism of my seeming optimism? [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by WolfgangWylde on June 06, 2003 at 11:15:44 PT Ha!! ...This is what's known as "whistling past the graveyard". [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by kaptinemo on June 06, 2003 at 11:05:22 PT: Sr. Lehder strikes again! And truer words were never spoken:*"People who smoke marijuana turn off their TV sets and turn on the music or the Internet connection or read a book or find some other constructive activity or maybe just relax and think things over and then gather socially to talk about the government. That's why marijuana is illegal. The biggest smoke screen in history is the drug war itself."I was recently a visitor to Vancouver, and found that sentiment echoed during a big party at the BCMP Headquarters. In one bull session after another, with all age groups of wildly different backgrounds, YOU HEARD EXACTLY THE SAME SENTIMENT SPOKEN.There were plenty of seeming commonalities in that group, which included as wide an age and background spectrum as you could possibly imagine.Such commonalities as:Intelligence. Curiosity. Critical thinking. Unwillingness to accept dogma of any sort. Passionate dislike of political systems that marginalize people for their choice of intoxicants. Political activism, and not just in this cause, but others, as well.And needless to say, they were very nice people.And nearly all of them, woman or man, young or old, gay or straight, religious predilections or none at all, born Anglophone or not, ALL mentioned, almost exactly to a word, what Sr. Lehder spoke of.One old gentleman, white haired but still plenty spry, mentally as well as physically, a life long toker, said it best: "The government doesn't want this kind of thing to take place, because people realize how much they have in common when it was government that told them they didn't. When they get together and compare notes, the blood pressure starts to rise...and the need to act becomes more likely. And inevitable"There you have it: the old slogan of "The people!...united!...will nev-ver be defeat-ed!" It's that unity the government fears above all other things, for from that unity, they can move mountains. Or stop government gravy trains like the Drug War. [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by Lehder on June 06, 2003 at 10:01:39 PT smoke screen >>Meyer also said Rosenthal's speech to supporters Wednesday, calling for the repeal of all marijuana laws, was evidence that "the so-called medical marijuana initiative was a smoke screen, that the real agenda of these people was to legalize not only marijuana but all drugs." Speaking for myself, Meyer's accusation is not quite true. I think that antibiotics, for example, should always require a prescription. The indiscriminant use, and even the overuse of broad spectrum antibiotics by physicians who refuse to take cultures, has produced bacterial resistance to them.But marijuana, LSD, coca, peyote, psilocybin and probably other materials should be freely available to those who wish to possess, use, manufacture or transport them. So there's no smoke screen emanating here from Lehder. I can't say it more simply: marijuana and all ethneogens must be relegalalized. That's one of the conditions for peace. You don't have to use these materials if you don't want to, but you don't have to imprison those who benefit from them.>>"These laws have an enormous impact because there are so many conditions for which you can use marijuana as medicine," he [Miron] said. And that's an excellent reason for relegalization. Prior to the invention of aspirin, marijuana was the most frequently physician-prescribed medicine of the pharmacopea. Lots of people could use some now.>> "The feds understand that (allowing medical marijuana) would open the floodgates" and will maintain their hard line on the issue, he said. True enough too. Here's where the reformer optimists differ from the reformer pessimists. I'm a pessimist: the federal government will see its own destruction before it yields an inch. The reason for this is that legal marijuana may well bring with it vast social reforms of benefit to all humanity, but it will also bring enlightenment and with that the federal government, already teetering on the thinnest of social and economic bases, will fall.People who smoke marijuana turn off their TV sets and turn on the music or the Internet connection or read a book or find some other constructive activity or maybe just relax and think things over and then gather socially to talk about the government. That's why marijuana is illegal. The biggest smoke screen in history is the drug war itself. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by kaptinemo on June 06, 2003 at 09:52:08 PT: Once again, the point is missed. What happened inCalifornia was indeed a tipping point.True, the Feds WILL try again, and be even meaner and nastier than they have been, already. An escalation is brewing, make no mistake. Freddie the Fed is usually way behind public opinion and social movements, as he's primarily disposed to maintaining the status quo, not changing it.Even when that regime is dripping with corruption, don't expect someone a few years shy of a pension to suddenly develop a conscience. As I am forever saying, they know which side of the political bread the butter is on, and aren't about to drop it on their own carpets.But something is happening that had been predicted here long ago: namely, that when the medical defense has been denied in as controversial a case as this has been, and it finally receives the publicity that it has (Thank you, jurors!) it garners new interest from the public...which starts to ask questions. Questions the antis have tried to bluster and intimidate people from asking. Which is now failing, as more people are asking those questions.The only thing the antis have left now is force...and make no mistake, they WILL use that force. But when they do, they will expect incorrectly that the old social dynamics will maintain.But the cat is out of the bag, now. People in California are aware of things like FIJA and jury nullification. Getting a conviction in California for possession and distributing MMJ, given the behavior of Judge Breyer in attempting to shut out the evidence Mr. Rosenthal's lawyers tried to enter, has made many potential jurors wonder just what has been going on behind their backs. This will make achieveing convictions, given the demonstrated Fed vindictiveness and willingness to distort the rules of evidence in their favor, become many of degrees harder. Add to that the Rampart scandal still ongoing and it's aftermath, and many Californians have taken a decidely jaundiced view of law enforcement and the courts.The authors of this piece, no doubt believeing their LE sources as speaking *ex cathedra* on the matter, seek to play down the significance of this upwelling of social activism. They seek to convince the readers of the column that they are the only ones capable of judging whether this social movement is a flash-in-the-pan or not. In their estimation, it is.But I am of the opposite opinion, and not just because I admit to having a dog in this fight. I, too, follow social movements from a professional point of view, being trained as a sociologist. What has begun in California is literally a political "shot heard 'round the world". Breyer's claim that this was a fluke and the ruling would never be repeated is just whistling past the graveyard. The precedent has been established, and will be used again...and again...and again. Federal intransigence may increase, but at the risk of alienating a State which they desperately need in the Republican camp. Should Dems rediscover certain sacclike appendages between their thighs and decide to make an issue of Fed arrogance and illustrate the lie of Republican 'compassionate conservatism' (how many people have died because they couldn't get their medicine?) they will have a ready made issue ripe for local exploitation.And, as had been observed long ago, "All politics is local". What affects California will affect the rest of the Union. It's inescapable. The Feds know this, and they fear it. [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by Truth on June 06, 2003 at 09:30:46 PT Bush Pot is an herb.Bush is a dope. [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by Ethan Russo MD on June 06, 2003 at 08:49:34 PT: The Rest-- 'BEGINNING OF THE END' For example, Robert Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, called the ruling "the beginning of the end of the federal war on medical marijuana patients" and said Rosenthal's case "will be seen as the tipping point, the moment when it became obvious the law had to change." Steph Sherer, executive director of Americans for Safe Access, said the ruling should encourage federal judges in other cases to give defendants "a full hearing based on all the evidence." She said more than a dozen federal medical marijuana prosecutions are pending in California and at least seven growers have been sentenced to prison, some for terms as long as 10 years. If Breyer's ruling is upheld on appeal, other federal judges in California may follow his lead, and the Justice Department would probably stop prosecuting cases in the state, said John Eastman, law professor at Chapman College in Orange County and director of the Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence. But both he and Lee, the Hastings professor, said the administration was likely to appeal the ruling all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, with a good chance of a reversal that would send Rosenthal to prison. Federal prosecutors were typically tight-lipped, saying only that no decision had been made on an appeal. But Richard Meyer, spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in San Francisco, said, "We're not deterred one bit." Meyer also said Rosenthal's speech to supporters Wednesday, calling for the repeal of all marijuana laws, was evidence that "the so-called medical marijuana initiative was a smoke screen, that the real agenda of these people was to legalize not only marijuana but all drugs." BROAD IMPACT Miron, the Boston professor whose forthcoming book, "Drug War Crimes," endorses drug legalization, said the federal government is right in one respect: Medical marijuana legalization laws have the potential of crippling overall marijuana enforcement. "These laws have an enormous impact because there are so many conditions for which you can use marijuana as medicine," he said. "The feds understand that (allowing medical marijuana) would open the floodgates" and will maintain their hard line on the issue, he said. For the same reason, he said, congressional legislation that would allow a medical defense to federal marijuana prosecutions in states with medical marijuana laws will face unyielding opposition from the DEA and other federal drug enforcers, and a certain veto from President Bush. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment