cannabisnews.com: 'Guru' Wins Pot Suit 'Guru' Wins Pot Suit Posted by CN Staff on April 05, 2004 at 10:21:59 PT By J.K. Dineen, Staff Writer Source: San Francisco Examiner Perhaps only someone as audacious as the "Guru of Ganja" Ed Rosenthal would file a small-claims lawsuit over a pot deal gone awry -- and maybe only in San Francisco could he win such a case.On Friday, San Francisco Superior Court Commissioner Catherine Lyons ruled that pot club owner Bob Martin must pay Rosenthal $4,500 for medical marijuana plants confiscated by the federal government in February, 2002 during a Drug Enforcement Administration raid at a Sixth Street medical pot club. The case has divided The City's medical-marijuana community. While Rosenthal is one of the most famous marijuana advocates in the country, Martin is a popular figure here in San Francisco, where he owns two medical-pot dispensaries."I think of it as a family feud," said former District Attorney Terence Hallinan, who is representing Martin.In the suit, Rosenthal claimed Martin wrote him $7,000 worth of checks for marijuana "clones" -- plants grown from cuttings of other plants -- that were delivered to the Harm Reduction Center, at Sixth and Howard streets.Martin said he cancelled the checks when he became convinced that Rosenthal was planning to use the $7,000 to "take the club over." And before he had a chance to discuss the situation with Rosenthal, the DEA agents raided the place, confiscated the plants and arrested Rosenthal."He is still trying to get money for pot that everybody was busted for," Martin said.Rosenthal's trial, which drew national attention to the contradictions between federal and state marijuana laws, made him the poster boy for the medical-marijuana movement.While he was convicted of marijuana cultivation and distribution charges, he received a one-day prison sentence and was publicly supported by the majority of the jurors on the case, who argued that the judge should have allowed them to consider the medical use of the marijuana during deliberations.Martin believes Rosenthal is targeting him because he testified against Rosenthal at the trial.Rosenthal made it clear that he is still bitter that Martin, who was subpoenaed by federal prosecutors, should not have taken the stand."He knew the trial was coming up. He could have skedaddled for a few weeks," Rosenthal said. "This guy is a snitch and now he is trying to get out of legitimate purchase and consulting fees."But in his testimony in small-claims court, Martin pointed out the absurdity of being sued for not paying for substances illegal under federal law."If I was forced to pay those checks, your honor, I'd be committing a federal crime," he said. "I'd be paying for marijuana, which is a federal offense." A reclusive Georgian, Martin was, until last season, the owner of 300 San Francisco Giants season tickets, making him the largest non-corporate ticket-holder. He keeps his pot clubs stocked with free food and regularly donates as many as 40 tickets a game to down-and-out medical-marijuana patients, according to some ticket recipients.Martin said Rosenthal's lawsuit has convinced him to close his two pot clubs, one on Haight Street and one on Tenth Street. He said he has had enough of the medical-pot community.He also vowed to appeal the small-claims decision."I will never, ever in my life time pay that man one nickel," said Martin. Source: San Francisco Examiner (CA)Author: J.K. Dineen, Staff Writer Published: Monday, April 5, 2004Copyright: 2004 San Francisco ExaminerContact: letters sfexaminer.comWebsite: http://www.examiner.com/Related Articles & Web Site:Ed Rosenthal's Trial Pictures & Newshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/trialpics.htmOakland's Ganja Guru Sues for Greenhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18507.shtmlPot Advocate Helps Feds http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15276.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #14 posted by jose melendez on April 07, 2004 at 08:04:21 PT treeana After tracking down hidden processes running in the background, I have several times caught new files that contain the digital security certificates of software on my Windows computers, and I have good reason to believe that Messenger, Internet Explorer and Outlook can easily be hijacked to open ports in your computer, read from any media and turn on any cameras, microphones or other peripherals. The troubleshooting and repair time spent configuring these Microsoft products often exceeds several times the cost of the computer.Also, last I heard, Microsoft is no longer supporting Windows 3.1, 98 and 98SE, so even the fix I posted below, (developed after many attempts at stabilizing machines for use) may ultimately fail.http://cannabisnews.com/news/17/thread17968.shtml#45http://cannabisnews.com/news/17/thread17968.shtml#46http://cannabisnews.com/news/17/thread17968.shtml#47The ONLY way I can see now to insure reliability from older Windows products is to ALWAYS start with a fresh Ghost image of the system as it exists when you first install the OS and any programs you use. ONLY the Windows 2000 and NT products even approach the reliability of Linux or Mac, although the newest versions of OS X seem to be going through some growing pains, and Microsoft Office for Mac contains and exhibits security issues. Like I said, start with a cheap or free OS 9 Mac, even if you only use it as a peripheral to your PC, there is TREMENDOUS value from simply being able to switch keyboards when one machine is slow or down. Save any data, like pictures, text, web data, music and video on a second drive, and you can use Ghost to back that up onto CD-RW or something, and you'll spend FAR less time dealing with troubleshooting.BTW, Apple does not pay me in any way, unless you count the FAR lower valuable depreciation value of the computer, or the total cost of ownership savings, as alluded to above. In that case, I no longer must spent an hour a day average per year, I could not hire someone to do that kind of work for less than $10 per hour, so I save 365 X 10 X 5 computers = $18,500 in un-billable time alone.If you MUST keep your machine as is, at least install LOTS of memory, and try to defrag and run windows update often, (usually click START - Windows Update or, in Internet Explorer, surf to:http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp . . . keeping a known good operating system install disk and any backups handy. Sigh, I see I'm ranting. I'll try to slow down now.I'm glad for Ed Rosenthal, and also encourage his supplier to pay Ed first, then sue those that interfered with commerce by confiscating the herb, a practice which should eventually be exposed in court as an unlawful restraint of trade. Price fixing conspiracies, whether encouraged by a software firm or cannabis prohibitionists, are always at the expense of the consumer, in the form of inflated pricing and inferior product.from: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/guidelines/primer-ncu.htm" American consumers have the right to expect the benefits of free and open competition — the best goods and services at the lowest prices. Public and private organizations often rely on a competitive bidding process to achieve that end. The competitive process only works, however, when competitors set prices honestly and independently. When competitors collude, prices are inflated and the customer is cheated. Price fixing, bid rigging, and other forms of collusion are illegal and are subject to criminal prosecution by the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice. "Now if only I could get the FTC and the New Case Unit of the Antitrust Division at the U.S. Department of Justice to concede that my ALREADY SUBMITTED written complaints of such fraud indeed have merit and should be pursued to the fullest extent of the law, drug war would be illegal.Wage Peace, Jose Melendez [ Post Comment ] Comment #13 posted by Treeanna on April 06, 2004 at 17:21:50 PT Not, my first concern Well, virus are very important also, but what I was thinking is tracing us by sinister LEO terrorists, or something ;)That was the concern of the person who sent me the email alerting me to the problem. [ Post Comment ] Comment #12 posted by jose melendez on April 06, 2004 at 12:52:35 PT Get a Mac, or, how much is the work worth? Try someone's used Mac for a month. You can get a 200 mHz power mac on ebay super cheap. Total costs of ownership in Windows are significantly higher than Apple. I can prove it, and have many times. [ Post Comment ] Comment #11 posted by FoM on April 06, 2004 at 09:45:41 PT Thanks kaptinemo That's good advice. We need to do what we can to protect ourselves. I personally can't fix things because it is hard on me. My dumb wrist locks up when I must do detailed things where I could break the program if I goof but at least my wrist works for doing news. I can't use Zone Alarm or any anti virus programs because they mess up my computer but I use discretion and that has helped me. [ Post Comment ] Comment #10 posted by kaptinemo on April 06, 2004 at 09:37:25 PT: I certainly understand your concern, Treeanna As after a long self-imposed hiatus, literally within hours of returning, my mailbox was assaulted by a VERY sophomoric attempt at bombing me with virii. Which needless to say, was a waste of time.For those concerned, I would recommend ZoneAlarm:http://download.zonelabs.com/bin/free/1012_zl/zlsSetup_45_538_001.exeThis version is freeware, and it's amazing how many things it catches trying to mess with your system. I'd *strongly* recommend you actually purchase the better grade, though. That and a good Anti-Virus program like Norton's would be an excellent way to preserve your peace of mind. [ Post Comment ] Comment #9 posted by Treeanna on April 06, 2004 at 06:31:02 PT Not to worry :) Well, hun, I wasn't asking you to particularly do anything (and I am sorry to hear about your wrist!), but I thought it was an important enough issue to let you know.The form to post a comment doesn't really indicate it is optional so many fill it in erroneously I am sure (as I have occasionally, heheeh)Sounds like it would be a lot easier just to delete the comments entirely from what you are saying.I was just hoping the site could be designed to allow members to do that themselves in the future or something (like edit profile I guess).Most of the other boards I see have things like that, so I was wanting to share it as a safety suggestion. :) [ Post Comment ] Comment #8 posted by FoM on April 05, 2004 at 20:40:42 PT Treeanna I wanted to mention that it isn't because I'd rather not as much as I shattered my right wrist a few years back when I was thrown from a horse. Right now after folding clothes and doing a little spring cleaning my wrist has locked up. It does that so I hope you undertstand. [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by FoM on April 05, 2004 at 20:18:39 PT Treeanna I have edited email as a special favor from a really nice regular commentor but it is alot of work. I'd rather not have to do it again. I know I was too liberal with posting my email address at first and now am cautious and had to close a few emails down and opened a new account. I find when spam gets a hold of one of my emails after a while thats all I get and then I just close it and start again. Spam and viruses are so hard to avoid in email. I recognize them now and report them and delete them right away. Maybe someday spam won't be a problem. That would be great. [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by Treeanna on April 05, 2004 at 19:58:15 PT aha! Ahh! Well, I suppose that is ok, but it doesn't say it is an option on the post screen.No way to go back and edit it out from posts where one inadvertantly put it in, either, or to delete old posts :(Still, thought you should know. [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by OverwhelmSam on April 05, 2004 at 19:12:09 PT: The Truth May Be... that the reason the government doesn't want to change the law, is because people who use marijuana, like Ed, have shown that they can be effective against the government. Probably scares the hell out of most politicians... to know that marijuana users can be more effective in life, and live a better life as well, than the general population. [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by FoM on April 05, 2004 at 14:44:21 PT Treeanna As far as I know only those who post their email can be contacted. If people want to get e-mail it's a benefit. If they don't want email then a person shouldn't post with an email. I don't use an email and most people don't. As far as I know in all forums it works similarly. I can't do any programming for CNews because the program is way to complicated for me. I can only make personal pages for my Freedom To Exhale site. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by Treeanna on April 05, 2004 at 14:38:51 PT Security Issue Hey guys, I got an email today that pointed out that when you put the cursor over our names in this forum (at least for the green people) and right-click, then go to "properties", it shows our registering email address :(FoM, can you please disable that, or something? [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by Dankhank on April 05, 2004 at 13:31:04 PT: Fie! From this much LESS reclusive "Georgian" I say, Away with yourself Bob, where I was raised in Georgia we believed a debt owed is a debt to settle. What part of GA you from?Foisting tickets to Corporate Major League amuzement venues is no service, sir. Lower the price of your goods, sir, now THAT'S an idea ... [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by E_Johnson on April 05, 2004 at 11:04:15 PT He sounds like a real loser "Martin said Rosenthal's lawsuit has convinced him to close his two pot clubs, one on Haight Street and one on Tenth Street. He said he has had enough of the medical-pot community. "As a patient, I would never patronize a medical marijuana club where the owner goes to small claims court and supports the Bush administration in his argument to the court.It's against federal law, I can't pay for it, because that would be a crime.That is such an insult to every sick person this man claimed to be helping.We've had enough of you so goodbye! [ Post Comment ] Post Comment