cannabisnews.com: Pot Laws Clash; Grower Awaits Sentence!





Pot Laws Clash; Grower Awaits Sentence!
Posted by FoM on August 06, 1999 at 05:43:11 PT
By Hallye Jordan, Mercury News Sacramento Bureau 
Source: San Jose Mercury
SACRAMENTO -- Not long after California voters gave a thumbs-up to the use of medicinal marijuana, B.E. Smith's chiropractor recommended that the decorated Vietnam veteran smoke a little of the herb to relieve his symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Smith decided the treatment worked so well that he planted some marijuana on an acre near his Trinity County home. His wife, Mary, fretted that he would wind up behind bars. But Smith assured her, ``I'm covered by the law.''This morning, Smith will emerge from the Sacramento County Jail cell where he's been held without bail since his conviction for marijuana cultivation and possession in May to appear in court for sentencing. In what is believed to be the first federal prosecution for growing medicinal marijuana since voters endorsed the practice by approving Proposition 215 in 1996, Smith could face up to six years in prison. The case illustrates in stark terms the clash between the three-year-old state law and federal law. No matter how many states join California and four others in allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana, cultivating cannabis still is against federal law.``It just demonstrates the arrogance of the whole federal reaction to this issue,'' said Rand Martin, chief of staff to state Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-San Jose. ``The state voters have said this is what we want, this is the law we want. Yet every branch of the federal government has said, essentially, it's our way or the highway.''Tim Zindel, a federal assistant public defender in Sacramento, said Smith is the only person he knows who's been prosecuted in federal court for growing fewer than 100 marijuana plants. But Trinity County Sheriff Paul Schmidt pointed out that Smith was growing pot on federal land -- land that had been seized by the government from another marijuana farmer -- and quipped that Smith ``had to have a pretty big headache'' if he needed to grow 87 plants.David Michael, a San Francisco criminal defense attorney, estimates 3 million Californians use marijuana under California's Compassionate Use Act. Michael figures federal agents targeted Smith because the outspoken former logger and gold-panner flaunted his pot-growing. Not only did Smith notify county supervisors of his intentions, but he also told the county sheriff and the local media, and posted a sign -- meant to be read from the air -- in the middle of his pot plot, declaring in giant letters that it was a medicinal marijuana garden.The 52-year-old Smith has a reputation for testing limits on individual freedoms and constitutional rights. He read the entire state vehicle and penal codes and discovered that motorists can demand to see a magistrate instead of signing an agreement to appear when given a traffic ticket. And he wrote a book about it. A friend who decided to test the law was thrown into jail, where he alleges the officers stripped him and paraded him around. He sued, and the suit came before U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. He threw it out. Smith helped his buddy appeal, and the appeals court ruled against Burrell. Now, Burrell is presiding over Smith's trial. ``I'm not saying that's why B.E.'s trial turned out like it did,'' said Thomas J. Ballanco, Smith's attorney, ``but he (Smith) does have a reputation as being a troublemaker down in Sacramento, and that's because he helps people stand up for their rights, and he stands on rights that we kind of let slip away.''In Smith's case, Burrell has been unbending. He rejected attempts by Smith's attorneys to mount several defenses: that Proposition 215 allowed him to grow pot; that federal agents led him to believe his actions were legal because they waited five months after he had planted the garden to destroy it; and that Smith had sought and received legal counsel assuring him he could grow marijuana under the state law. Ballanco said the only defense motion Burrell granted was one to correct an error in court papers that identified Smith as his son. Confronted by Smith lawyers with Smith's birth certificate, Burrell refused to grant the motion until the prosecutors admitted they had misidentified Smith as his son, Ballanco said.Smith's attorneys hope Burrell will give him a light sentence of 15 months or less; federal prosecutors want Smith to serve 36 months. But Smith's attorneys say they fear Burrell has it in for Smith and will throw the book at the full-time advocate for the rights of the little man.Michael, the San Francisco defense attorney, said if federal prosecutors targeted Smith because he was outspoken, Smith should appeal the case on constitutional grounds. ``If they are arresting only people who are vocal about it, then they are engaged in selective prosecution,'' Michael said. ``Then it becomes a case of their stifling free speech and not conduct.''Supporters of California's initiative are hoping that passage of a bill Vasconcellos is carrying, and that state prosecutors are supporting, will encourage federal officials to look the other way. Written by Vasconcellos, Santa Clara County District Attorney George Kennedy and state Attorney General Bill Lockyer, SB 848 would create a medicinal marijuana registration process to implement Proposition 215 and ensure marijuana was available only to patients with legitimate needs.Nathan Barankin, spokesman for Lockyer, acknowledges the bill would not prevent federal prosecutions in medicinal marijuana cases. But, he said, the bill would make it easier for state officials to make sure the initiative is not being abused. In the meantime, Trinity County Supervisor R. Berry Stewart said the conflict between state law and federal law ``is making life extremely difficult.''Stewart, who said Smith notified county supervisors in April 1997 of his plan to raise pot, said another resident with a medical certificate to grow and use marijuana approached the board last week. ``He said he was worried, too, that our law enforcement will bring him down,'' Stewart said.Ballanco said Smith's jurors also were confused. Interviews with alternate jurors revealed the jury was aware of Proposition 215 and didn't understand why it wasn't mentioned during the trial, he said.Jurors, Ballanco explained, think of ``the law'' and don't distinguish between state and federal law. ``It's hard to understand that something could be legal under state law but (state law) is absolutely irrelevant to federal law,'' he said.Contact Hallye Jordan at:hjordan sjmercury.comor (916) 441-4601.©1999 Mercury Center.Posted at 1:06 a.m. PDT Friday, August 6, 1999http://www.mercurycenter.com/breaking/docs/010327.htm Woody Harrelson Backs First Medical Pot Grower-7/29/99http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread2272.shtml
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Comment #1 posted by John on February 22, 2000 at 13:44:40 PT:
The American Guglag
America has 2 million prisoners incarcerated, more than any nation in the world, and we only have 5% of the world's population. Half of the prisoners are black yet represent 12% of the population. 64% are there on non-violent drug charges. Once in prison, all sorts of horrors are perpetuated by both staff and a minority of aggresive psychotic prisoners. This situation sucks! Vote against this Guglag system of injustice.
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