cannabisnews.com: Wanted: The Right To Smoke Some Pot Wanted: The Right To Smoke Some Pot Posted by FoM on December 23, 2000 at 07:44:55 PT By Tad Dickens, The Roanoke Times Source: Roanoke Times Pitches for escort services, bankruptcy lawyers and private detectives have some new neighbors these days in The Roanoke Times' classified advertisements section. Five ads have cried out for two months on behalf of legalizing medicinal marijuana and against "evil people" posing as "concerned citizens." One of the ads compares the United States to Nazi-era Germany and Communist China. The declarations are more than small-print punditry. C.J. "Jay" Lynch says he is using them to help him avoid 30 years in prison on a marijuana manufacturing charge. He's determined to fight the charge but hasn't been able to settle on a lawyer he can agree with, he said. That has forced postponements of his jury trial, now scheduled for Feb. 8 and 9. A circuit judge assigned the public defender's office to his case. Still, Lynch said he is inclined to represent himself. "Instead of paying five to ten grand for an attorney, we'll put an ad in the paper," Lynch said. "Maybe we'll get some good public opinion out there." On a cold Monday night, Lynch stood on his back porch with a friend and a scampering Shar-Pei, drinking a can of Busch beer and discussing his case. "I don't look at myself as a criminal," said Lynch, who works at a cemetery and is a part-time entertainment promoter. "I just look at myself as someone who needs medicinal marijuana, and smokes it." Local law enforcement disagrees. In September 1999, city police arrested Lynch, saying they had seized more than 100 mature marijuana plants after executing a search warrant at his Westside Boulevard Northwest home. They first charged him with manufacturing with the intent to distribute, but the commonwealth's attorney's office dropped that case. A grand jury indicted him that October on a charge of manufacturing or possessing marijuana with the intent to manufacture it for others' use. Lynch said police made a gross overstatement of his supply, from which he has never dealt. He uses it only for medicinal purposes since a 1992 car crash ruined his back, he said. Pain pills messed up his stomach, made his hair fall out and turned his skin a macabre pale, he said. So he turned to pot for pain relief. "I just smoke it at night," he said. "It helps me to sleep, mainly." He runs ads on a variety of other subjects, including one promoting local blues singer Bill Hudson. His focus, though, is on the pending case, and he plans to spend $2,000 in an attempt to make his point. One ad lists states that have passed medicinal marijuana laws. Two address the "concerned citizens" or "anonymous tipsters" police use to make cases. The most recent ad, which compares the United States to totalitarian regimes, complains about the fact that people convicted on drug charges can lose their driver's licenses. Lynch, echoing another of the ads, said crack cocaine is the country's real problem. Law enforcement should focus on heroin, ecstasy and other drugs - not his beloved herb, which he says he uses responsibly. "I don't condone it for kids," he said. "I don't condone it, really, for anybody. But it works for me." He faces at least one problem. Virginia law does not allow for medicinal marijuana use, much less for owning the 20-some plants he said were growing in his back yard when police showed up. Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Wes Nance, who is prosecuting Lynch, would not discuss the case. "Suffice it to say, the Roanoke Valley, and the city in particular, has a problem with all illegal narcotics," Nance said. Lynch said he is especially upset with the two "concerned citizens" who tipped police. He knows who they are, and he knows they had a grudge against him, he said. After receiving the tip, police began to monitor the house, checking how much electricity was consumed there, according to court documents. Police found the consumption was high compared to neighboring houses, but recovered no indoor-growing equipment in their search, court documents state. In a May 23 ruling, Judge Jonathan Apgar denied Lynch's motion to suppress evidence from the warrant, and refused to force the prosecutor's office to identify the informants. Anonymous tips rightfully protect the tipsters, Nance said. If police were forced to surrender informants' names, "that investigative tool would dry up for the investigator," he said. Lynch filed another motion in October, asking to suppress a videotape that includes footage of a partially naked woman watering "plants that appear to be marijuana plants." In the motion, Lynch's then-lawyer Charlie Phillips said the tape is irrelevant and prejudicial to the case. If convicted, the 39-year-old Lynch faces five to 30 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. There is no mandatory minimum sentence, though, Nance said. Since 1992, state law has required that judges suspend driver's licenses for six months with narcotics convictions, but it also allows for restricted licenses for driving to school, work and child care, Nance said. If not for the prospect of losing his license, he'd just plead guilty to possession, he said, but it has become a matter of principle. "I've pretty much lost friends" over the bust, he said. "It just leaves more weed to smoke." Note: A Roanoke man charged with marijuana possession says he needs the drug for medicinal purposes. 'It helps me to sleep, mainly,' man says.Source: Roanoke Times (VA)Author: Tad Dickens, The Roanoke TimesPublished: December 22, 2000Copyright: 2000 Roanoke TimesAddress: 201 W. Campbell Ave., Roanoke, Va. 24010Contact: karent roanoke.comWebsite: http://www.roanoke.com/roatimes/index.htmlRelated Article:Man Arrested in Pot Bust Says He Grew for Himselfhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/2/thread2842.shtmlCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #5 posted by observer on April 05, 2001 at 08:51:09 PT links, update Don't Read Classified Ads, Judge Tells Jury In Pot Case (4/2001)http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n594/a01.htmlJury In Pot Case Convicts Man, Urges 10-Year Term (4/2001)http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n594/a02.html___For more information on this Virginia prosecutor-judge's mindset and attitude toward freedom, the Bill of Rights and basic human decency, please see:Nazi Justiz (Richard Lawrence Miller, 1995)http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0275949125/They Thought They Were Free : The Germans, 1933-35(Milton Sanford Mayer, 1966)http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0226511928/Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now. Thus in France the emetic was once forbidden as a medicine, and the potato as an article of food. Government is just as fallible, too, when it fixes systems in physics. Galileo was sent to the Inquisition for affirming that the earth was a sphere; the government had declared it to be as flat as a trencher, and Galileo was obliged to abjure his error. ... Reason and experiment have been indulged, and error has fled before them. It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. -- Thomas Jefferson, "Notes on the State of Virginia," 1787I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.-- James Madison Make the most of the Indian Hemp Seed and sow it everywhere. -- George Washington Judge Robert P. Doherty is a wicked man for throwing Lynch in jail for 10 years for growing and using cannabis (Indian hemp). Doherty is a wicked man for lying to the jury telling them they had to follow his instructions (a lie), and telling the jury they had to convict. (see FIJA, http://www.FIJA.org ) There's no parole in Virginia. Virginians who loved and love freedom would spit in Judge Robert P. Doherty's smug, Nazi, and hypocritical face. [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by Will Roebuck on January 20, 2001 at 05:24:26 PT: "Medical Marijuana Card" I am 66 years old, live in Fresno California, enjoy smoking Marijuana and would like to do it legally. Do I have to go to the bay area to get a "Medical Marijuana Card"? [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by observer on December 23, 2000 at 11:32:45 PT Yes, Virginia There Is a Med. MJ Law (Nobody Uses) Virginia law does not allow for medicinal marijuana use . . .Wrong, propaganda-boy: just a tad off, there.see:MEDICAL USE LEGAL BUT RARE ``Nearly two decades ago, Virginia passed a law permitting possession or distribution of marijuana for medical purposes...'' (1997, VirginianPilot)http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v97/n013/a02.htmlMedical Marijuana (Liberty Magazine, Jan 1998)``3/06/97: A group of physicians, health organizations, and patients file a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging the federal government's refusal to allow physicians to prescribe marijuana in states that permit them to do so. The lawsuit cites state laws in Connecticut, Virginia, and Arizona permitting physicians to prescribe marijuana for patients suffering from serious illnesses. ...''http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v97/n660/a02.htmlMr Lynch is right in attempting to find a defense lawyer with a non-limp backbone, and that knows Virginia's laws, too. [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by JR Bob Dobbs on December 23, 2000 at 10:25:32 PT Live Nude Hemp >>Lynch filed another motion in October, asking to suppress a videotape that includes footage of a partially naked woman watering "plants that appear to be marijuana plants." Hey, if you need some money for those mind-altering advertisements, Marc Emery has said he'll pay for footage relating to cannabis if he can use it on Pot-TV. I'm not involved in the organization, but I can believe that footage of a semi-nude human woman watering other nude hemp females... well, that's the kind of thing I'd watch, once the news is over of course... And hey, why doesn't the article quote the ads? I'd like to see these ads, so I could cut&paste and send them to various places on the 'net. Anybody here have access to the paper these ads are in? Pot TV [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by mungojelly on December 23, 2000 at 08:44:53 PT: newspaper ads Why don't we put ads in every newspaper? This man's idea of changing public opinion to avoid prosecution is an unlikely bid, but in the long-term it might be a more promising technique. As far as the police not revealing the identity of informants because they would "dry up," let's take a look at Amendment VI, shall we? "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right... to be confronted with the witnesses against him..." Sometimes I seriously wonder whether these pigs have ever read their constitution. I'm quite sure they don't understand the idea of supremacy. To a cop, whatever they decide to do at the moment is the law. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: