Pubdate: Thu, 27 Feb 2003
Source: Boston Phoenix (MA)
Issue: February 27 - March 6, 2003
Copyright: 2003 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group.
Contact:  http://www.bostonphoenix.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/54
Author: Kristen Lombardi

DOMESTIC STEALTH BOMBS

 From hounding medical-marijuana growers to stacking the courts with 
conservative judges, the Bush administration is pandering to the right 
while America prepares for war

BY KRISTEN LOMBARDI

A SECOND resolution on war in Iraq. A Bush post-invasion plan. Millions of 
antiwar protesters take to the streets. Saddam Hussein gets feisty with 
weapons inspectors. It's no surprise that stories without an Iraq angle get 
little or no attention these days. The all-Iraq-all-the-time media myopia 
is even understandable, given how momentous an event it would be for 
President George W. Bush to send American troops off to battle.

Yet as we've learned often enough - especially with the Bush administration 
- - what's going on out of sight is often just as important as what's taking 
center stage on TV or the front page. While we stockpile supplies and wrap 
our windows in duct tape, the Bushies are quietly advancing a frightening 
domestic agenda that amounts to a far-right ideological assault on our 
civil liberties and social protections - and threatens to turn the clock 
back decades. Here are five Bush-administration domestic policies of 
enormous consequence that have been overlooked in this time of impending 
war and national-security crises.

The Assault On Medical Marijuana

This is a misguided, mean-spirited effort. But the Bush administration - 
led by Attorney General John Ashcroft - seems hell-bent on preventing 
states from permitting marijuana use for medical purposes. Ashcroft's 
assault began in earnest in 2001, when he ordered a raid on a health-care 
facility in California that distributed medical pot - something a state 
ballot initiative legalized there in 1996. He's continued to frustrate the 
will of California voters by pushing to revoke the licenses of doctors who 
recommend marijuana to patients. That strategy faltered when a federal 
court struck down Ashcroft's legal motion to do so on constitutional 
grounds last fall.

Now, the attorney general has taken a different tack: arresting and 
prosecuting cannabis growers who work under the California medical-pot law 
known as Proposition 215. To date, Ashcroft's Justice Department has gone 
after 40 such growers. Its latest victim? Ed Rosenthal. Author of cannabis 
self-help books and a High Times advice column called "Ask Ed," Rosenthal 
is something of a celebrity among potheads. But he's also a legitimate 
Prop. 215 cultivator, a deputized "officer" who grows pot to be distributed 
for medicinal purposes under the auspices of the City of Oakland, where a 
local ordinance set up city-sanctioned growing facilities to implement the 
state law.

Despite Rosenthal's official title, federal prosecutors arrested him on 
charges of marijuana cultivation and conspiracy last year; in January, they 
took him to court in San Francisco - though not many fair-minded folk would 
call what happened inside the courtroom a "trial." US District Court judge 
Charles Breyer refused to allow Rosenthal to raise Prop. 215 as a defense, 
since it's not valid under federal law. So while he admitted growing 
marijuana for distribution, Rosenthal couldn't offer up any witnesses to 
explain why. Given the constraints, the jury found Rosenthal guilty on 
January 31. Under mandatory sentencing, he faces a minimum of five years in 
prison.

It's an extraordinary punishment for a man whom sick people regard as a 
savior and whom California law defines as a caregiver. But then, within 
days, jurors in his trial did something extraordinary, too. On February 4, 
eight of the 14 jurors offered a public apology to the man whom they'd just 
convicted. They were outraged to discover later that Rosenthal was growing 
medical cannabis for Oakland. If they had known he was acting as a city 
agent, they said, they would have acquitted him. The jurors, in other 
words, have a lot more compassion and sense on the matter than the Bush 
people do.

Americans are widely and increasingly tolerant of marijuana. Most don't 
think casual pot use should be punished by more than a fine; 40 percent 
would even legalize the use of marijuana in small amounts, according to a 
recent Time/CNN poll. There's almost no dispute, however, about whether 
patients with AIDS, cancer, and other debilitating illnesses should be 
allowed whatever relief marijuana can give them. Eight out of 10 Americans 
believe pot should be legal with a doctor's prescription, the poll showed. 
Such popular support has led nine states, including California, to pass 
ballot initiatives making marijuana available to seriously sick people.

The Bush administration's war on medical marijuana flies in the face of the 
president's and Ashcroft's oft-repeated rhetoric about the importance of 
states' rights - apparently, a doctrine worthy of support only when it 
doesn't contradict their moralistic, father-knows-best social agenda. As 
Kevin Zeese, who heads the Washington, DC-based group Common Sense for Drug 
Policy, puts it, "The administration is using the issue to energize its 
right-wing base." It's no accident that, of the states that permit medical 
marijuana, Ashcroft has made an example only of California. Others, such as 
Hawaii, Colorado, and Maine, represent Republican swing states, whose 
support the president needs to win re-election in 2004. Zeese explains, 
"The strategy is to write off California to mobilize [the GOP's] 
conservative, far-right base across the country."

This time, though, Ashcroft and his minions may have gone too far. The 
Rosenthal case has attracted more negative attention than they likely 
anticipated. If anything, the trial made Rosenthal into a martyr. His 
conviction has served as a rallying cry for supporters of medical marijuana 
everywhere. Offers Graham Boyd, who heads the American Civil Liberties 
Union Drug Policy Litigation Project, "For supporters, the issue is no 
longer a nice idea. It's become one where the federal government is viewed 
as being out of control and vindictive, and we have to do something to stop 
it."

(snip)
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