Pubdate: Thu, 22 May 2003
Source: Orlando Sentinel (FL)
Copyright: 2003 Orlando Sentinel
Contact:  http://www.orlandosentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/325
Author: Myriam Marquez / the Sentinel
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Ed+Rosenthal

'GANJA GURU' - IF ONLY TRUTH COULD SET HIM FREE

Hanging on the precipice of states' rights in the nation's drug war is a 
58-year-old San Francisco author known as the "Ganja Guru." And there lying 
at the bottom is a shattered Lady Justice, with no middle ground in sight.

Ed Rosenthal is no stranger to controversy. Over the years, he's authored 
several books about the benefits of marijuana use and has even testified 
before Congress about the need to re-evaluate federal laws that make 
growing or smoking marijuana a criminal offense.

Now Rosenthal, who grew marijuana for medicinal purposes, could spend the 
rest of his life in prison.

Yet he had the city of Oakland's blessing to grow the cannabis. He had the 
voters of California's blessings. He even had the California attorney 
general's public acknowledgment that Rosenthal, authorized by Oakland's 
city commissioners to grow marijuana solely for the use of seriously ill 
patients, has state law on his side.

No matter. Rosenthal has become the obsession of federal prosecutors and a 
drug war run amok.

Instead of challenging California's Proposition 215 or the city of 
Oakland's ordinance that allowed Rosenthal to grow marijuana as "an officer 
of the city," the feds went after the little guy who grew the pot for 
city-regulated medical marijuana clubs that sold marijuana to patients 
whose doctors had prescribed it.

It was easy to get a conviction for Rosenthal because under legal precedent 
he couldn't use the truth as a defense. The Truth.

Incredibly, jurors never heard that Rosenthal had the city's permission to 
grow marijuana. They never knew the plants were grown solely for a narrowly 
defined purpose: to ease the comfort of very sick people.

The judge simply wouldn't let Rosenthal's lawyers call witnesses who could 
explain why Rosenthal was growing more than 3,000 plants in a warehouse. 
And a federal appeals court backed the judge because federal law takes 
precedence over any local-yokel ordinance.

So jurors convicted Rosenthal earlier this year as if he were your typical 
drug kingpin. Most of the jurors did an about-face, though, once the trial 
ended and they heard the rest of the story, i.e., The Truth.

Judge Charles R. Breyer (brother of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer) 
denied Rosenthal a new trial last week, writing that there's legal 
precedence "since the Civil War" that local laws have no bearing in federal 
court.

Does common sense matter at all? Who in their right mind would think 
Rosenthal got a fair trial?

The feds have used the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in another Oakland case, 
which outlawed the sale of marijuana at a cannabis club, as a way to go 
after Rosenthal as if he were a drug pusher selling crack to kids. Yet that 
1991 ruling was limited to the club's attempt to use the common-law 
medical-necessity defense to sell cannabis. It did not deal directly with 
Prop 215, states' rights or Oakland's laws.

The drug war has wasted billions of dollars over the decades, focusing on 
the users of a plant that, while certainly not healthy to the lungs and the 
body if abused, comes nowhere close to the severe medical effects and 
societal chaos that, say, cocaine or heroin can cause.

And the thing is, the federal government doesn't care to know The Truth. It 
has refused to evaluate marijuana's ability to help very sick people 
suffering from debilitating and deadly diseases, such as AIDS, cancer and 
multiple sclerosis. It has shut the door on new studies to find the plant's 
medical value.

Yet it's perfectly legal for doctors to prescribe expensive narcotics, such 
as oxycodone, to relieve pain, even though there's mounting evidence of its 
highly addictive qualities and some patients have died from overdoses.

Any drug can be abused, even over-the-counter drugs. It's their health 
benefits that medical professionals weigh against the risks. That's what 
California and eight other states focused on when they approved medicinal 
use of marijuana to help patients wasting away from AIDS, multiple 
sclerosis and other diseases, and to overcome the reactions to chemotherapy 
after cancer treatment. Smoking the plant helps very ill people reduce 
nausea so they can eat and get stronger.

Keeping jurors in the dark to punish a man who sought to help severely ill 
people cope -- now that's criminal.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager