Source: PBS FRONTLINE
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Airdate: 28 April 1998
Note: This is part 2 of a 2 part message.

BUSTED: AMERICA'S WAR ON MARIJUANA (continued)

ERIC SCHLOSSER: The 1986 Anti Drug Abuse Act was the most significant drug
legislation of this generation, which shifted enormous power within our
legal system away from judges to prosecutors.

NARRATOR: Eric Schlosser wrote about the history and impact of marijuana
law enforcement for a recent series in "The Atlantic Monthly" magazine. He
also consulted for this program. ERIC SCHLOSSER: And since that law was
passed the federal prison population has tripled. And whereas drug
offenders used to be a small proportion of federal inmates, today about 70
percent of the people in federal prison are drug offenders. There are more
people now in federal prison for marijuana offenses than for violent offenses.

ANDREA STRONG: He had a two-year enhancement, though, I believe, for
manager organizer, but that's it.

NARRATOR: Andrea Strong's brother, Mark Young, was sentenced under the new
law and was given life for brokering the sale of 700 pounds of marijuana.

ANDREA STRONG: They said, "Well, he can't have bond. He's facing a life
sentence." And my mom says, "Well, who did he kill?" You know, "Did he rape
somebody? Did he molest some child? What did he do?"

NARRATOR: Young had no previous record of violence or drug trafficking.

ANDREA STRONG: It changed my entire life. I lost my cleaning business
because we had made the news and we- our story, Mark's story, with my name
and stuff, was in the newspaper, the local paper, and some of the women
whose homes that I cleaned in, they didn't want me in their home anymore.
You know, I didn't have anything to do with drugs in any kind of way. My
brother did.

NARRATOR: About 17 percent of all federal inmates are convicted marijuana
offenders. That's one federal prisoner in six. Because mandatory minimum
sentences do not allow parole, federal prisoners convicted on non-violent
marijuana charges sometimes serve more time than convicted murderers
sentenced under state law.

Scott Walt is serving 24 years for conspiracy to possess with intent to
distribute around 2,000 pounds of marijuana. David Ciglar: 10 years in
federal prison for cultivation of 167 marijuana seedlings.

And take the case of John Casali and Todd Wick, two young men convicted of
growing some 1,600 marijuana plants in northern California. Their sentence,
the 10-year mandatory minimum, was handed down by Judge Thelton Henderson
of the federal district court in San Francisco.

Judge THELTON HENDERSON: I told these young men that I wished I could do
something other than what I did, and I felt awful about it, but that I felt
bound by the law. I think they were rehabilitatable within less than 10
years. I'm opposed to mandatory minimums, in general, because I think
they're unduly harsh. I think that they don't allow the judge the
discretion to deal with the individual problem. There is a formula that
says you've been involved with a certain amount of drugs, for example, ergo
you get the mandatory minimum.

ANDREA STRONG: In the federal sentencing, if you have so many plants that
are involved in your conspiracy - and in this case it was over a thousand
plants - then, like my brother, you receive a life sentence, and that means
life without the possibility of ever being paroled. And they'll bury you in
Leavenworth's back yard, if you can't bring him home to bury him. And
that's what we were told.

NARRATOR: Andrea Strong's brother, Mark Young, appealed his life sentence
on grounds that the prosecution had miscounted the number of plants. He's
now serving a 12-year sentence. Andrea Strong has become a leader in the
national organization Families Against Mandatory Minimums.

ANDREA STRONG: Our goal is to repeal mandatory minimum sentences that are
given to first-time non-violent drug offenders. We believe they should be
punished, but we believe their punishment should fit their crime.

NARRATOR: If Mark Young had been sentenced under Indiana state law, he
would have received a lesser sentence, but state marijuana penalties vary
widely, and in other parts of the country, the state punishment can be even
more severe than the federal. In 15 states, you can get life for a
non-violent marijuana offense.

NARRATOR: In Oklahoma, Will Foster was sentenced to 93 years for marijuana
cultivation and possession in the presence of a child. When Foster was
arrested at his Tulsa home in 1995, police said an informant told them
Foster had methamphetamines.

WILL FOSTER: It was about 2:00 o'clock on the afternoon of December 28th,
and the police come to our house. They didn't knock, they just
battering-rammed our door down.

MEGAN BURKE: In less than a 30-second span of time, you know, from the
minute they hit the door. My life will never be the same.

NARRATOR: Foster's partner, Megan Burke, was in the house with their three
children.

MEGAN BURKE: It happened so quickly. The next thing I know, the door
exploded inward. It knocked me backwards onto my 5-year-old daughter.

NARRATOR: They found no methamphetamines, but they did find Foster's
marijuana grow room down in the basement.

MEGAN BURKE: I was afraid of it, afraid of the ramifications if we got
caught. I knew they would be steep. I had no idea it would be a life
sentence, a death penalty, in essence. In the beginning, I was very angry.
I just wanted to kill him because I thought, you know, "You did this." And
I had to step back from myself because I can't give him all of the blame. I
knew what he was doing, and I could have had a big screaming fit and he
would have stopped. He would have been mad, but he would have stopped. And
I didn't do that. So I guess, in that respect, I share it equally.

NARRATOR: Foster says all the plants were for his personal use, to help
with arthritis, but the number of plants raised suspicions.

BRIAN CRAIN, Assistant D.A., Tulsa, Oklahoma: Other than the fact that we
found over a kilo of marijuana, there were gram scales, which indicate
packaging and distribution. There were baggies. There were other
paraphernalia that indicated distribution. We felt comfortable in bringing
that to trial. The idea that you can grow marijuana, that you can
distribute marijuana, that you can possess marijuana in the presence of a
minor- that is not something that we will accept in Tulsa County.
[www.pbs.org: Study state-by-state laws]

NARRATOR: Will Foster is serving his time in a Texas prison because there's
no room in Oklahoma's overcrowded cells. Foster is appealing on grounds
that the search warrant was invalid, and since he was charged under state
rather than federal law, he does have the chance of parole. The state had
offered Foster a plea bargain, but he refused.

WILL FOSTER: The reason that I went to jury trial was that this was the
only way I could guarantee that my wife would not go to prison. She was
their only witness. They made her testify against me.

MEGAN BURKE: I didn't want to have to do that. I really didn't. But it was
that or I was going to go to prison, and I didn't know who would get these
kids. And he said "You have to. You don't have a choice." So I testified
for the state, and I testified for the defense, and it was the longest four
days I've ever had. And I knew that he'd get something. I mean, it's
Oklahoma. But I didn't expect 93 years.

NARRATOR: The wives of marijuana growers are often put under pressure to
testify against their husbands or risk prison terms themselves. Jodie
Israel refused to take the stand against her husband and is now serving a
12-year federal mandatory minimum sentence.

JODIE ISRAEL: You know, somewhere it's got to stop. If I was to testify
against someone and bring down 10 people- you know, it's got to stop
somewhere.

NARRATOR: Her husband, a first-time offender, was convicted of growing
marijuana. He is a Rastafarian and claimed he used marijuana for religious
reasons. Because she presumably knew what he was doing, Jodie Israel was
charged with conspiracy.

JODIE ISRAEL: The problem with conspiracy is it's the only time they allow
hearsay into the courtroom. So if they can't get you for anything else,
they can get you for conspiracy. Your husband could go away on a business
trip for the weekend and come back home, and he could have been out, you
know, buying drugs, and you're going be charged.

When I came in, my children were 1, 2, and my 3-year-old had just turned 4,
and my daughter was 9. And they're all in different homes, and my littlest
son doesn't even know who I am. It's hard because, as a parent, you want to
protect your child from hurt. And it's like I have caused this hurt.

NARRATOR: She has seen her children only once in each of the four years
she's already served.

JODIE ISRAEL: I made a mistake in that I chose the wrong man. But 11 years
of my life away from my children isn't right.

NARRATOR: Kristen Angelo, a teenager who lives near Seattle, Washington, is
learning what happens to a family when a parent is caught growing marijuana.

KRISTEN ANGELO: I knew that my Dad grew pot. I didn't know how big it was
or, you know, anything like that, but it didn't bother me. I just never
really thought twice of it. I never thought the consequences could be this
harsh on my family, otherwise I probably would have said, you know, "Hey,
Dad, maybe you shouldn't be doing this."

NARRATOR: John Angelo, who worked as a design engineer at Boeing Aircraft,
had a grow room behind the house where he lived with his family.

JOHN ANGELO: This was an underground hydroponic growing facility. I had six
trays on each side, 30 feet long. Each side was capable of holding 380 plants.

NARRATOR: Angelo says he suffers from manic depression. He is an activist,
working to legalize medical use of marijuana.

JOHN ANGELO: I've been smoking pot since I was 12 years old. I've been
growing it for the last 12 years. I found a long time ago that I'm able to
function with marijuana. My oldest daughter knew what I was doing. She
never questioned it.

KRISTEN ANGELO: You know, he didn't smoke it around me or force me to smoke
it or anything like that. Everyone experiments with it. And for a while, I
did use it in school and I got very bad grades. It's a lot harder to
concentrate. You can't study very well.

NARRATOR: John Angelo and his wife, Rachel, say the three younger children
never knew about the marijuana operation.

RACHEL ANGELO: I'm completely against children using marijuana. They don't
need to be putting stuff in their bodies when they're growing, including
caffeine, drugs, alcohol-

JOHN ANGELO: Nicotine, right.

RACHEL ANGELO: -of any kind. Their little minds need to be developing.

JOHN ANGELO: I had no idea that they were going to take my children away
from me, that they were going to take my property away from me, and that
they were going to put me in jail for 5 years. I had no idea.

KRISTEN ANGELO: I was out with friends. And I came home from school and we
were pulling down the road and my friends said, you know, "There's cop car
at your house." And I was, like, "Oh, you're just kidding." You know,
"Don't play around with me like that." And they're, like, "No, Kristen,
we're serious." You know, "There's a cop car down there."

RACHEL ANGELO: They came belting through those doors with their guns in
hand and pointing them around the room and, you know, talking and-

JOHN ANGELO: Yelling.

RACHEL ANGELO: Well, yelling, and yelling for John- "John, come out! John,
come out!"

KRISTEN ANGELO: My dad was in handcuffs and Rachel was in the car, and I
was just- I was shocked. I mean, I was just- I can't even explain how I
felt. It was just, you know, total adrenaline rush. I didn't know what to
do. I didn't know what to say. I was really scared for both of them.

MARK KLEIMAN: Keeping middle-class kids from drugs has always ranked very
high among the goals of American drug policy. And a lot of 14-year-olds
have now started to use marijuana.

NARRATOR: Mark Kleiman, a professor of policy studies at the University of
California in Los Angeles, has studied the patterns of marijuana use.

MARK KLEIMAN: For a while, the number of users was falling and,
particularly, the number of young users was falling. That unfortunately
stopped in 1991, and since then, the number of young users has been
increasing. And what's really frightening is initiations happening at
younger and younger ages.

Gen. BARRY McCAFFREY: [at press conference] Marijuana is the principal drug
of abuse among youngsters, with increased numbers of hospital admissions or
treatment admissions where marijuana is cited as the principle drug threat.

NARRATOR: The alarm has sounded for the White House Office on Drug Policy,
headed by General Barry McCaffrey.

Gen. BARRY McCAFFREY: [at press conference] The drug threat is changing,
and student populations are picking up on it, and it's tending to drift
into younger years. The first use of marijuana figure - how old were you
when you first used marijuana - has steadily dropped. And I anticipate the
next time we get a number to give you, it will have dropped further.

NARRATOR: You won't get an argument from many American students. In Warsaw,
Indiana, schools the talk is about mixed messages, with families and
children torn between what the law says and what widespread use, even in
their own homes, is telling them.

GIRL: I know I lost one of my best friends over marijuana. Her mom found
out, and her mom was mad, but her mom also does it, so, I mean, her mom
isn't setting a good role model, or her dad.

LEE ANN RICHARDSON: I had a girl tell me that her parents were smoking
marijuana. And I asked her what she did in that situation, and she said she
left and goes to her room. And I said, "That's very good." You know, she's
making the right choice, the right decision to get away from the
environment, basically.

BRET RICHARDSON: Just last week, I had one of my students come to me to
tell me about one of his relatives, and he wants something done about it,
so the information has been turned over to our drug task force. I tell them
all the ramifications of that choice that they are making, and if they want
the police involved in it, it's going to disrupt the family life. And then
it's up to the student to decide if that's the direction they want it to
go. We don't encourage the kids to spy. That's not my role. I'm there as
instructor, not as an enforcement officer.

LEE ANN RICHARDSON: And you see he becomes- I could see he became partially
defensive on it. I think that's a sore subject with us, especially with the
D.A.R.E. program, because it has nothing in the curriculum about, you know,
turning people in or doing anything that way. [www.pbs.org: How effective
is D.A.R.E.?] 

STEVE WHITE: One year, we did three indoor grows here based on the children
of the growers through the D.A.R.E. program. They not only told us about
it, they drew diagrams, how to get to Daddy's indoor grow. So that's tough
on a family. The more I think about it, the more I wonder.

NARRATOR: During his career arresting marijuana suspects, former DEA agent
Steve White found himself asking more questions.

STEVE WHITE: I had done a lot of undercover work. It was mainly
amphetamines, LSD, heroin and cocaine. I thought all dope dealers were scum
to various levels, that they would sell out their mother, and I've seen it
time after time. When I got into the marijuana program, one thing that
amazed me was how cooperative a lot of the people were, how proud of what
they're doing, how normal, in every other respect, they were. And there's
some of them that I quite frankly like. This is confusing, but I still put
them in jail.

SUSPECT: I'm not hurting nobody, or at least I don't feel I am. I'm hurting
my lungs maybe. You know, buy a joint somewhere and you're a felon, or they
want you to be a felon. I mean, you know, that's the name of the game for
them.

STEVE WHITE: I came to see them as a different breed of cat. They're still
criminals, but they don't have some of the characteristics of all the
others that I dealt with in the 20 years previously.

DENNIS FITZGERALD: There are some agents that don't see crimes associated
with marijuana use. They don't see the armed robberies that follow crack
use or that follow heroin addiction. They don't see any of the crimes that
you associate generally with drug abuse.

NARRATOR: Dennis Fitzgerald was a federal drug enforcement agent for 20
years. Now retired from the DEA, Fitzgerald is director of the National
Institute for Drug Enforcement Training.

DENNIS FITZGERALD: Marijuana abusers don't, generally, when they can't get
marijuana, go out and rob a liquor store to get money to buy their
marijuana. It just doesn't follow. So an awful lot of law enforcement
officers just don't have the personal conviction when it comes to marijuana
enforcement that they do with the enforcement of heroin laws or crack
cocaine laws or cocaine laws. A lot of agents feel as though the marijuana
laws misdirect an awful lot of investigative energies, and people are going
to jail for significant periods of time over very small quantities of
marijuana.

NARRATOR: Agents like Fitzgerald and Steve White have watched the war on
marijuana escalate. It is now costing federal, state and local agencies at
least $10 billion a year, more than one fourth the total budget for the war
on drugs. The enforcement effort has brought other consequences.

DENNIS FITZGERALD: The forfeiture of the assets directly enriches the
police agency that brings the case against the grow operators. Now, the
monies that they receive from asset forfeiture, primarily, it can be used
to pay informants.

NARRATOR: Dennis Fitzgerald has written a book about how government
agencies use informants to make drug arrests. Informants can be paid up to
25 percent of the value of assets seized in arrests, up to $250,000.

DENNIS FITZGERALD: What bothers me about the informant situation is the
unbelievable amounts of money that the informants are making, that they can
make. There are pamphlets that are put out on what to look for in marijuana
indoor grow operations: large air-conditioning bills, large power bills,
the delivery of firewood, generators. There's a whole laundry list of
things that people are told to look for. Ordinary citizens are encouraged.
There's just this whole network of people that are out there, just average
citizens that have been drawn in to become informants, neighborhood crime
watches that have gone a step too far.

POLICE OFFICER: Police search warrant!

NARRATOR: On this case, an informant had told state police that this house
in Indianapolis harbored a marijuana grow. No one was home except the
suspect's son.

POLICE OFFICER: Is your Dad home? Well, we've got a search warrant to
search the house. Where does your dad work?

NARRATOR: When the suspect came home, it turned out he was being used as an
informant himself on another state police marijuana case, so the charges on
this arrest were deferred.

SUSPECT: It's all about, I guess, they want you to look for somebody that's
bigger than you- stepping stone.

JOHN ANGELO: They were able to get a search warrant for an overhead
infrared search. So they come over with a helicopter one night and saw the
heat signature of the trailer under the ground, and that was their basis
for a search warrant, then, at that time to come in and arrest us.

NARRATOR: An informant's tip had also led to the arrest of John and Rachel
Angelo.

RACHEL ANGELO: I feel that the government actually makes people feel good
about using the marijuana laws or drug laws as a basis for- or as a
bouncing board for people to take advantage of each other and to be
vindictive with one another. You know, "Hurt your neighbor. It's the right
thing to do."

JOHN ANGELO: Although I feel it's an improper law and I should have worked
to change that law, and I would like to see laws changed, I agree. Yes, I
did break a law. But I was no threat to the community. I was no threat to
the environment or to my kids or to anybody else. Justice would have been
served a lot better by taking my talents or my abilities to work to let me
continue with my job and paying taxes and stuff, but community service and
home incarceration, keeping my family together.

NARRATOR: Rachel Angelo was facing a five-year prison term. John could get
10 years in addition to a million-dollar fine.

Judge THELTON HENDERSON: I think when the sentencing guidelines first came
in, we thought they would phase out after some period of time. They're
still around, and I see no indication of them phasing out in the near
future. But I'm not aware of anything judges can do. We can't lobby. We're
pretty much handicapped. We can speak out, such as I'm speaking out now,
and state our displeasure and hope that the time will come when Congress
will revisit this.

Sen. ORRIN HATCH, (R), Utah: The reason why we went to mandatory minimums
is because of these soft-on-crime judges that we have in our society,
judges who just will not get tough on crime.

NARRATOR: As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Orrin
Hatch of Utah has been a leader in the fight to strengthen anti-crime laws.
He strongly supports mandatory minimum sentencing.

Sen. ORRIN HATCH: Keep in mind these growers and these pushers, they're
killing our kids. They're the reason we have such a drug culture in this
society that's just wrecking our country in a lot of respects. In all
honesty, I think that when you have people who are pushing drugs on our
kids or pushing at all, we ought to get as nails on them, and I don't
think- in many respects, we ought to lock them up and throw away the keys.

NARRATOR: Over the last decade, mandatory minimum sentencing has been
reconsidered by congress. The debates have not led to any change in the law.

Rep. STEVEN SCHIFF, (R), New Mexico: [at hearing] I think the debate, if
any, should be over how long individuals should be in prison compared to
others. The debate should never become whether individuals should spend
time in prison.

MARK KLEIMAN: We ought to think about sentencing in terms of its actual
impacts on behavior, and we ought to frame our sentences in ways that make
sense both morally and practically

NARRATOR: Mark Kleiman recently joined a group of prominent scientists,
drug experts and public officials in proposing a new middle-of-the road
approach to national drug policy. [www.pbs.org: Read the proposal.]

MARK KLEIMAN: We don't want to debate legalization versus prohibition. We
don't want to debate hawks versus doves. We want to say, "Look, this is
really a complicated question. We need to look in detail at individual
policies and figure out which ones will actually serve the public interest."

One of the principles is that we ought to base our sentencing on a
balancing of costs and benefits, and not merely use long sentences as a way
of expressing disapproval. I think we ought to start basing mandatory
sentences on the conduct of the people engaged. Are they using violence?
Are they using corruption? Are they using kids? If we do that, I think
we'll have a more sensible set of sentences.

STEVE WHITE: I cannot see somebody in there doing eight years for marijuana
and a rapist being set free. Anybody that abuses another human being I have
a certain loathing for. There's a disparity there. But that's not with law
enforcement. We don't make the laws and we don't sentence the offenders.
All we do is catch people.

NARRATOR: John Angelo and his wife, Rachel, agreed to a plea bargain.
Rachel testified for the prosecution and was given three months in a
halfway house with work release. After she returned home, John would enter
federal prison for a five-year term.

RACHEL ANGELO: Just exactly what we expected to happen. They went with the
plea agreement because it was the easiest thing to do, I think.

JOHN ANGELO: And I'm willing to accept what I plead to. I saved Rachel and
her father both a lot of pain and suffering, and I'll live by that then.
That's it. Let's go home.

NARRATOR: Like John Angelo, Doug Keenan says he needs to grow and use
marijuana for medical reasons. He's a cancer patient. But Keenan is the
kind of marijuana grower who confuses the issue. He freely admits he also
uses marijuana for pleasure.

DOUG KEENAN: Most of the people that are in this want to see the plant let
free. Actually, we'd like to just see the dialogue get started, but we're
having enough trouble, you know, getting the government to the table on
that. Everybody on all sides agrees that it's not working, what we're
doing. Great. What are we going to do next?

Dr. DAVID MUSTO: Actually, the American people are, in a way, deciding now
about marijuana in a way they never had the opportunity before. We may be
unraveling the national consensus on drugs and bringing back to the states
the decision as to what to do with drugs because the votes in Arizona and
in California suggest that there could be parts of the country in which
there's a different point of view.

NARRATOR: Both California and Arizona have passed initiatives that permit
medical use of marijuana. In California, behind the doors of cannabis clubs
like this one in San Francisco, marijuana openly changes hands. The clubs
are open to anyone presenting a doctor's letter stating medical need. The
existence of the cannabis clubs has been challenged in court.

Dr. DAVID MUSTO: The medical marijuana debate is extremely interesting.
There's no question that people who want to legalize marijuana are using
the medical marijuana issue as a wedge. On the other hand, there are many
statements from people who have used marijuana in situations in which
they've been greatly helped by marijuana, and that's their testimony.

MARK KLEIMAN: And the answer therefore has to be, it seems to me, let's do
the research. I've been boring people for five years now by just saying,
whenever this question comes up, "Let's do the research. "Let's find out.
Let's try it on some patients and see if they get better." We shouldn't
debate medical marijuana as a shadow play about the deeper question of
legalization of marijuana for recreational use.

Sen. ORRIN HATCH: The minute California passed that particular statute, we
had marijuana fields start to grow up again, on the basis that they're
using it for medicinal purposes. And in the process, of course, we've got a
lot of indiscriminate use of marijuana now in California that is even
greater than it was before. If you allow people to grow marijuana and to
indiscriminately grow and use it, then you're adding to the lack of
discipline and the problems that we have in our society and, really, to,
ultimately, the harder use of harder drugs.

STEVE WHITE: I do not believe that decriminalizing or legalizing marijuana
is going to help in any way. I think it's a dangerous drug. I don't think
it does any good. Period.

DENNIS FITZGERALD: I'm not for blanket legalization of marijuana. I think
certain offenses should be decriminalized.

MAN AT ANTI-DRUG RALLY: Marijuana is the cure-all wrong message.

Dr. DAVID MUSTO: Should the government intrude on your private right to do
something? Or does the government have an obligation to take steps to
protect you in ways that you couldn't protect yourself? This goes back to
the Federalist papers, I mean, or to the Constitution. How should we run
our lives? And marijuana has become the symbol of how we should think about
something that's medicine or not a medicine, a private right or a public
right. And people bring to it their deepest feelings and their image of how
they would like the world to be run.

STEVE WHITE: It's an emotional issue. It's right there with gays in the
military and abortion. Everybody's got an opinion on it. When I started in
law enforcement, the general opinion, particularly in the white middle
class community, was "Marijuana? Send them to jail," because they're
probably black or Chicano, to begin with, and it wasn't something that
affected us. Now it touches everybody in America. And I don't think anybody
doesn't have a family member in an extended family that hasn't been touched
by it.

ANNOUNCER: Discover more of our report at FRONTLINE's Web site. Take the
marijuana quiz, explore the interactive guide to federal and state laws on
marijuana, read an essay by the grower who's gone public, and take a close
look at two case histories, plus a timeline on marijuana in the U.S., the
best of the pro and con arguments and much more at FRONTLINE on line at
www.pbs.org. 

ANNOUNCER: Let us know what you think about tonight's program by fax [(617)
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