Pubdate: Sat, 29 May 1999
Source: Gainesville Sun, The (FL)
Copyright: 1999 The Gainesville Sun
Contact:  http://www.sunone.com/
Forum: http://www.sunone.com/interactive.shtml
Author: Karen Voyles, Sun Staff WriterAREN VOYLES

MAN WINS POT-SMOKING CASE IN LEVY COUNTY

BRONSON - A Levy County man convinced a jury he needs to smoke marijuana for
medical reasons, but his attorney doesn't think the verdict sets a precedent.

And meanwhile, the admitted pot smoker, Michael Stauff of Bronson, was back
in jail Friday on an unrelated drug charge.

Stauff was charged Jan. 7 for possession of half of a joint - about
two-tenths of a gram of pot - after he gave officers permission to search
his car.

The amount of marijuana was so small that Stauff was charged with a
misdemeanor. Still, the drug charges carried a maximum penalty of a year in
the county jail.

Stauff, 49, presented officials with a letter from one of his former
physicians at the Family Practice Medical Group at the University of
Florida. The letter, written April 7, 1997, by doctor and then-clinical
assistant professor Frederick C. Peterson, explained that Stauff smoked
marijuana daily to ease lower back pain.

"Although this use is of questionable medical validity, it has appeared to
help and has minimized his dependence on standard opioid and non-opioid pain
relievers," Peterson wrote. The doctor later moved out of state and could
not be located to testify at Stauff's trial.

Stauff told the jury of five women and one man that smoking marijuana not
only relieves the back pain he has suffered since having a disk removed form
his spine, the marijuana also improves his appetite, which has been lagging
since being diagnosed with Hepatitis C.

Stauff believes he contracted the disease during his tour of duty in Vietnam
in the 1960s or during a surgery following his discharge from the military.

During jury selection, assistant state attorney John Wentzlaff asked pool of
potential jurors how many of them believed that more work should be done to
determine the effectiveness of marijuana for medical purposes.

"When all 12 of them raised their hands to that questions, I knew we were
going into the trial with a jury predisposed to believe the defendant's
argument," Wentzlaff said.

Assistant public defender Jack Nugent, who represented Stauff, said he was
"stunned" to see all 12 potential jurors raise their hands. More stunning
was the time it took the jury - just minutes - to make a decision in the case.

Said Nugent: "Of course, we are glad that we won - that he was acquitted but
you have to remember that this decision has no value anywhere else - these
kinds of medical defenses are fact specific and this verdict was specific
only to this particular situation," Nugent said.

What Nugent found suspicious about this case was that his client was
arrested on an apparently unrelated drug charge on Wednesday evening, the
evening between jury selection and Thursday's trial.

Levy County Sheriff Ted Glass called it a coincidence.

"It was bad luck on his part - he sold some drugs and we arrested him,"
Glass said. Stauff was arrested after allegedly selling 20 Percocet
painkilling tablets for $100 to someone working undercover for the sheriff's
department. He has been held since that arrest on a $25,000 bond.

"The irony of all this is that this guy is still in jail," said State
Attorney Rod Smith.

Smith said this is probably the first time "medical necessity" has been used
as a defense in a Levy County marijuana case, and his office rarely looses a
case it tries in Levy County.

"I think we ran into some of those in Gainesville several years ago, but I
am not sure if they went to trial," Smith said. "I am a little unhappy about
how this one turned out. Once again, it is an alarming trend when jurors
want to second-guess what the law ought to be rather than what the law is.
We know nationally that more and more jurors are choosing to pardon misdeeds
through their decisions. I think that when a jury does that, they are
abrogating their responsibilities."

"I am a little unhappy about how this one turned out. Once again, it is an
alarming trend when jurors want to second-guess what the law ought to be
rather than what the law is. ... I think that when a jury does that, they
are abrogating their responsibilities."

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