Pubdate: Mon, 26 July 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 writer

MARIJUANA IS AGAIN ON TRIAL

BRONSON - The last time someone went to court in Levy County claiming he had
a legitimate need to smoke marijuana, a jury agreed with him. This week, a
man and his son are expected to use the same defense.

Joseph Tacl, 46, his wife of 25 years, Anne, and the couple's 20- year-old
son, Michael, were arrested in May 1998 and charged with cultivation of
marijuana, possession of more than 20 grams of marijuana and possession of
drug paraphernalia.

The Levy County Sheriff's Office said the arrests were made after a
helicopter team spotted five marijuana plants growing outside the Tacl home
between Bronson and Williston.

The charges against Anne Tacl were later dropped, but Joseph and Michael
Tacl will go on trial this week in Bronson. Jury selection is scheduled to
begin at 9 a.m. today.

During the last Levy County marijuana trial in which a medical necessity
defense was used, Michael Stauff was acquitted. Both sides in that case said
they did not believe the case set a precedent because they believed jurors
were deciding only on one specific set of circumstances.

In Joseph Tacl's case, he said he began using marijuana to relieve pain in
1993, after he was hit by a car while a pedestrian. He was declared
permanently disabled after the accident, unable to return to his 14-year
career as a car salesman.

His attempts to take prescription narcotics left him ill.

Tacl's attorney, Andy Fine of Gainesvflle, said Taci got his first
prescription for marijuana in November 1995 from Robert Trossell, a Boston
University-trained physician who has set up a clinic in Spain. Since then,
Tacl has been given marijuana prescriptions by two other doctors and plans
to have at least one of them testify at the trial.

Spencer Mann, spokesman for the State Attorney's office, said two issues are
involved in this trial. The first is that the medical necessity defense
would apply only to Joseph Taci, not his son, and the second is whether
there is a medical necessity.

"And we believe it is not," Mann said.

Earlier this year, the Tacls said Joseph started growing marijuana after it
became too expensive to buy from others. The family had moved to Levy County
from California about two years before the arrests to help Joseph Tacl's
parents. At the time of the arrests, they had been planning to return to
California, where marijuana purchases for medical purposes are legal.

The Tacls are supported in this case by Cannabis Action Network, which
helped stage a demonstration outside the Levy County Courthouse during a
hearing in April. Network spokesman Kevin Aplin said chronic pain patients
and advocates from across Florida are expected to demonstrate and protest
outside the Courthouse this week during the trial.

During the past three years, voters in Alaska, Arizona, California,
Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington have approved ballot initiatives
that would make marijuana available for medicinal reasons. However, it is
still rarely available.

In Florida, a state appellate court established medical necessity as a
defense for marijuana use in 1991, when it ruled that AIDS patients Barbara
and Kenneth Jenks were entitled to use the drug after they argued that it
helped them gain weight. They both died in 1996.

The 1993 state Legislature altered state laws regarding medical necessity as
a defense for marijuana users. Prosecutors have said the changes were made
to specifically prohibit using medical necessity as a defense for marijuana
use, although some defense attorneys have argued that lawmakers were making
the changes to deal with another drug, methaqualone.

Earlier this year, the state Supreme Court heard oral arguments from a rural
Panhandle man who claimed the marijuana he had been cultivating was going to
be used only for his medical purposes. The justices decided not to issue a
ruling, effectively leaving the legis-lation unchanged and unclear to some.

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