SAN FRANCISCO -- A lawyer for pro-marijuana author and activist Ed Rosenthal of Oakland closed his case Thursday by implying jurors should base their decision on conscience, not federal law. "Send a message about what you expect and demand from the U.S. government when they prosecute a case like this," said attorney Robert Eye. But Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan and U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer reminded jurors they have vowed to put their feelings aside to judge the facts and follow the law. [continues 574 words]
"You familiar with a company named Enron?" Assistant District Attorney David Hollister at one point asked after Hayter went on to describe Mabanag, Hornung and Siapno as motivated cops who undertook "directed patrol" missions to fight crime. Hollister suggested that the former police sergeant was blinded by the officers' trickery, just as the public was by Enron's executives. Hollister asked Hayter about six incidents that took place in a three-week span that summer, including the detention of several men who needed medical treatment and the shooting of a pit bull terrier between the eyes in the back yard of a suspected drug house. [continues 590 words]
More Testimony On Pre-Trial Motions Today, Jury Selection Next Week SAN FRANCISCO -- It looks like pro-marijuana author and activist Ed Rosenthal of Oakland is headed for trial on federal drug charges. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer today will hear testimony from Oakland Chief Assistant City Attorney Barbara Parker on whether Rosenthal might have honestly believed the city's policies on medical marijuana use protected him from federal prosecution. But Breyer on Wednesday didn't seem to think what he hears today will lead to him granting Rosenthal's lawyers' motions to set aside part or all of the case. [continues 245 words]
Judge Preparing To Decide Whether U.S. Should Be Blocked From Prosecuting California Lawyers argued Tuesday over whether a federal judge can and should bar U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and Drug Enforcement Administration chief Asa Hutchinson from treating medical marijuana patients as criminals. U.S. District Judge Martin Jenkins didn't rule Tuesday, but indicated he'll do so no later than mid-January. Patients sued the government officials in October, claiming their civil rights are being violated by federal crackdowns on medical marijuana. The federal government still deems all marijuana growth, possession or use illegal, even though California voters OK'd medical marijuana in 1996. Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon and Washington have similar laws. [continues 359 words]
Top Jurists Rule For Housing Authority Over Oakland Tenants Public housing tenants can be evicted for their relatives' or visitors' drug activity on public property even if the tenants didn't know about it, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in an Oakland case. The ruling spelled final defeat for four elderly Oakland Housing Authority tenants whose case wended from the streets of Oakland to the nation's highest court. Although the court voted 8-0 to uphold the law allowing these evictions, housing authority officials said Tuesday that it's unclear whether the four actually will be kicked out. [continues 918 words]
IN regard to your article, "U.S. drug policy collides with California's tolerance" (News, March 15), I would like to point out a legal inaccuracy promoted by the federal government and often repeated uncritically by the media, including the Associated Press writer who authored the article. It is unfortunate that the DEA and the federal government get such mileage out of mischaracterizing the legal substance of the Supreme Court's opinion in United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative on May 14, 2001. Last year's decision in no way impacts California's Proposition 215, or any other state's similar law. [continues 474 words]
I ENJOYED Brenda Payton's saga of what happened in District 6 that led to Desley Brooks' upset victory over interim Council member Moses Mayne. While I agree with her analysis, it's also important to note that Mayne publicly turned his back on the organized medical marijuana patients of Oakland last summer and voted to reduce access to cannabis for patients. This time the patients turned their backs on him, and helped elect Brooks. The cannabis community in Oakland is a serious constituency with a long memory as to who supports patient rights and who does not. Mayne's defeat serves as a warning to De La Fuente and his allies to reconsider their arrogant, anti-patient positions before the next election. Chris Conrad El Cerrito [end]
SAN FRANCISCO -- Four men arrested in a Bay Area marijuana sweep last month have been indicted on additional charges by a federal grand jury in San Francisco. Three defendants -- Kenneth Hayes of Petaluma, Richard Watts of San Francisco and Edward Rosenthal of Oakland -- are allegedly associated with the Harm Reduction Center, a medical marijuana club in San Francisco. They were indicted Thursday on a new charge of conspiring to cultivate more than 1,000 marijuana plants in addition to counts of marijuana cultivation. [continues 372 words]
LAST Monday, the FBI warned that "a planned attack may occur in the United States or against U.S. interests on or around Feb. 12," thanks to 12 terrorists led by Fawaz Yahya al-Rabeei, a Saudi-born Yemeni. Suspecting this, federal officials should have deployed as many dedicated, talented agents as possible to protect high-profile targets such as San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf or the pyramidal Transamerica Tower. Think again. Washington instead chose Feb. 12 to unleash tough, gun-toting Drug Enforcement Agency officers against AIDS and cancer patients. These federal agents raided a suspected cannabis cultivation center in suburban Petaluma, and medical marijuana dispensaries in San Francisco and Oakland. They arrested four men who led these operations. [continues 610 words]
Justices Criticize Argument Favoring Oakland Tenants WASHINGTON -- An attorney for four Oakland residents who were thrown out of public housing because they could not control their relatives' drug use took a verbal beating Tuesday before the U.S. Supreme Court. In a case that tests the national one-strike-and-you're-out policy for federally subsidized housing, attorney Paul Renne argued that the law allowing housing officials to evict an entire household because of one member's drug use is fundamentally unfair. [continues 835 words]
The Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative's battle to stay alive moved ahead this week as it filed a brief outlining its constitutional arguments against a permanent federally ordered shutdown. The brief, filed Monday for U.S. Judge Charles Breyer of San Francisco, claims that the federal government is overstepping its control of interstate commerce; that it's violating California's power to enact public health and safety measures; and that it's violating people's rights to have relief from pain, to prolong life and to consult with and act upon a doctor's recommendation under the Fifth and Ninth amendments to the Constitution. [continues 166 words]
Lawyers for marijuana authority Ed Rosenthal of Oakland argued Monday the federal government has singled him out for persecution and prosecution, a prelude to asking that the drug charges against him be dropped. They'll be back before U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer of San Francisco on Wednesday, and the judge has said he'll rule that day on whether to dismiss the case. Rosenthal, 58, a widely known marijuana activist and author, was among those arrested last February when Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided his home office and other Oakland sites, as well as the Harm Reduction Center medical marijuana club in San Francisco and the Petaluma home of Harm Reduction Center founder Ken Hayes. [continues 212 words]
Greater Bay Area Accounts For A Third The greater Bay Area accounted for more than a third of all the marijuana plants seized this year by a special California law enforcement program, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced Tuesday. Local, state and federal law enforcement agents teamed up to seize 313,776 illegal marijuana plants worth an estimated $1.25 billion across the state in 2001 under the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) program. Although Tehama County topped the list with 54,504 plants seized, Santa Clara County came in second with 47,574 plants -- beating out third-ranked Mendocino County, often considered a marijuana-growing haven -- and San Mateo came in fourth with 30,409 plants. [continues 323 words]
Civil Libertarians Call Canine-Sweeps 'Unconstitutional' Random sweeps of BART trains with drug-sniffing dogs led to about a dozen marijuana citations and an arrest this week, but they also have some civil libertarians howling mad. BART Police officers and U.S. Customs Service agents began walking a drug-trained Labrador retriever through the trains Wednesday. When the dog smells drugs on a person, she stops, sits down and points with her nose, alerting officers to make a search. "It's unconstitutional," said San Francisco attorney John G. Heller, who has helped the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California fight cases of similar random sweeps in public schools. "A dog sniff is a search of a person under the Fourth Amendment, and you can't do that unless you have some particularized suspicion a person has contraband on them. [continues 434 words]
Californians Divided In Approaches To Implementation Of Proposition 215 The U.S. Supreme Court has finally weighed in on medicinal marijuana, but it will take a lot more than this ruling to help California straighten out this mess. The high court ruled the federal marijuana ban does not allow medical-necessity exceptions, so groups like the cooperative can be federally prosecuted for growing and distributing marijuana. Cannabis advocates said the ruling does not affect California's law -- approved by voters as Proposition 215 of 1996 -- allowing medicinal marijuana use.State vs. feds [continues 1293 words]
IT PROBABLY COMES as no surprise the United States Supreme Court ruled against the Oakland Cannabis Buyer's Cooperative in its case arguing for the medicinal use of marijuana. Before Monday's ruling, legal analysts suggested the cooperative's best chance might have been under the rubric of state's rights. Although the court usually favors state's rights, when it came to allowing seriously ill people to use marijuana for medical purposes, it decided federal law rules. It rejected the cooperative's argument that marijuana should be exempted from the federal ban on the substance for reasons of medical necessity. [continues 586 words]
San Mateo Leader Says Study Goes On REDWOOD CITY-- Clinical trials with medicinal marijuana by San Mateo County doctors would not be affected by Monday's 8-0 U.S. Supreme Court decision to outlaw Oakland's cannabis club, according to county officials. "It makes our efforts even more valuable," said San Mateo County Board of Supervisors President Mike Nevin, who spearheaded a county hospital study that distributes federal-government-grown marijuana to AIDS patients for medical treatment of symptoms. "It proves to me that until we scientifically prove that the substance in marijuana works to relieve pain and suffering for patients, the federal government will never accept Proposition 215," said Nevin. [continues 264 words]
Oakland Medicinal Club Calls Ruling 'heavy-handed' Patients' medical needs aren't reason enough for the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative to violate the federal ban on marijuana, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday, leaving medical marijuana advocates disappointed but determined to struggle on. The 8-0 ruling in the high court's first-ever medical marijuana case said Congress' placement of marijuana on the Controlled Substance Act's list of most-restricted drugs is unequivocal -- lawmakers believe it has no medical use, with no exceptions. [continues 1032 words]
THE movie "Traffic" is the most realistic portrayal of drug law enforcement and the ravages of drugs on families I've ever seen. It accurately shows the complexity of the drug trade -- from its origins in foreign countries to its terminal point on our streets -- and how predatory drug traffickers victimize young, weak and vulnerable people. But I'm afraid moviegoers may have come to two conclusions that appear to provide simple answers to some not-so-simple problems having to do with our nation's recurring drug problem. [continues 600 words]
THE earliest precursor to the modern drugs known as methamphetamines, Benzedrine, was invented by Nazi scientists and given to Luftwaffe pilots to keep them awake on the way back to Germany after bombing England. Methamphetamines have continued to destroy societies ever since that illustrious beginning, and no place has been more ravaged by the drugs than California. That's why the California Legislature is to be commended for its continuing fight against methamphetamines, known better by the street names speed, crystal and crank. More than a dozen anti-methamphetamine bills are pending in the Legislature, and virtually all of them deserve support. [continues 189 words]
