Quick Hits (page 2)
Marijuana Guru Ed Rosenthal Freed After one-day Sentence
By: Kim Curtis (Associated Press)
Ed Rosenthal, the self-proclaimed "Guru of Ganja," walked free Wednesday after a federal judge sentenced him to one day in prison for a marijuana conviction. He could have been sentenced to as much as 60 years behind bars.
Convicted in February of growing more than 100 marijuana plants in an Oakland warehouse, Rosenthal has become the focus of a growing national debate about medical marijuana and a battle between the federal government and the nine states that have declared such use legal.
Rosenthal, 58, has argued his actions were legal under a 1996 law passed by California voters that allows pot use for medical purposes. He also said he was acting as an agent for the city of Oakland's medical marijuana program.
"I take responsibility for my actions that bring me here today. I took these actions because my conscience led me to help people who are suffering," Rosenthal said outside the courtroom. "These laws are doomed."
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer sentenced Rosenthal to one day in prison on each of three counts, to run concurrently, and then set him free after declaring Rosenthal had already served that time. Rosenthal, also fined $1,000, will be on supervised release for three years.
The ruling was met by wild cheering and applause in the courtroom.
"I think it's a marvelous victory for states' rights and the medical use of marijuana," said Keith Stroup, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. "It sends a strong signal to the federal government that they should reconsider their current program of arresting patients and caregivers in California.
"At a time when they should be concerned about terrorism, they are spending significant resources chasing, arresting and prosecuting medical marijuana cases."
Several of the jurors who found Rosenthal guilty of marijuana cultivation later said they would have acquitted him if they had known he was growing the plants for patients in Oakland. Breyer did not allow any mention of medical marijuana at the trial.
Last week, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer asked Breyer for leniency in Rosenthal's sentencing, citing the California Compassionate Use Act of 1996. The federal probation department recommended a 21-month prison term. Prosecutors asked for a 6 1/2-year prison term.
Prosecutor George Bevan said that Rosenthal was not simply helping the ill.
"This operation is a cash cow. He put out thousands and thousands of plants," Bevan said. "I don't think anyone disagrees with helping sick people, but as far as we're concerned, it was a business. His cultivation is a direct violation of state laws."
Click here for more Quick Hits.
Growin' Our Own (page 2)
Independence Day
By: Elmore Stone
July 4, 1776 - the day we declared our independence from the British empire. We, as a people, have celebrated that independence, that freedom, for 227 years. Every year at this time towns have parades and people break-out the barbecues and the beer. It's time to party! Time to celebrate our freedom.
But what of Ed Rosenthal? Steve Kubby? What about Peter McWilliams? And what about all those hundreds of thousands of other people who smoke pot and are busted? Are they free? Can they enjoy freedom? No. Not even close.
Yeah, Rosenthal got a slap on the wrist when he was sentenced in federal court. Steve Kubby now lives in Canada and Peter McWilliams ... hell, he's dead.
The one thing that those guys have in common is they all were convicted. All carry a criminal record. McWilliams and Rosenthal are convicted felons. I'm not sure about Kubby. As I recall he was convicted of misdemeanor possession.
Our jails, our prisons are full of Ed Rosenthals and Steve Kubbys. Peter McWilliams died in prison. All because they choose, for whatever reason, to light up. To smoke a joint.
Drug laws, be they federal or state, have had the exact opposite effect of their original intent. Our country's crime rate continues to rise. More people are murdered today than ever before. Drugs are available on damn near every street corner in every town throughout our land. Police have become a paramilitary force -- their motto "to protect and serve" has unfortunately become "to search out and destroy." People who live in cities put bars on their windows and heavy steel 'security' screen doors on all entrances to their homes. The feds now basically have carte blanche to wiretap your telephone, read your email, arrest you and lock you up indefinitely, bypassing your Constitutional rights, based upon mere suspicion. Evidence, warrant, etc., need not apply.
Why? The war on drugs of course. It's for our own good don't you know.
That said, let me ask you, what independence, what freedom are you celebrating and why? Instead of a beer, can you sit in your own back yard, break out a bong and fire up a bowl of righteous weed -- without fear of being busted? Would you be willing to try that at a public park or a tail gate party at a ball game? If you say 'yes', then you sure as hell have bigger balls than I do.
We all know that pot ain't going to harm anybody. That has been a fact for, oh, about forever. Other drugs you can't say the same thing about. But isn't freedom, isn't liberty about doing what you want? Personally, I don't care what you do as long as what you do does not interfere with me and what I choose to do. That is how it is supposed to be. Indeed, that is how our country was set up. As one can tell, it isn't that way anymore.
What is the difference between me pouring myself a good shot of fine sipping whiskey (I.W. Harper or J.D. black label, a.k.a. Captain's whiskey) or rolling up a phat of my favorite weed? Answer: the law. And that sucks!
If I decide to get royally stoned, as long as I don't interfere with somebody else, it ain't none of your business. However, the various governments don't look at it that way. Depending upon what state I happen to be in at the time, and if I do get busted, I could be looking at anything from a small fine to umpteen years in prison. On the other hand, if I get snot-slinging, camode-hugging drunk, why hell Earl, that's just fine. I'm one of the boys. Everything is just Ok.
Hmmm, just a whole lot of inequity there.
There is a whole lot of inequity. Ted Kennedy got tanked and drove off a bridge killing his 'female companion'. Nothing happened. Willie J., you guess the last name, used to get stoned on the roof of the White House. Nothing happened. Peter McWilliams died in federal prison. Steve Kubby and his family had to flee their country. Ed Rosenthal is a convicted federal felon. Scores of other citizens are in jail, state or federal prison. Thousands more have had their property seized and are left with nothing. The worst are the innocents who are killed during no-knock raids by police.
So why are you celebrating?
Let me throw in a couple of little quotes:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." (Ninth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution)
Here is the other one:
"[T]he Ninth Amendment shows a belief of the Constitution's authors that fundamental rights exist that are not expressly enumerated in the first eight amendments and an intent that the list of rights included there not be deemed exhaustive." (Griswold v. Connecticut 381U.S.479)
Just those two quotes seem pretty darn clear to me. Basically, just because a right is not expressly listed in the Constitution does not mean the right does not exist. Gee, what a concept. Yet go tell that to the DEA and see how far it gets you. Ask a member of congress while you are at it, you will get just about as far. All the while languishing in jail.
The DEA, as much as I despise them, enforce the laws as enacted by the Congress of the United States. So, I should not beat up the messenger (DEA) as much as I'd dearly love to. It is the congress who put these idiotic laws on the books. Therefore, it is the members of congress who need to be taken out back of the woodshed and beaten like a red-headed stepchild. This 'attitude adjustment' needs to continue until the members of congress decide that they are tired of getting their asses whipped and enact a single law repealing this plethora of stupid and completely worthless drug laws.
The same ass whipping needs to happen to every member of every state legislature. Leave no face, ass (two faced bastards) or body un-whipped. Sooner or later those jerkwads we elected will get the message, some will take more missing teeth than others, and repeal existing state drug laws.
It will be a fight and a long one at that. It is one, however, that is winnable.
Yeah, all drugs would be legal. Just like 'back in the day'. Just as it was. Just as it should be now. Prisons would be emptied and closed. Courts would not be nearly as clogged as they are currently. People would not be trying to buy drugs in some dark alley and then OD on them. Crime would be drastically reduced by the not so mere fact that drugs are legal. There would fewer policemen and prison guards we would be paying to 'protect us' (talk about a protection racket ... sheesh). And no taxes on drugs.
It is a win - win situation. No drug laws. No prison time for taking a toke. Lower crime rate. Lower taxes. Equal under law. Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "smoke 'em if you got 'em."
By legalizing drugs, if people want to smoke pot or hash that is fine by me. If people want to drink that is fine by me as well. If someone wants to shoot up heroin that, too, is fine by me. If they OD that is their problem and not mine. We become all equal, no matter our choice of drug. And yes, alcohol is, as we all know, a drug. Just don't tell the alcohol industry that.
I'll tell you something else, being drug dependent, an addict, is no more a disease than alcoholism is. Whoever tells you otherwise is more full of shit than a Christmas goose. I don't give a rat's ass that doctors say alcoholism is a disease. They have a vested interest in it. They get paid. If you or I decide to get drunk or high it is because you or I made the decision to get drunk or high. Nobody else, just you or I. Further, should you or I become hooked, we have no one to blame but ourselves. Government is not there to bail us out of a fix, no pun intended, of our own making. No siree.
Bottom line is this, the drug laws are going to fall. It may take years, but fall they will. They are built on a foundation of quicksand. It is up to us, all of us, to hasten the demise of these ill conceived laws. Additionally, once that day has come, use all the drugs you want, I could care less. Just don't come crying asking me, or anybody else for that matter should you be stupid enough to get hooked, to help get you off the stuff. I'll laugh in your face. You got yourself into it, now get yourself off it.
With freedom comes personal responsibility. Deal with it.
Freedom -- now there is a reason to celebrate.
Click here for more Growin' Our Own.
Pipeline (page 2)
Libertarians Commend Jurors, Judge for one-day Sentence in Medipot Case
By: Libertarian Party (Press release)
A federal judge who handed down a one-day sentence to medical marijuana advocate Ed Rosenthal in California should be commended along with the jurors who pressured him to do so, Libertarians say.
"Judge Charles R. Breyer just gave every drug warrior in America a cold, hard slap in the face," said Ron Crickenberger, political director of the Libertarian Party. "If every judge displayed this much common sense, the government's war on sick and dying Americans could be over within weeks."
Breyer, a U.S. District judge in San Francisco, ignored federal prosecutors' recommendation for a five-year term and sentenced Rosenthal to one day in jail on Wednesday for growing 100 marijuana plants. Breyer also set Rosenthal free immediately, saying he had already served the time.
Because federal law prohibits medical marijuana, Breyer had refused during the trial to allow jurors to hear evidence that Rosenthal was raising the plants with the explicit approval of local health officials. Upon learning that after the trial, jurors publicly repudiated their guilty verdict and demanded that the judge spare Rosenthal from prison.
"Fortunately, Breyer eventually did the right thing," Crickenberger said. "But unfortunately, not every medical marijuana patient is as lucky as Ed Rosenthal.
"In California and the seven other states that have adopted medical marijuana laws, federal drug agents have raided and ransacked clinics and dragged suffering, terminally ill people off to jail," Crickenberger said.
"Federal judges routinely refuse to allow jurors to hear evidence about marijuana's medical benefits, or that medical marijuana is legal under their state laws. And many terminally ill AIDS and cancer patients are wasting away in prison, where they have been prevented from using their medication.
"The fact is that by continuing to enforce federal medical marijuana laws, the government is sentencing its own citizens to a slow-motion execution."
One of the most poignant examples is the case of Peter McWilliams, a bestselling author and Libertarian Party member who died in California on June 14, 2000 after being denied his medicine, Crickenberger pointed out.
"Peter had suffered from AIDS and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and had used medical marijuana to suppress the nausea caused by his other medications," he said. "While out on bail awaiting sentencing for his 'crime,' he was prohibited from using medical marijuana -- a decision that almost certainly led to his death. How is what the government did to Peter any different from premeditated, cold-blooded murder?"
Another example: Steve Kubby, former Libertarian candidate for California governor and a prime mover behind Prop 215, who uses medical marijuana to treat a rare form of adrenal cancer.
"Steve was arrested when police raided his Olympic Valley, California home in 1999, and was convicted in December 2000 of two minor drug possession charges. To avoid a jail term, he moved to Canada with his wife and two young daughters," Crickenberger said.
"Like so many others, Steve has been forced to choose between abandoning his country and dying a slow, painful death in prison."
Future tragedies like these could be avoided with help from more jurors who demand the truth and more judges who are willing to buck the system as Breyer did, Crickenberger said.
"The long-term solution is to elect enough Libertarians to Congress to repeal ludicrous laws that turn Americans into criminals for trying to save their own lives," he said. "But until that happens, let's encourage judges to give every medical marijuana patient in America the 'Ed Rosenthal' treatment."
Click here for more Pipeline.
Dakota Joseph Arts