Cali judge lets off medicinal marijuana grower

Ed Rosenthal, convicted of growing medicinal marijuana, was sentenced to a day in prison (already served) and fined $1000, the minimum federal sentence. Now Rosenthal wants to fight to eliminate federal marijuana laws.

This is Day 1 in the crusade to bring down the marijuana laws," Mr. Rosenthal said at a news conference held on a parking lot rented by his supporters. "The federal government makes no distinction between medical and recreational marijuana. They're right. All marijuana should be legal."

Though there was general consensus that the sentencing today did not amount to a legal breakthrough for advocates of medical marijuana, some predicted it would embolden the movement to challenge federal drug laws. Nine states, including California, allow the sick and dying to smoke or grow marijuana with a doctor's recommendation.

"I think 20 years from now, when historians look back at how the federal war on medical marijuana ended, this will be the hinge point," said Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project, an advocacy group in Washington.

But Richard Meyer, a spokesman for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration in San Francisco, said the sentencing would have no effect on the agency's work. "We are not listening to them," Mr. Meyer said of the marijuana advocates. "We will continue to protect the public from the dangers of all illegal drugs."

So that's what the DEA says here. Protecting people from illegal drugs. Another AP story illustrates the real agenda of the drug czar.

Rosenthal, who dropped out of college in 1967, had a brief stint as a stockbroker before becoming interested in marijuana cultivation and helping launch High Times magazine. He's authored several books on marijuana, including "The Big Book of Buds" and "Ask Ed: Marijuana Law. Don't Get Busted."

Despite the lenient sentence, Rosenthal filed his notice of appeal Thursday. [He] will ask the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to consider whether Breyer erred in excluding medical marijuana evidence from the trial.

The appeals court also will be asked whether a city or municipality may grant immunity to people growing and distributing medical marijuana. It's the same protection offered to undercover police officers buying drugs, Riordan said. The law says "any official who's enforcing state or federal law relating to drugs cannot be arrested," he said.

California's Proposition 215, which allows marijuana as medicine, was passed by voters in 1996. Eight other states also have declared medical marijuana legal, though federal authorities say any marijuana use is illegal.

Deputy U.S. drug czar Andrea Barthwell, in San Francisco on Thursday visiting a drug treatment center, called the notion of smoking pot for medicinal purposes "silly."

"We prefer to deliver the active ingredient in the pill form," she said, referring to the drug Marinol, which contains a synthetic form of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. "We do not want to encourage patients to smoke weed ... or smoke opium when we have much more effective ways of delivering that stuff."

Rosenthal was arrested Feb. 12, 2002, for marijuana cultivation and conspiracy. He had been growing starter plants in a warehouse in Oakland, in his capacity as an "officer of the city" under the city's medical marijuana ordinance. The plants were distributed to organizations and clubs that serve the seriously ill.

Serving the seriously ill... not an effective enough way of delivering that stuff. Experts think that the Bush administration will try hard to fight medicinal marijuana, but perhaps it indicates a "change in the political center of gravity."

"I'm highly doubtful whether the Bush administration will allow one federal district judge to stop its program," said Evan Lee, a professor of criminal law and federal courts at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. But Lee said Wednesday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer "lends a great measure of legitimacy" to medical marijuana advocates' criticism of federal policies.

In light of Breyer's solid judicial reputation, Lee said, some public officials may conclude that "the political center of gravity isn't where (they) thought it was," a shift that might ultimately force a change in administration policy.

"It seems to me unlikely that the feds are going to give up very easily on this issue," said Jeffrey Miron, an economics professor at Boston University and research associate at the libertarian Independent Institute.

Miron, the Boston professor whose forthcoming book, "Drug War Crimes," endorses drug legalization, said the federal government is right in one respect: Medical marijuana legalization laws have the potential of crippling overall marijuana enforcement.

"These laws have an enormous impact because there are so many conditions for which you can use marijuana as medicine," he said. "The feds understand that (allowing medical marijuana) would open the floodgates" and will maintain their hard line on the issue, he said.