[The good news first - rmjon23]

1.) Criminal charges against 'Guru of Ganja' tossed
Jim Herron Zamora, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

(03-14) 13:12 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge threw out criminal
charges today against an Oakland man accused of growing medical
marijuana, ruling that authorities had vindictively prosecuted him
because of remarks he made after he successfully appealed an earlier
conviction.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco dismissed charges
of tax evasion and money laundering against Ed Rosenthal, 62, an
author and activist who has been dubbed the "Guru of Ganja."

Breyer declared that the government had improperly refiled the tax-
evasion and money-laundering case last fall after Rosenthal
successfully appealed his 2003 conviction for marijuana cultivation.

"The reasonable observer will interpret the government's conduct as
demonstrating that if defendants successfully appeal, the government
will ensure that they face more severe charges and more prison time
the next time around," Breyer said.

"The government's deeds -- and words -- create the perception that it
added the new charges to make Rosenthal look like a common criminal
and thus dissipate the criticism heaped on the government after the
first trial," Breyer said.

The judge said he based his decision in part on the comments by
prosecutor George Bevan during a hearing on the case. Bevan, according
to transcripts, explained the decision to re-file charges, saying,
"The purpose is this: Mr. Rosenthal, after the verdict, took to the
microphone and said, 'I didn't get a fair trial.' ... So I'm saying,
this time around, he wants the financial side reflected, fine, let's
air this thing out. Let's have the whole conduct before the jury: Tax,
money laundering, marijuana."

Breyer's ruling is the latest twist in the five-year legal saga of
Rosenthal, a former columnist for High Times magazine who has written
more than a dozen books about growing cannabis.

He was first arrested after a federal raid in February 2002 at a West
Oakland warehouse where Rosenthal was growing marijuana for what he
said was medical use, with the support of Alameda County and Oakland
officials. At trial in 2003, Breyer refused to let jurors learn about
the intended medical use of the plants and excluded evidence about
Proposition 215, California's 1996 medical marijuana initiative.

Rosenthal was convicted of violating federal drug laws, but seven of
the 12 jurors said afterward that their verdict would have been
different if they had been allowed to consider evidence about the
medical use of the marijuana and Rosenthal's status as an agent in the
Oakland program. They requested leniency for Rosenthal.

Breyer sentenced him to just the one day in jail he had already
served, saying Rosenthal had believed he was acting legally at a time
when the law was unsettled.

Despite the one-day sentence, Rosenthal appealed the conviction. Last
April, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said
in a 3-0 ruling that Rosenthal was entitled to a new trial because one
of the jurors improperly sought outside advice about the case.

In October, a new federal grand jury indicted Rosenthal again on 14
felonies, including conspiracy to manufacture marijuana at his Oakland
warehouse and distribute it to the Harm Reduction Center, a San
Francisco dispensary, between 2000 and 2002.

Those were similar to the charges in a 2002 indictment. But the new
indictment also included four counts alleging that Rosenthal had
laundered money -- four transactions totaling about $1,850 -- to
conceal its source as the proceeds of marijuana sales, and five counts
alleging that he had filed tax returns that failed to list his
marijuana income.

"The government responded to the reversal by re-indicting Rosenthal on
essentially the same charges and adding four counts of tax evasion and
one count of money laundering," Beyer wrote in today's ruling. "These
circumstances -- upping the ante as a result of Rosenthal's successful
appeal -- raise a presumption of vindictiveness."

Breyer did not throw out the drug charges, but noted that "the
government agreed at oral argument" that it will not seek more than
the one-day sentence on those counts.

Rosenthal, his lawyers and his supporters in the medical marijuana
movements celebrated the court victory.

"The government was clearly out of line to bring this case forward
against me," Rosenthal said in a statement. "The court's ruling is
reassuring, but my continued prosecution on the marijuana charges is
still malicious. To make me and my family go through a second
prosecution to obtain, at most, a one-day time served jail sentence
seems personally motivated."

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco said
prosecutors were evaluating their options.

E-mail Jim Zamora at jzam...@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/14/BAGE4OL4TC8.DTL

]The bad news: Despicable, really. Beyond despicable. Like the very
existence of Dick Cheney, I consider this story a symptom of the
robotic, almost All-Too-Human cruelty and Nero-Caligula-like sadistic
decadence of our "Leaders." And the woeful character structure of so
much of the populace, that allows this crap to go on and on and on...
Glad RAW's not around to see this! (Or "is" he?...) The idea that an
absurdly arrogant bullying turd like Scalia gets to rule on matters of
this sort is the kind of thing that makes me understand Richard Jeni's
recent decision. -rmjon23]

2. Court rules against Oakland woman with brain tumor
Chronicle Staff Report

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

(03-14) 14:47 PDT -- A federal appeals court ruled today that an
Oakland woman who says she smokes marijuana to help her deal with a
brain tumor and other maladies has no right to claim medical necessity
to avoid possible prosecution under federal drug laws.

Angel Raich, 41, had filed suit challenging the constitutionality of
the federal Controlled Substances Act, arguing that her marijuana use
was protected by the Constitution's Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth
amendments.

Raich said she has a fundamental liberty to take the only medication
that allows her to avoid intolerable pain and death, and that
prohibiting her from taking medically necessary marijuana would
violate the due process clause.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San
Francisco ruled against her today, upholding a lower court judge's
decision.

Raich and another woman, Diane Monson, sued then-U.S. Attorney General
John Ashcroft in 2002, asking for a court order to let them smoke,
grow or obtain marijuana without fear of arrest, home raids or other
intrusion by federal authorities.

Raich and Monson, who has since dropped out of the case, asserted that
the Controlled Substances Act does not allow the federal government to
prohibit medical use within a state that authorizes it, as California
does under Proposition 215, which voters approved in 1996.

In 2005, in a precedent-setting case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
against the women on that claim and found that laws such as Prop. 215
did not prevent authorities from enforcing federal anti-drug laws. It
sent other issues in the case back to lower courts for further
review.

In today's ruling, Judge Harry Pregerson wrote that "although changes
in state law reveal a clear trend toward the protection of medical
marijuana use, we hold that the asserted right has not yet gained the
traction on a national scale to be deemed fundamental."

Raich says she smokes marijuana every two hours -- about 9 pounds a
year -- to fuel her appetite and help her cope with severe weight loss
and chronic pain in addition to her brain tumor.

At a news conference this afternoon, Raich said she was "shocked" by
the ruling but added, "I'm not done fighting.

"I don't want that coffin, but from this point on I am walking dead,"
she said. "I will continue to use cannabis. I will continue to smoke
cannabis. ... This is real medicine and the federal government cannot
tell us any differently."

Her husband and attorney, Robert Raich, said she would appeal the
ruling, either to the full 9th Circuit or to the Supreme Court.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/14/BAGIFOL8VH3.DTL

http://www.official-lamp.org/

10th Amendment:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved for the States
respectively, or to the people."

Michael....

This is one of those difficult cases in my opinion but I agree with the
Ninth Circuit here.

"What?" you exclaim, "how could BS, a fellow who loves pot more than the
next guy, say something so outrageous?"

Yes, it's crazy and despicable and all the things you said that Federal Law
prohibits medical patients or anyone else from enjoying some weed.  I'll
smoke to that.  Anti-pot laws seem to me to be evil and absurd.  We must
work to repeal them in the U.S. Congress.

However, the legal principle the Ninth Circuit upheld today seems to me
worth preserving.  Under our Federal Constitution (yes, I know it's better
than the system we have now) federal laws trump state laws.  This seems to
me on balance to be a good thing.

For one thing, without federal supremecy, most of the South would still be
living under Jim Crow.  Mississippi and Alabama can't, under the system the
Ninth Circuit defended today, pass laws or referenda that say the Voting
Rights Act or the Civil Rights Act don't apply here.  Nebraska can't say,
"to hell with Roe vs. Wade, abortion is a crime here."

I know it's all a question of whose ox is being gored here.  It would be
great if someone could wave a magic wand and all anti-pot laws were gone.
Unfortunately, it seems preferable to me to address the difficult political
task of changing laws through the legislative process than to ask the courts
to throw out a principle that, on balance, seems to protect more freedoms
than it squelches.

BS
SF, CA

(I am cheering for Ed Rosenthal tho, that seems to me a HUGE victory for a
Federal Judge to find prosecutorial malice in this)

On Mar 14, 9:24 pm, "BS" <smi2...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

No, when I first read this I predicted correctly where you were coming
from.

Yes. They need to hold a joint session. <groan> Proceed...

Well, this seems the crux of the whole schmeer.

Yes, but in Freetopia (Monterey at the southern border/the WA-Canada
border at the northern)...Oh, that's for another thread.

Reminds me of Krassner's line: "State's rights: It's not just for
racists anymore."

When do you think the Supremes will uphold a law that allows states to
regulate their own medical pot, or just decrim/some form of
legalization? I ask in a rhetorical fashion.

As each year goes by and I've read more about the War On Certain
People Who Use Certain Drugs, and meditate on it, etc, the more I see
it in terms of RAW's model of gang warfare of rival programmers. If
the State sees legal pot as a powerful programming tool for..."us," -
for lack of a better term: the old word "counterculture" may do in a
loose way here - I don't see any reason why they'd let go of their
power to persecute the agents who seek to counterprogram "reality"
away from their twisted, sadistic, murderous, "values" of "all for us
and nothing for anyone else," killingry and illth, etc.

-rmjon23
Berkeley, CA

Gee, now I'm getting predictable.  How depressing! ;)

It would be much more healthy of course to just "vaporize" the whole place
(except for the ostriches of course)

Actually, this seems to me a good example of what Bob talked about with
reality selection and reality-tunnels.

As much as I would like to select the reality of the long-haired,
dope-smoking San Francisco headbanger... my first imprints were in the
reality-tunnel of racist John Birch Society parents in Dallas Texas in the
1960's.  That means when I look at an issue like this case, my first
inclination is to think, "How could Bubba and his buddies in the KKK use
this principle to put non-whites 'back in their place?'"

It seems to me much more important in the short-term to preserve the gains
of African-Americans and other non-whites in our society and the rights of
women to reproductive freedom than to give me or Angel Raich the right to
smoke pot.

Because here's the other secret of pot smokers (smirk)... unless you grow or
deal in large quantities or go out of your way to get their attention and
poke them in the eye, the feds don't have time or budget to prosecute your
average pot smoker.  In most states, local cops can and will bust you on
state charges but it usually has to meet some threshold of weight to
generate federal charges.  In California, if you have a card, you can show
it to the local cops or CHP and keep your pot.  What I'm saying is, I can
smoke pot just fine right now and don't feel the need to risk jeopardizing
civil and abortion rights to get the pot smoking right that I believe I
deserve.

Call me naive, and I'm sure many will, but I think the Supremes would uphold
complete marijuana legalization today... IF it didn't diectly contradict
applicable federal law.  Scalia seems toadlike to me too, but read his
opinion in the flag burning case sometime.  This guy has strong libertarian
leanings.

So, it seems to me the fight has to be in the Congress of the United States.
We need to have a vigorous debate about why marijuana prohibition went into
effect in the first place, why it stays in effect (including the rival
programmers model), and how it both benefits and hurts us as a society.  Is
this a difficult sell?  Yes.  One of the biggest issues is that many of the
politicians who appear most invested in drug prohibition are
African-American Democratic elected-officials, many of whom have places of
high influence in the new Congress.

But it seems to me a fight worth pursuing.  I'm hopeful as more data
accumulates from California and other medical marijuana jurisdictions, as
more research is done,   as more people have direct experience with people
who need pot for medical reasons, a new generation of more courageous
politicians will come forward and prohibition will be history.  But again,
it ain't worth riskin' a return to Jim Crow for right now, to me.

BS
SF, CA

On Mar 15, 6:56 am, "BS" <smi2...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

I didn't mean it like that, Bri. To make explicit: I assumed tacitly
that you are "all over" the legal ishs surrounding cannabis. Your
arguments seem both valid and sound and at the crux of the matter. To
outsiders reading: I'm acquainted with BS. You can "predict" more the
more you "know" someone.

Dude #1: I know what you mean. Just look at the way you...
Dude #2: Finish my wife's sentences?
Dude #1: Yes. My point...
Dude #2: Exactly?
Dude #1: Uhh...yea. You know this is really getting...
Dude #2: To be too much? They way I obnoxiously...
Dude #1: Finish other people's sentences? Ha! Ha! The shoe's on the
other...
Dude #2: Foot? I was gonna say "fart in elevators," but I guess you
have a point.

The ostriches don't need it. (I took my first vaporized hit two days
ago. Dude I know has a stainless steel gadget that looks like it might
make, oh I dunno, frappaccino lattes. He puts the material down there
on a tungsten plate, then attaches a tricked-out clear plastic bag
[the kind you get from the dry cleaners, only smaller] with a valve
and a button on it. You release the valve and get this nebulized hit
that feels like a hashish head-oriented buzz, but that may have as
much to do w/the particular strain of weed...then there's this
leftover granular weed, and below that, at the bottom of the hi-tech
Germanic-looking gadget there's a plate that captures powdery crystals
of THC-containing material. Quite an operation. But I digress...)

Yep! A very good example indeed! Come one! come all! Affix your lenses
to this complementary set of "realities!" And lo! Behold, ponder, get
pixillated, pontificate, argue for the (one of the) other side(s),
ponder more, investigate (ever read Eric Schlosser's brilliant
muckraking book _Reefer Madness_?)...repeat. Report. These two
complementary views have "real" civic importance! It has to do with
people SUFFERING. (And I want to be able to experiment with my own
nervous system w/o Johnny Law hassling me and ruining my life. Small
point.)

Yesh...The Cowboys have never signed on to the Enlightenment/Civil and
Human Rights aspect of our Utopian forefolks. If they make claims to
believe and uphold those ideas, for the most part htose claims seem to
have been made grudgingly, and in Bad Faith. Not mush reason to trust
them now, esp after 2000. (The "mush" was a typo, one of my very many.
I miss most and hastily post. But I leave it there 'cuz it felt
Wakean.)

In an AOL poll from yesterday, with 92,000 repondents at the time, 91%
were on Raich's side. And that's AOL, fwiw.

Yes. This seems one of the most compelling...dare I say it?:
Conservative postitions on this. Others see some small farmer in
Kentucky who can't stand up to Big Agra and he gets busted selling 15
pounds in order to make family ends meet, and he loses the house/farm,
and does 10 yrs at State Farm, the kids ain't got no daddy, the asset
forfeiture goes to the pigs, ma has to raise the kids alone now. It's
Kentucky by gum, but they's still Murrkins, gol dernit! (I forget the
name of the book, but it's something like _Victims of the Drug War_.
It's hard not to get your viscera all jangled after reading stuff like
that.) But your Bigger Picture I find compelling, Monsier Shields.

I have seen Scalia on flag burning. I wd hope this wd extend to
programming substances, but I do not trust his libertarian leanings
there. Perhaps we shall see.

Care to go into why this last bit is/seems? When it seems so counter-
intuitive? Grist for potentially edifying rhetoric is what I'm asking
for here, BS.

One action to take wd be the point out the extent we lock up people
for nonviolent drug offenses, compare it to China and other
nondemocratic places, and then hit 'em with the whammy of your tax
money being utterly wasted, and wouldn't you rather put it into
housing/fixing infrastructure/health care/education/environment? Etc.
(Same general approach regarding the "defense" budget, only in
SPADES.)

rmjon23
Berkeley, CA