Coming
Soon!
From Common Courage Press
Recent
Stories
June
2, 2003
Arundhati
Roy
Day of the Jackals
Norman
Madarasz
Behind the Neo-Con Curtain: Plato,
Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom
Alain
Frachon and Daniel Vernet
The Strategist and the Philosopher: Strauss and Wohlstetter
Anthony
Gancarski
Anti-Imperialism, Then & Now
Standard
Schaefer
Wasted at the Pentagon
Jason
Leopold
Rocky's Advice to the Dems
Guthrie
& Albert
HUAC 58 Years Letter
Steve
Perry
The Politics of Terror Alerts
May
31, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
A Whiner Called Horowitz
Gary Leupp
The Frauds of War
Dave
Lindorff
Clinton, Bush, Lies and Impeachment
Tom Stephens
Does It Matter that the Bush Administration Lied?
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Who Is Next?
Joanne
Mariner
Trivializing Terrorism
Wayne
Madsen
Ayatollah Rumseld's Busy Week
Larry Magnuson
Is a Television a Radio or a Billboard?
Elaine
Cassel
Wake Up, America!
Gila Svirsky
Waiting for the Lament to End
Susan
Davis
Kitchen Dreams
Chris Clarke
Barbra Streisand: Environmental Hypocrite
Chris
Floyd
Bush Locates Source of World Evil: God
Adam Engel
Gravity's End Zone
Poets'
Basement
Reiss, Guthrie, Orloski, Albert
May
30, 2003
Ben
Tripp
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Agenda
Neve
Gordon
The Bad Fence
Todd
Steiner
Endangered Ocean
Robert
Freeman
Bush's Tax Cuts: a Form of National Insanity
Sean
Carter
Utah Gets Fired Up for Executions
Daniel
Bacher
How Bush's War Violated International Laws
Tariq
Ali
Re-Colonizing Iraq
Steve
Perry
Bush Wars
Web Log
May
29, 2003
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Jason
Leopold
Despite Thin Intelligence Reports,
US Plans Overthrow of Iran Regime
Ron
Jacobs
Popular Uprising, Inc.
Michelle
Ciaccorra
Bush's Nuclear Policy: Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Yves Engler
The Economics of Health Care in
America: Pay More to Die Sooner
Kimberly
Blaker
Vouchers for Jesus
Harry
Browne
Stakeknife: Britain's Army Spy at
the Top of the IRA
Stew
Albert
Cops of the World
Steve Perry
Greens 04: In or Out?
May
28, 2003
David
Vest
DubyaCo.: It's Not So Funny Any More
Dave
Lindorff
My Grandfather's Medal
John
Stanton
America's Dying: Arts and Philosophy Hold the Key
Bernard
Weiner
A PNAC Primer
Robert
Jensen
Texas Dems Set a Standard for the Rest of the Party
Ahmad Faruqui
The Oil Business of Regime Change:
the CIA and Iran
Hammond
Guthrie
Disarming Conundrums
Steve Perry
What If There's No Such Thing as Al-Qaeda?
May
27, 2003
Kurt
Nimmo
Condoleezza Rice: Huckstress for Israeli
Myths
Anthony
Gancarski
Hillary: a Dem the NeoCons Could Love?
Patrick
Cockburn
Terror, Bush and Joseph Conrad
John Chuckman
an Interpretation of Bush's Character
Kathleen
Christison
What Sharon Wants, Sharon Gets
Jeffrey
Blankfort
AIPAC Hijacks the Roadmap
Steve
Perry
Trouble in the Hinterlands
May
26, 2003
Franklin
C. Spinney
Test Anxiety: Star Wars, Punctuated
Epistimology and the Triumph of Medievalism
Elaine
Cassel
Supreme Sacrifice
Sam
Hamod
When Trained Killers Return Home
Stew Albert
The Final Conflict
May
24 / 25, 2003
Gary
Leupp
The Philosopher Kings: Leo Strauss
and the Neo-Cons
Uri Avnery
The Hannibal Procedure
Diane
Christian
Who's the Real Enemy?
"Just Cause" or "Kill the Bastards"
Alexander
Cockburn
Derrida's Double Life
William
S. Lind
Is Saddam Really Out of the Game?
William
Cook
Road to Nowhere
David Krieger
Bush's War on the Poor: Economic Justice
Ilan
Pappe
Academic Freedom Under Assault in Israel
Wayne Madsen
American Idle
Noah
Leavitt
Slowing Sowing Justice in the Killing Fields
Walt Brasch
Americans are Liars
Lenni
Brenner
John Brown and Dutch Bill
Mickey
Z.
Hope, Crosby & Al Qaeda
Michael
Ortiz Hill
Grievous Harm Here and Abroad
Adam Engel
Towers of Babel
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Guthrie, Alam, Orloski
May
23, 2003
Standard
Schaefer
Lifting the Sanctions: Who Benefits?
Ron
Jacobs
Long Live People's Park!
Michael
Greger, MD
Return of Mad Cow: US Beef Supply
at Risk
Elaine
Cassel
Tigar to Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt."
Sam
Hamod
The Shi'a of Iraq
Christopher
Greeder
After the Layoffs (poem)
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23
Hot Stories
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
June
5, 2003
"Our Fight is not Over"
Rosenthal is
Free
By ANN HARRISON
Set free by a San Francisco federal judge who
sentenced him to just one day in prison, medical cannabis grower
Ed Rosenthal said today that his case will be the catalyst to
overturn all U.S. marijuana laws under which 750,000 Americans
are arrested each year.
"These laws are doomed," said
Rosenthal to group of cheering supporters outside the courthouse
after his sentencing. "I am going to make it safe for everyone
to grow by bringing these laws down."
Rosenthal was convicted in January of
three marijuana cultivation and conspiracy charges. He faced
more than 80 years in federal prison and $2.5 million in fines.
The Federal Probation Department had recommended that Rosenthal
be sentenced to two 21-month sentences to be served concurrently.
Since Rosenthal was prosecuted under
federal law, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer prevented him
from using California's Prop. 215 as a defense in his case. Prop.
215, which is not recognized by the federal government, allows
critically ill patients to grow, posses and consume cannabis
with a doctor's recommendation. "He did me no favors,"
said Rosenthal of Judge Breyer. "He made me a felon because
he would not allow the jury to hear the whole story."
When the jurors who convicted Rosenthal
later discovered that he had been growing starter plants for
patients, they renounced their guilty verdict and announced that
they had been misled. Eight of the jurors in the case wrote a
letter to Judge Breyer asking him to allow Rosenthal to remain
free. Several have since campaigned for the Truth In Trials bill
(HR1717) that would allow for an affirmative defense in medical
cannabis cases.
"Our fight is not over," said
juror Eve Tulley-Dobkin after Rosenthal's sentencing. "We
have to change the law so that people in Ed Rosenthal's circumstances
do not have to go through what he did, so that jurors get the
full evidence in the trial, so that people who are in prison
get out."
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer
also wrote to Judge Breyer requesting that he impose the minimum
sentence allowed under the federal sentencing guidelines and
take Prop. 215 into account. When sentencing Rosenthal to one
day with credit for time served, Judge Breyer acknowledged that
due to "extraordinary circumstances" Rosenthal had
reason to believe that he was following state and local laws.
Rosenthal asserted during his trial that
he had been promised immunity from prosecution by the city of
Oakland, Calif. which passed a medical marijuana ordinance based
on an exemption in federal statute. "I find that Rosenthal's
belief, while erroneous, was reasonable in that Oakland had enacted
the ordinance," said Judge Breyer who noted that Rosenthal
made no attempt to conceal his is grow from fire inspectors and
city officials. But Judge Breyer asserted in court that a case
like Rosenthal's "should not, and could not happen again"
because his rulings assert that municipalities cannot authorize
the cultivation of marijuana. "This judge is dead wrong,"
said Rosenthal, who predicts that the portion of the federal
law which allows this provision will be upheld by the appellate
court.
Rosenthal's attorney, Dennis Riordan,
said the judge's acknowledgment that Rosenthal believed he was
acting lawfully will help Rosenthal appeal his conviction to
the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Judge Breyer forbid jurors
to hear arguments that he was entrapped because he relied on
the advice of public officials.
"Judge Breyer gave us a very, very
powerful weapon in the fight to convince the 9th Circuit that
it was wrong to prevent the jury from passing its own judgment
on the reasonability of Ed's belief," says Riordan. "The
federal government view is that the people involved in this act
acted in bad faith and are really drug dealers at heart. And
the judge certainly said today that the people who are involved
in this movement have acted in good faith and believe in the
legality of what they are doing."
Riordan noted that Rosenthal's sentencing
does not directly impact the current laws on marijuana. But if
the appeals court rules that cities can offer immunity under
federal statutes, he said it could have an "enormous effect"
on the ability of growers and caregivers to provide medical cannabis.
Riordan added that Rosenthal's legal team would also argue the
appeal based on Commerce Clause and 9th and 10th Amendment issues.
Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan
had asked the judge to sentence Rosenthal to six and a half years
in federal prison, and had no comment on the final sentence.
Bevan said during the hearing that Rosenthal was a businessman
who began growing before Oakland passed their medical marijuana
ordinance in 1998. "This operation was a cash cow and he
was putting out thousands and thousands of plants," said
Bevan. "He used the city council as an effort to put an
umbrella around his illegal cultivation."
Riordan argued that Rosenthal's case
was no typical drug conviction. He pointed out that the millions
of Californians who voted for Prop. 215 knew that they were participating
in a drug law reform movement. "Prop. 215 is a national
battle" said Riordan. "This is a law reform case and
we all know that this is a law reform case...the test has been
made."
But Bevan noted that Prop. 215 does not
make provisions for the large scale cultivation of medical cannabis
and only permits small grows by patients. "There is nothing
in Prop. 215 that gives a free pass to this level of cultivation,"
said Bevan who said any Oakland city official who permitted Rosenthal
to grow "could be considered a conspirator." "Prop.
215 did not account for the supply of marijuana, this is a glaring
omission," said Bevan. "Is it logical to say, `you
have have it, if you can get it'?" asked Judge Breyer.
Rosenthal said after his sentencing that
Bevan lied to the Grand Jury to secure his indictment. He added
that the judge did him no favors by handing down a one-day sentence.
Rosenthal charged that Judge Breyer manipulated the evidence
at his trial and called for the judge's resignation."This
is day one in the crusade to bring down the marijuana laws, all
the marijuana laws," said Rosenthal, who noted that there
are currently 100,000 people in prison for marijuana crimes.
"I don't think one day is justice--no one should serve any
time."
Rosenthal, author of several books on
marijuana cultivation, will remain on supervised release for
three years and pay a $1,000 fine plus $300 in court costs. He
told the court that he took responsibility for cultivating marijuana
under the Oakland ordinance. "My conscience led me to help
people who were suffering," said Rosenthal.
In the meantime, his wife Jane Klein
says marijuana activists should pressure lawmakers to change
marijuana laws. "This case has shown that it is worth speaking
up, that silence is no longer an acceptable answer for our political
leaders" said Klein. "Congress are you listening?"
Ann Harrison
is a freelance reporter working in the Bay Area. She can be reached
at ah@well.com
Today's
Features
Arundhati
Roy
Day of the Jackals
Norman
Madarasz
Behind the Neo-Con Curtain: Plato,
Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom
Alain
Frachon and Daniel Vernet
The Strategist and the Philosopher: Strauss and Wohlstetter
Anthony
Gancarski
Anti-Imperialism, Then & Now
Standard
Schaefer
Wasted at the Pentagon
Jason
Leopold
Rocky's Advice to the Dems
Guthrie
& Albert
HUAC 58 Years Letter
Steve
Perry
The Politics of Terror Alerts
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|