San Francisco, CA: A federal judge today sentenced noted marijuana author and cultivation expert Ed Rosenthal to one day in prison with credit for time served. Rosenthal could have faced as many as 60 years in prison after being convicted in January on three counts related to marijuana cultivation. Rosenthal grew marijuana to supply local patients who use it in accordance with state law.
“This verdict is a marvelous victory for Ed Rosenthal, states’ rights, and for the medical use of marijuana,” NORML Executive Director Keith Stroup said. “It should send a strong message to the Bush Administration to stop wasting federal resources arresting and prosecuting medicinal marijuana patients and their caregivers, and to focus their efforts on serious crime especially anti-terrorism efforts.”
Rosenthal maintained he had been deputized by the City of Oakland to supply pot to local cooperatives that dispense it to state-qualified patients. His trial gained international attention when jurors publicly recanted their guilty verdict, and announced that they would have acquitted Rosenthal had the judge allowed him to explain that he was legally authorized to grow medical marijuana under state law. During Rosenthal’s trial, District Judge Charles Breyer forbade any testimony pertaining to medical cannabis or California’s Prop. 215 because federal law doesn’t acknowledge that pot has medical value. “[T]he purpose for which the marijuana was grown is not a defense and is irrelevant,” Breyer ruled during the trial.
Jurors maintained that they were unaware of the context of Rosenthal’s activities until after the trial, at which time they spoke out against their decision claiming they were “misled” by government prosecutors.
The prosecution of Rosenthal by the federal Justice Department is indicative of the Bush Administration’s crackdown on the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Since the Administration took office, federal drug enforcement officials have acted against more than 35 medicinal marijuana patients, cooperatives and providers in California alone. (California is one of eight states since 1996 that have legalized the use and cultivation of medical marijuana under state law.) In addition, pending Congressional legislation (H.R. 2086) contains language (Sec. 707) allowing the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) to reallocate as much as $60.5 million in federal funds from the “High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program” to target and prosecute medicinal marijuana patients and their providers in states where the use of physician-approved pot is legal. A separate provision in the bill would allow the ONDCP to use taxpayer dollars to potentially fund partisan advertisements targeting proposed state initiatives or laws seeking to legalize the medical use of marijuana.
“The Bush Administration, especially Attorney General John Ashcroft and Drug Czar John Walters, are extreme anti-marijuana zealots who are out of touch with the American public 80 percent of whom approve of the medical use of marijuana,” Stroup said. “It’s time for the Administration to respect the will of the voters, and stop needlessly targeting medicinal marijuana patients and their providers. It is unconscionable to continue to deny an effective medication to those seriously ill patients who need it and have a legal right to use it under state law.”
For more information, please contact Keith Stroup, NORML Executive Director, at (202) 483-5500.