Medical Issues, City Law Disallowed in Pot Trial

[boulder]

Tri-Valley Herald

 

Jury selection began Tuesday for the trial of pro-marijuana author and activist Ed Rosenthal of Oakland, who faces federal drug charges for growing marijuana under the state's medical marijuana law.

 

But evidence of that state law and Oakland's city ordinances will be excluded from his trial under an order U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer of San Francisco issued Monday barring Rosenthal from mounting a defense based on medical issues. The trial begins next Tuesday and is expected to last more than a week.

 

Defense attorneys had hoped to show jurors that California voters in 1996 passed a ballot measure permitting medical marijuana use, and that Oakland has passed ordinances to regulate medical marijuana cultivation and distribution and protect cultivators from prosecution.

 

Rosenthal thought these state and local laws meant he was acting legally, defense attorneys wanted to contend. But this is a federal trial alleging a violation of federal law, which still bans all cultivation, distribution, possession and use of marijuana. Breyer granted prosecutors' motion to exclude discussion of medical issues.

 

Still, Rosenthal's lawyers believe Breyer might let Rosenthal testify about his state of mind and the basis for his decisions -- specifically, that he relied on city and state officials' statements in forming his own belief that he wouldn't be prosecuted.

 

Rosenthal, 58, a widely known marijuana activist and author, was among those arrested last February when Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided his home office and other Oakland sites, the Harm Reduction Center medical marijuana club in San Francisco and the Petaluma home of Harm Reduction Center founder Ken Hayes.

 

Court documents show the DEA claims the Harm Reduction Center, to which Rosenthal allegedly helped supply marijuana, used the state law to mask illegal activity. The case has become a rallying point for medical marijuana activists.