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February 12, 2003

Memo to Judge Charles Breyer

Good morning, Your Honor: let me introduce myself. I'm a retired long time newspaperman. Since 1975 I've written a column, The Reactor, for the Pacifica Tribune. I'm so ignorant of Botany that up to now my chief concern about Marijuana is that someone might present me with a houseplant, and, being no botanist, I wouldn't know what I had. I'd be a sitting duck for possession charges. I could go to jail for naïveté. I've smoked tobacco only a few times, the last time more than four decades ago. I've never smoked Marijuana. I never will.

I last served on a federal jury in 1965, when a case involving the outermost joint of a merchant mariner's little finger took time out of my life. It took 12 of us four days to first hear and then decide he didn't have a case. But I did learn a lot about joints, of the kind found on little fingers.

After reading about the Ed Rosenthal marijuana-growing case, in which Mr. Rosenthal got railroaded for his compassion, I wish to volunteer for the next federal jury in San Francisco having to do with marijuana. I'm retired, so I've time available. The Rosenthal case demonstrates that a federal judge probably wouldn't allow vitally important facts to be presented by the defense. That fact would provide all the reasonable doubt I'd need to acquit. I'm outraged the Rosenthal jury was not told the entire truth. Ignorance is not an acceptable option. If a jury had to decide whether the Earth circled the sun or vice versa, how logical would it be to keep out all mention of Copernicus as "irrelevant." When you select me for that next jury evaluating someone charged with violating some federal law forbidding the growth of a product that is probably less harmful than liquor or tobacco, I will not allow the letter of the law to prevent me from a compassionate response. Remembering the Rosenthal case, I'll be forced to assume I'm being told only what the prosecution and the fanatics of the Drug Enforcement Agency want me to hear, and not the whole truth. I'll have to assume the full truth is being withheld. I'll have to guess what that truth might be.

Please don't misunderstand me. If I thought Marijuana wasn't capable of doing some harm, I might have sought it out in the course of my life. But the lesson of liquor and tobacco is that people will seek out and use even items that may do harm. The best we can do is mitigate and limit the damage, while we enjoy such benefits as accrue. It's true I'm ignorant of many of marijuana's botanical characteristics, but I think it's likely I know as much as the majority of Americans.

As best I can ascertain, marijuana does less harm and more good for some users than tobacco or alcohol, and certainly less harm than the hard drugs do. Californians agree. That's how they've voted. Oddly, one of marijuana's most beneficial aspects today is its very illegality. Hundreds of families in the remote hills of Humboldt, Mendocino, Trinity and other hardscrabble rural counties who would otherwise be broke grow this weed. They can make a very good living. They're even willing to suffer an occasional CAMP raid, just as the then remote and scattered residents of the 1920's San Mateo Coastside took an occasional visit from prohibition agents in stride.

The Chronicle reports you as a man of integrity and compassion. What a shame the draconian federal marijuana laws fail that same test.

If you have an insight to share, Paul@thereactor.net is the e mail address of The Reactor.. Check his website at www.thereactor.net.

 
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