EDITORIALS

SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER
Feds Wrong on Rosenthal Redux
OH, FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, why don't the feds just give it a rest? Not satisfied with seeing Ed Rosenthal convicted of a felony for growing medicine for the sick with the knowledge and approval of a local government, the boors at the U.S. Justice Department have decided they don't like the one-day sentence Rosenthal got. Last week they appealed U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer's decision. Prosecutors had wanted the 58-year-old sent away for six and a half years.

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
A Brave and Right Decison
U.S. DISTRICT Court Judge Charles Breyer should be commended for infusing his court with an air of common sense Wednesday when he refused to imprison Ed Rosenthal on a federal marijuana conviction. A federal jury had convicted Rosenthal in January for cultivating and conspiring to grow marijuana. And he could have been locked up for at least five years, even though he was acting as an officer for an Oakland medical marijuana program, in line with Proposition 215.

NEW YORK TIMES
Federal Persecution
Ed Rosenthal, a medical marijuana advocate, is to be sentenced next week on marijuana cultivation charges. His conviction, by a California jury that was made to believe he was a common drug trafficker, was a miscarriage of justice. A federal judge may now be on the verge of compounding the wrong by sentencing Mr. Rosenthal to prison.

NEW YORK TIMES
Misguided Marijuana War
Administration officials annoyed at California's support of the medical use of marijuana have found someone on whom to vent their frustration. Last week, at the urging of federal prosecutors, a judge convicted Ed Rosenthal of charges that carry a five-year minimum sentence. Mr. Rosenthal is a medical-marijuana advocate who grows the drug for use by the seriously ill. His harsh punishment shows that the misguided federal war on medical marijuana has now escalated out of control.

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Not a Drug Dealer
It's time for reasonable and compassionate thinking to prevail in the judicially muddled misadventure of Ed Rosenthal. Rosenthal will be sentenced Wednesday, possibly to prison for five years, for cultivating and conspiring to grow marijuana in a West Oakland warehouse. But if the 58-year-old Rosenthal, soft-spoken and bespectacled, defies the image of a drug dealer, it is because he's not. Instead, he has become the latest and perhaps the biggest casualty so far in a thinly veiled attack on Proposition 215, the state's medical marijuana law that federal prosecutors hope to obliterate.

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Safeguarding Prop. 215
The federal trial that left a medical marijuana advocate facing up to five years in prison has made it plain: The state must take the lead in how to implement Proposition 215, the medical marijuana law. The U.S. District Court trial of Ed Rosenthal caused unusual, if not unprecedented, fallout with at least four jurors saying they would have voted differently if they had known that Oakland had authorized Rosenthal to grow pot that would be prescribed by doctors and distributed by city-sanctioned cooperatives.

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
The wrong target for 'war on drugs'
When Ed Rosenthal agreed to grow Oakland's medical marijuana -- in compliance with city law and with the blessing of local officials -- he had no idea he was about to become the target of federal authorities who would try to send him to prison.

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Convicted of Compassion: Editorial Follow-Up

LAS VEGAS REVIEW JOURNAL
Truth and Trials
More than two dozen House members have introduced a bill which might prevent future Ed Rosenthal-style prosecutions. Permanently. Mr. Rosenthal, a medical marijuana activist from Oakland, was convicted in January on three felony counts of violating federal drug and conspiracy laws. Throughout the trial, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer refused to allow jurors to know that the self-styled "pot guru" was warehousing medical marijuana, intended to treat sick Bay Area residents ... and legally permissible under California's Proposition 215.

LAS VEGAS REVIEW JOURNAL
A kangaroo court
'They would have acquitted me if they'd been permitted to hear my story' --Ed Rosenthal
John Adams, who would become our second president, said of the juror: "It is not only his right, but his duty ... to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court." And we all know, of course, that juries are supposed to be randomly selected, not stacked with those who will agree in advance to convict.

ST PETERSBURG TIMES
DEA is out of touch
The Drug Enforcement Administration cannot fail to hear the message sent by the one-day jail term given Ed Rosenthal, a grower of medical marijuana in California. The reaction of the federal agency to this exceptionally lenient sentence was to say, essentially, that it will continue to pursue medical marijuana growers even in states that have legalized the drug for that purpose.

OAKLAND TRIBUNE
Rosenthal verdict cheapens American justice
It's not every day jurors apologize to the person they convicted just days after they issued their verdict. But that's exactly what happened in the trial of Ed Rosenthal, convicted of three federal felonies for cultivating marijuana. He faces between five and 85 years in prison.

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Limiting knowledge
The conviction in a San Francisco federal court on Friday of Ed Rosenthal, 58, an expert on marijuana cultivation, for growing more than 100 marijuana plants, is only one aspect of a concerted federal campaign to nullify California's medical marijuana law and thwart the will of California voters. A similar trial, of Michael Teague, will begin in Santa Ana this week.

MERCURY NEWS
U.S. should arrest pain, not people who relieve it
Californians want marijuana available for use as a medication, but that won't happen until the federal government is forced to stop prosecuting individual residents who provide the drug to the sick and dying. Federal agents are rounding up those working at the behest of local government to provide the herb to victims of cancer, AIDs, and other debilitating diseases. Californians want marijuana available for use as a medication, but that won't happen until the federal government is forced to stop prosecuting individual residents who provide the drug to the sick and dying.

SACRAMENTO BEE
Marijuana martyr
The Bush administration may have just won a case against medicinal marijuana in a federal court, but prosecutors' shameful tactics should cost President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft dearly in the court of public opinion. The case was against Ed Rosenthal, a longtime medicinal marijuana activist known as the "ganja guru."

BALTIMORE SUN
Reefer madness
Attorney General John Ashcroft's cruel crusade against the medical use of marijuana backfired last week. In an extraordinary display that should thoroughly discredit the endeavor, federal jurors in California held a press conference to apologize to the man they had just convicted of cultivating pot - an offense with a mandatory five-year prison sentence. Jurors were outraged to discover after the trial that the defendant, Ed Rosenthal, was growing medical cannabis for the city of Oakland for use by critically ill patients under California's medical marijuana law.

KALAMAZOO GAZETTE
American desire for mercy undermined
Justice Department seeks to make California, New York, Connecticut a little more like Texas.
Some troubling news items -- two in the last week -- have been coming out of the Justice Department under U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft that suggest a stunning disrespect for the political decisions of the American people. In a federal case in California, a state in which voters have approved the use of marijuana for medical purposes, a man named Ed Rosenthal was convicted by a jury for growing marijuana.

ST. PETERSBURG TIMES
A vindictive drug war
Ed Rosenthal, the author of numerous books on marijuana, is being used as a scapegoat in Attorney General John Ashcroft's latest attack on the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. On Jan. 31, Rosenthal was convicted on three federal counts of cultivation and conspiracy, charges that carry a minimum five-year sentence. He had been raising marijuana plants to distribute to sick people in the San Francisco Bay area whose doctors recommended the drug as a way to ease their pain and other symptoms

OPINION COLUMNS

NATIONAL REVIEW
Reefer Madness
Our Current Prohibition
by William F. Buckley
The experience of Ed Rosenthal of Oakland, California, accelerates the day when heavy dilemmas in our legal system might just force a fresh look at our marijuana laws. Presumably that will have to happen when state legislators, congressmen, and presidents are in recess, because the great enemy of sensible reform has been, of course, politicians high from righteousness.

PENTHOUSE
JUSTICE
Why Do Jurors Who Convicted Califronia's "Ganja Guru" Want the Verdict Thrown Out?
by Alan M. Dershowitz
In federal court last February, prosecutors made their case against Ed Rosenthal, a longtime medical-marijuana activist known as the "ganja guru." The jurors knew the California man had more than a hundred marijuana plants growing in an Oakland warehouse when they found him guilty of felony cultivation and conspiracy charges. But they hadn't been told that Rosenthal was in fact authorized by state officials to grow the crop under a medical-marijuana law passed by California voters in 1996.

COUNTER PUNCH
Federal Judge Blinks
Ed Rosenthal Gets One Day! Liberal Elitist Says, We Can be Merciful, But Others Still Face Prison or Already Rot There
By Alexander Cockburn
US District Judge Charles Breyer today sentenced Ed Rosenthal to one day in prison on each of three counts, stemming from his conviction earlier this year of supplying medical marijuana under license of the city of Oakland. Breyer also fined him $1,000 and then freed him.

CHICAGO TRIBUNE
How the Feds duped jurors in marijuana trial
By Clarence Page
It is not every day that a jury apologizes to a man it has just convicted. So Ed Rosenthal should feel honored that seven of the 12 jurors who convicted him on three federal counts of marijuana cultivation and conspiracy are now apologizing to him and calling for their own verdict to be overturned on appeal. Five of them appeared and two others had statements read at a news conference Tuesday outside a courthouse in San Francisco.

MERCURY NEWS
Medical marijuana: blind injustice
Judge's instructions and withholding of critical facts led jurors to convict grower
MY VIEW: By Marney Craig
Last week, I did something so profoundly wrong that it will haunt me for the rest of my life. I helped send a man to prison who does not belong there. As jurors, we followed the law exactly as it was explained to us by Judge Charles Breyer. We played our part in the criminal justice system precisely as instructed. But the verdict we reached -- the only verdict those instructions allowed us to reach -- was wrong. It was cruel, inhumane and unjust.

COUNTERPUNCH
Ed Rosenthal Faces the Music in Key Med Marijuana Case
By Alexander Cockburn
Come June 4 Ed Rosenthal will be back in US District Court in San Francisco, to hear what sentence Judge Charles Breyer has decided to impose.

COUNTERPUNCH
US Judge Railroads Ed Rosenthal in Fed's War on Medical Marijuana
By Alexander Cockburn
Cowed by a federal judge, a reluctant jury found Ed Rosental guilty last Friday afternoon. Rosenthal remains free on bail, pending sentencing in June. The defense will appeal. Rosenthal faces life in prison.Cowed by a federal judge, a reluctant jury found Ed Rosental guilty last Friday afternoon. Rosenthal remains free on bail, pending sentencing in June. The defense will appeal. Rosenthal faces life in prison.

COUNTERPUNCH
The Right Not To Be In Pain: The Feds vs. Ed Rosenthal
By Alexander Cockburn
Since the bottom line here is terrible physical pain, let's start with someone who has spent most of her life in that condition. There are millions like her. Patricia C is 47 today and lives in California. . . . It's not as though medical marijuana shifted Patricia to a bed of roses.

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
When a jury should just say no
By Judith Appel, Alexandra Cox
February 19 -- It is a long-standing precept that juries act as the collective "conscience of the community" ... Yet, when members of a federal jury late last month convicted medical marijuana activist Ed Rosenthal without being able to consider that he was growing pot to be used as medicine under California's Proposition 215, the integrity of our system of justice was seriously threatened.

OAKLAND TRIBUNE
Trust-buster -- Ashcroft kicks the dog again
By Peter Schrag
A few more victories like the one the feds just got in their prosecution of Ed Rosenthal, Oakland's officially deputized medical marijuana grower, and they may be lucky if they get convictions in the future of even the most hardened dealers.

SIERRA TIMES
Jury Rights: Reconsidering Relevance
By Clay S. Conrad
Edward Rosenthal was prosecuted for growing and distributing medical marijuana in compliance with the California Compassionate Use Act. At his Federal trial, District Court Judge Charles Breyer refused to let the jury learn that Rosenthal was growing marijuana for medical use. Breyer ruled evidence concerning medical marijuana was irrelevant, because federal law does not recognize medical uses for marijuana. Implicit in the ruling was a concern that evidence about medical marijuana would lead to jury nullification. As nearly eighty percent of San Franciscans voted for passage of Prop. 215, it was unlikely a San Francisco jury would willingly convict one of their neighbors for helping to implement State law.

FINDLAW
The Conviction of Ed Rosenthal: Why It Was Wrong
By Sherry F. Colb
Last month, a federal jury in California convicted Ed Rosenthal of marijuana cultivation and conspiracy charges. Rosenthal will now face a minimum of five years behind bars for his actions. Theoretically, he could even be sentenced to life imprisonment. People are convicted of drug offenses every day, of course. But several factors distinguished this case from others.

MERCURY NEWS
Federal war on marijuana is misguided
By Dennis Rockstroh
Common sense will tell you that something went terribly wrong in the courtroom of federal Judge Charles R. Breyer. Justice wasn't blind. It was blindsided. Late last month a federal jury in San Francisco found Ed Rosenthal of Oakland guilty of marijuana cultivation and conspiracy. He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison.

ANDERSON VALLEY ADVERTISER
Judge Not That Ye Be Not, Chuck
By Fred Gardner
Charles Breyer, 61, is a bow-tie-wearing U.S. District Judge, and he's still in the business of sending flower children to prison, and he still employs ironic smiles, gestures, and intonations to imply that he's just following orders, i.e., federal law, although now he's in a position to interpret the law and breathe humanity and rationality into it, as we, the people of California, tried to when we passed the medical marijuana initiative.

SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER
A prejudicial judge?
By Warren Hinckle
At 8:40 last night, I had the last interview with Ed Rosenthal, I guess. If U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer sticks to his judicial guns, he will issue a gag order Thursday barring the defendant from talking to the likes of me.