Railroaded for Courthouse Leafletting

By Ann Harrison, AlterNet. Posted March 3, 2003.

The director of California's best-known medical marijuana club has announced that he will begin a hunger strike when he is imprisoned March 3 for issuing leaflets outside a courthouse.

Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative (OCBC) director Jeff Jones was sentenced to three months in prison for distributing pamphlets outside a Sacramento federal court where potential jurors were assembling for the trial of medical marijuana grower Bryan Epis.

If he follows through with his plan, Jones will be one of the first California medical marijuana activists to starve himself in an effort to draw attention to the conflict between state and federal laws governing medical cannabis.

"I am doing this to build solidarity, support and awareness," said Jones. "To further the education of the public and juries about problems with the federal law on this issue, and the damage it is causing in states that have already passed favorable laws."

A thin, clean-cut man, Jones has pioneered community acceptance of medical marijuana since the passage of California's Compassionate Use Act (Prop. 215). The law permits patients to grow and consume medical cannabis with a doctor's recommendation. The city of Oakland, California passed a 1998 ordinance establishing a medical marijuana distribution system, and designated OCBC operators as officers of the city immune from prosecution.

That same year, the federal government filed a preliminary injunction to halt the OCBC from distributing medical cannabis. While the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in May 2001 that the club could not dispense medical cannabis under "medical necessity," it did not consider larger constitutional issues. An appeals court is still deciding whether the City of Oakland has the power to offer the club legal immunity. Steph Sherer, director of the medical marijuana advocacy group, Americans for Safe Access, notes that Jones and his club have frequently pushed the envelope and "set an example for the implementation of Prop. 215 for the rest of the state."

But Jones says he is now the target of selective prosecution. U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter A. Nowinski ignored a probation recommendation, and ordered Jones into federal custody on a misdemeanor charge of influencing a juror by writing.

During Jones' sentencing hearing, his attorney Michael Bigelow attempted to explain to Judge Nowinski that Jones was among a group of activists who were distributing literature supporting Epis' right to grow medical marijuana under Prop. 215.

But each time Bigelow spoke the words, "medical marijuana," Nowinski cut him off, insisting that the issue was irrelevant to the primary concern of jury integrity.

"He was totally biased and politically motivated and didn't allow my attorney to make a discussion or an argument," said Jones "The judge said 'we are not going to talk about medical marijuana in here, this is not about that.' But it is."

Judge Nowinski's exclusion of the medical marijuana issue mirrors the tactics of U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer who presided over the recent trial of medical marijuana grower Ed Rosenthal. Rosenthal's jurors later denounced Judge Breyer's successful efforts to block discussion of medical marijuana during the trial, which jurors said resulted in an incomplete presentation of the facts.

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