Pubdate: Thu, 31 Oct 2002
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2002 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.uniontrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Author: Jeff McDonald, Union-Tribune Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

CASE MAY TEST COSTA RICA DRUG LAW

Former County Resident Facing 15 Years in Prison for Growing 12 Pot Plants

His romance with Costa Rica started budding when he was barely out of high 
school.

White sand beaches, sapphire water and a steady march of waves conspired to 
steal Andy Seidensticker from his hometown San Diego. His ventures south 
grew more frequent and prolonged.

By the mid-1990s, the Poway High School graduate was living year-round in a 
remote beach village called Mal Pais and running his surf shop with a 
friend from California.

He rode waves every chance he got. He married his girlfriend, and they had 
a baby daughter.

Life was bountiful for the U.S. expatriate, until police following an 
anonymous tip showed up at his home in February and arrested Seidensticker 
and his wife, Edith, on suspicion of illegal cultivation of 12 marijuana 
plants.

Him, they took away to Robles Prison in Puntarenas, nearly a day's travel 
from their hamlet. Her, they arrested but released on bail after several 
days because she is a citizen of Costa Rica.

Now Seidensticker, 32, is facing up to 15 years in prison under a strict 
drug law that went into effect weeks before his arrest. After more than 
eight months behind bars, Seidensticker is scheduled to make his first 
appearance in a Costa Rican court today.

"His spirits are really good, although once in a while he gets down," said 
his father, Steve Seidensticker, a North Park engineer who has spent most 
of this year trying to untangle his son's legal problems.

"He's terribly frustrated by the inability of his lawyers to do anything," 
Steve Seidensticker said.

There is little doubt Andy Seidensticker is guilty. He admitted as much to 
police. But until early this year, growing a few marijuana plants was not a 
crime in Costa Rica.

Agents found the plants at the beach house Seidensticker shared with his 
wife and 4-year-old daughter, Clarissa. The plants yielded 61 grams of 
marijuana, just more than two ounces.

Steve Seidensticker said that just before his son's arrest, Andy had 
complained to police about a neighborhood thief. He thinks the call leading 
officers to his son's house might have come from that man.

The arrest raises questions about how small-time drug users are punished in 
the Central American nation, and it may become a test case for the new law. 
It also attracted the attention of a San Diego congressman, who asked the 
president of Costa Rica to show leniency to Seidensticker.

No one from the Costa Rican embassy in Washington, D.C., or at government 
offices in the capital of San Jose or in Puntarenas would discuss the case. 
Repeated calls and e-mail messages to multiple departments were not returned.

Tough Terms

Costa Rica's Illegal Substances Act was designed to combat trafficking and 
money laundering, rather than simple drug possession. Adopted last December 
under pressure from the United States, it makes no distinction between 
marijuana, cocaine, heroin or other narcotics.

Nor does the law take into account the amount of drugs a person might 
possess, or even whether a suspect is accused of manufacturing or selling 
such banned substances.

Until Jan. 11, when the legislation took effect, growing a small number of 
marijuana plants for personal use was not illegal, defense attorney 
Mauricio Brenes said.

Brenes said the punishment his client is facing far outweighs the crime. 
For example, kidnapping can rate a prison term as short as six months and 
rape is punishable by as few as two years in custody, he said.

"A person holding one ton of coke should not be judged under the same rules 
as one who holds 61 grams of marijuana. . . . It is obvious to me that Andy 
is going to be a guinea pig in the practical application of this law."

So far, claims from Brenes that the law is unconstitutional have not 
worked. The court also refused to hear arguments that the search was 
illegal or that Seidensticker was denied an interpreter at the time of his 
arrest.

Officials from the U.S. Embassy in San Jose have visited Seidensticker 
three times. Beyond seeing that he is adequately cared for, there is little 
they can do.

An embassy spokeswoman declined to discuss the case because Seidensticker 
has not signed a privacy waiver. But she said the Costa Rican government is 
ratcheting up prosecutions on drug violators.

"Costa Ricans have made it a priority to work on counter-drug-trafficking 
issues," said Marcia Bosshardt of the U.S. Embassy in San Jose. "They're 
working to make those laws effective."

There are 45 other Americans in Costa Rican prisons, Bosshardt said, 31 on 
drug charges. It was unclear how many of those are serving time for 
possession rather than trafficking. About 500,000 Americans visit the 
country every year, and between 25,000 and 35,000 live permanently in a 
nation of 4 million people, one of the more stable and democratic 
governments in Central America.

Just as in the United States, marijuana and cocaine are widely available in 
Costa Rica and widely used, residents and tourists say.

Only rarely have users or small-scale growers such as Seidensticker been 
charged, said David Boddiger, a Chicago native who has worked as a reporter 
at the Tico Times newspaper in San Jose for more than a year.

"It is common to see people smoking marijuana on the beach, in parks, in 
the street, outside bars, etc.," Boddiger said in an e-mail interview. "It 
is difficult to determine where police officers and the police force in 
general will draw the line in such a gray area."

By The Numbers

According to the Organization of American States, a coalition of Western 
Hemisphere governments that deals in trade, human rights and other issues, 
Costa Rica made 4,953 arrests on drug trafficking and possession charges in 
2000, the most recent year for which statistics are available.

That was a major increase over the previous year, when 848 people faced 
drug charges. Through the 1990s, the number of drug arrests regularly 
hovered in the hundreds.

Government leaders began debating the stiffer drug law in early 2000, in 
part due to pressure from the United States, which spends more than $8 
million a year to finance the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission.

With a goal of eliminating drug trafficking, the commission of 34 member 
nations works under the Organization of American States but is an 
independent agency. The United States is by far its biggest financial 
supporter.

In debate before passage of the Costa Rican law, legislator Otto Guevara 
complained about the disparity in prison terms. Three times he tried to 
lessen sentences for casual users but failed.

"We don't want to send a message to the international community that Costa 
Rica is not fighting against drugs," lawmaker Carlos Vargas Pagan 
responded, according to congressional records.

Tom Riley of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in Washington, 
D.C., declined to discuss the Seidensticker case. He downplayed any role 
the United States might have had in Costa Rica's decision to arrest 
low-level drug users.

"I don't think there's any effort from the United States to tell Costa Rica 
to arrest people growing small quantities of marijuana," Riley said. "There 
is an organizing effort in the hemisphere to work together on these drug 
issues. Drugs don't respect borders."

U.S. Rep. Bob Filner called Seidensticker's possible 15-year sentence "a 
great injustice." Filner wrote letters to the president of Costa Rica and 
to the U.S. ambassador appealing for leniency and intervention, so far to 
no avail.

"There is no evidence that (the Seidenstickers) sold, bought or traded 
marijuana," Filner wrote to President Abel Pacheco in August. "They are not 
and never have been drug dealers."

Filner received no response from the Costa Rican leader, and a September 
letter from Ambassador John J. Danilovich said there was nothing he could 
do to secure Seidensticker's release or even to expedite a trial.

Three times in the past months, Seidensticker has been told he would likely 
be released, either on bail or outright. Each time, the reports proved 
groundless.

"It would be great to have him back," said Aaron Abernathy, a transplant 
from Morro Bay who co-owns the Corduroy to the Horizon surf shop with 
Seidensticker. "He taught me everything I know."
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager