Pubdate: Sun, 02 Nov 2003
Source: San Francisco Examiner (CA)
Copyright: 2003 San Francisco Examiner
Contact:  http://www.examiner.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/389
Author: Samantha Spivak
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Ed+Rosenthal

THE FEDS VERSUS ED

LIBERALS GENERALLY have a sneering interpretation of states' rights. Two 
months ago, Sen. Trent Lott was twisting in the wind, with a decades-old 
campaign for the principle of states' rights as a noose around his neck. 
Today, Californians are enraged by the criminal conviction of Oakland's 
medical marijuana deputy Ed Rosenthal. California had its sovereign butt 
kicked in Rosenthal's rumble with the feds, where our Proposition 215 was 
the legal equivalent of a knife at a gunfight. States' rights, anyone? 
Sadly, the phrase seems to remain forbidden.

Long before the concept of states' rights became synonymous with Jim Crow 
laws and the lingering racist agenda of elderly Southern politicians, our 
country's founders hallowed the idea precisely because no citizen of this 
republic should end up in Ed Rosenthal's situation.

Over time, we've dismissed the fierce American notion that government power 
should originate close to home. All over the land, but especially in 
California, we no longer keep the feds at arm's length. So here they are, 
shoving Ed Rosenthal toward the prison gates while the California voters 
who sanctioned Rosenthal's occupation are impotent. There's not a thing you 
or I or Bill Lockyer, the state attorney general who has more than once 
gone out on a limb to defend Prop. 215, can do.

If this angers you, wake up and smell the hemp flowers. We are in the habit 
now of regularly inviting the federal government to bring its lawyers, guns 
and money right through the front door of our state for a variety of 
special purposes. Only problem is, when the party's over they won't leave. 
Like a drunken frat boy, the federal government doesn't listen when we 
change our minds and insist that no means no. We opened the door, after all.

Real repudiation of oppressive drug policy would require consistency in our 
relationship with the feds. We can't "just say no" to the drug war when we 
just say yes, yes, yes to federal drug enforcement money to augment our 
police departments and to bundles of federal cash for other state programs.

California received $50 billion in federal assistance for the fiscal year 
ending June 2001, according to the Bureau of State Audits. You want the 
federal sugar daddy? You're gonna live under Daddy's roof and by Daddy's rules.

Which is probably one reason Ed Rosenthal got little support from the 
state. Rosenthal attorney Bill Simpich says he asked a number of state and 
local politicians to file a motion to intervene on Rosenthal's behalf. Such 
intervention is rare, and likely would have proven futile because federal 
law trumps state law. Of course, that's not the point. The point is that we 
elect our leaders to uphold our laws.

"Nobody wanted to get in front of the train," Simpich said last week.

Can you say "duh?" What sane and sober politician wants to play tough with 
the feds one day and beg Daddy for money to fill budget holes the next?

A lifestyle of dependence on the federal government comes with a high 
price. The price is Rosenthal's liberty and the liberty of honest citizens 
who end up in court fighting all kinds of ludicrous federal charges because 
their fellow citizens -- we the people -- have permitted a watery boundary 
between ourselves and the federal government. Where there was once a sacred 
concern for supremacy of local priorities, there is now selective use of 
federal funds and federal force to achieve an illusive and ill-defined 
greater good.

This shouldn't have political overtones. But it does. You'd be hard pressed 
to find a dozen people crying foul at Rosenthal's plight who wouldn't be 
cheering instead if he were a farmer being torn apart by federal 
environmental law. Most who reject federal interference with state drug 
policy are happy to embrace federal intrusion into education, urban 
planning, local commerce and virtually every other arena of California life.

The cost of this inconsistency is Rosenthal's freedom, because once they've 
got you in the golden handcuffs, the feds don't distinguish between left 
and right or contemplate the nuances of this region or that. The feds just win.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens