DEA Secures Another Medical Marijuana Conviction by Lying in Court
The highly controversial Charles Lynch trial has reached a disappointing conclusion:
The owner of a Morro Bay marijuana dispensary was found guilty today in federal court of five counts of distributing drugs.Charles Lynch, the owner of the dispensary, faces a minimum of five years in prison.
His closely watched trial involved conflicting marijuana laws and went to a federal court jury Monday. Jurors were asked to determine if Lynch was guilty of violating federal drug laws.
During a week-and-a-half-long trial in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, federal prosecutors sought to depict Lynch as a common drug dealer who sold pot to teenagers and carried a backpack stuffed with cash.
Lynch was charged with distributing marijuana, conspiring to distribute marijuana and providing marijuana to people under the age of 21. [LA Times}
Like other medical marijuana convictions, federal prosecutors were only able to prevail by blocking testimony about medical marijuana and misleading jurors about the true nature of the defendant's actions. reason.tv tells the truth about the Lynch case here:
Fortunately, while the federal government can lie to a jury, they cannot conceal their contemptuous conduct from a public already sickened by the vicious and embarrassing war on medical marijuana patients and providers. Their manipulative tactics will be fully exposed in the aftermath of today's result and will be greeted with the same widespread disgust that has characterized past persecutions prosecutions.
We must never mistake today's events for anything but what they are: a pathetic and purely symbolic attempt to obscure the obvious benefits of state medical marijuana laws. They are powerless against the tide of public opinion and the booming industry that has spawned amidst their intransigence. They now resort to petty martyrings, the brutal last resort of a disgraced tyrant, in the fading hope of intimidating a nation that has embraced democracy itself to subvert their hideous war.
Even in its hour of victory, the war on medical marijuana shivers naked before us, spitting desperately into the eyes of a public whose support it lost long ago.
digg
redditDid you watch the reason video?
Comment posted by smorgan on Thu, 08/07/2008 - 9:12pmLook how the whole chamber of commerce supported him. He was respected in the community. You can carry on about federal law and yes I know what it says, but at the end of the day whose interests are served by this? Lynch had enemies in Washington, D.C. but not in his neighborhood.
Given the vast discretion federal law-enforcement possesses, would you really defend this as the most logical and appropriate use of those infinitely valuable resources?
The al-Qaeda
Comment posted by rita on Wed, 08/06/2008 - 3:24amat least has the balls to stand accountable for the destruction and suffering they cause.