Freedom Fighter of the Month

ALAN GORDON - UV-B, POT, THE LAW, AND YOU

STATE COLLEGE, PA - One day last July, Alan Gordon walked into a
magistrate's office here carrying a cardboard lettuce box with 150 cannabis
seedlings sprouting in it. He explained that he planned to grow and
distribute this marijuana because it combats all the acute and chronic
effects of ultraviolet-B radiation sickness.

Symptoms of UV-B overexposure include salivation, appetite loss,
hyperthermia and hyperactivity; whereas pot's effects include cotton-mouth,
appetite stimulation, hypothermia and sedation. Hence, Gordon argues,
pot-smoking is legal under the criminal code's justification clause, which
universally countenances lawbreaking in circumstances where a greater harm
is prevented, such as swerving out of a legal traffic lane to avoid hitting
a child. In an era of ubiquitous and increasing UV-B exposure, he claims,
not smoking pot is more harmful than smoking it. He's repeatedly invited the
government to argue the point with him in court - and has been turned down
every time so far.

Gordon, 28, has a BA from Pen State University in drug policy, hemp and the
environment, an independently designed major. The scientific aspects of his
UV-B challenge to the pot laws are supported, he points out, by a vast
preponderance of epidemiological, botanical, meteorological and medical
evidence, whereas absolutely no evidence of similar probative quality could
be presented in court to refute it. And in fact, despite his efforts to
undergo a trial, Center County Assistant District Attorney Steven Sloane in
November moved to dismiss charges against Gordon, and Judge David Grimes
duly did so.

This was Gordon's fourth attempt to get himself prosecuted for pot. In
October 1996, he publicly planted pot seeds in front of the federal
courthouse in Ashville, NC. Federal marshals there simply refused to arrest
him after he presented them with an unpublished research paper outlining his
UV-B challenge. They cited "lack of manpower' - there were only four
marshals on the spot - and suggested he might try the US Forest Service for
this purpose.

A month later, Gordon was formally arrested for lighting up at a
medical-marijuana teach-in in Chapel Hill, NC, but when the case went to
court weeks later, the prosecution simply neglected to present the arresting
officer, and the judge dropped the charges regardless of the fact that
Gordon had brought along his own prosecution witnesses, who had agreed to
incriminate him at his own request.

Subsequently, claims Gordon, at the advice of those federal marshals, he
planted 60,000 pot seeds in Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina, and
phoned the US Forest Service, the FBI, and the Justice Department to tell
them where he seedling were growing, and turn himself in. "Each office said
it was one of the other offices' responsibility," Gordon says disgustedly.
But if they didn't have time to deal with me, why are so many pot prisoners
behind bars in this country?"

Gordon also gives out free "marijuana-growing licenses" thru his
organization. the American Drug History Institute, "a think tank dedicated
to the reduction of drug abuse through the research of historical trends."
License-holders who get arrested and present the UV-B justification
challenge are entitled to free expert-witness services from Gordon, who
agrees to incur all fines in event of conviction. He also encourages them,
if arrested, to turn him in to the prosecution as the perpetrator of a
larger offense, in exchange for having their charges reduced or dropped. He
estimates he's given out more than 10,000 licenses so far.

Gordon's documented record of dismissed marijuana prosecutions also presents
pot defendants everywhere with a challenge to their own charges under the
constitutional doctrine of equal protection under the law, embodied in the
Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Equal protection means that
criminal-justice authorities cannot choose to dismiss some cases while
continuing to prosecute others of similar gravity; if they selective neglect
to prosecute Alan Gordon, that is, then they're selectively prosecuting
everyone else who gets arrested for the same offense.

For information about Alan Gordon's marijuana licenses, contact the American
Drug History Institute, c/o Deborah Powell, 143 Keller St. #4, Waynesville,
NC 28786; phone (704) 687-6735. Email: Alangordon23@Hotmail.com

Copyright 1998 by Trans-High Corporation. Redistributed by the Media
Awareness Project, Inc. by permission.