A HEARTLESS DRUG LAW CAN BE NULLIFIED by PAUL CARPENTER
Copyright (c) 1997, The Morning Call, Inc.

The chilling photograph ran on the front page nine days
ago. It showed a hooded government gunman terrorizing a
motorist at a checkpoint in Albania. Thank God, you say, we
don't live in such a place.

But then you remember that a hooded government gunman,
Scott Fraley, did the same thing to innocent motorists in
Monroe County, except that Fraley did it at night and the
thug in Albania at least had the grace to do it in
daylight. Fraley was, and still is, a state drug agent. He
works, in fact, out of the Allentown office to this day. (I
called him Monday to ask if he was still running around
with his hood, but he didn't get back to me.)

Anyhow, hooded government gunmen at checkpoints
represent what we have degenerated to. In the war on
drugs, we cannot boast of being better off than Albania.

Hold that thought as we consider the case of Denise
Smith, who, by coincidence, lives in Monroe County. If
Fraley, or anyone of his ilk, catches her, she may go to
prison.

I told you about Smith on Sunday. She has AIDS and
suffers from agonizing symptoms, including the inability to
eat without immediately throwing up. Prescription drugs did
not help much and by last year she was painfully starving
to death. Then she tried marijuana, which restored her
appetite and eased her nausea.

On Sunday, I reported that Smith is not worried about
getting arrested. "I don't see myself as being a criminal,"
she said. "It (marijuana) makes me feel better. I know it's
illegal, but it makes me feel better." That's not the way
Monroe County District Attorney Mark Pazuhanich looks at
it. "Right now, that would make no difference," he said
when I asked him

about the therapeutic use of pot. "The penalty is going
to be the same as with any other use of marijuana."

Pazuhanich said the penalty for possession of a tiny
amount is 30 days in prison. For possessing an ounce or so,
it's as much as a year.

How actively, I asked Pazuhanich, would you pursue such
a case?

"I don't think there is any special effort to uncover
that kind of thing," he said. But if police arrest someone
for using pot for medical purposes, he said he'll
prosecute.

Lehigh County DA Bob Steinberg was more concise when I
asked if he'd actively pursue such cases.

"No," he said. Steinberg added, however, that whether
marijuana is permitted for therapeutic purposes is
ultimately for the Legislature to decide, and thus far it
is still illegal.

"Would I be sympathetic? Yeah. But at the same time, I
don't have the luxury of legislating," he said.

And if you catch terminally ill people using pot to ease
symptoms?

"I'm not inclined to pull them out of their deathbed,"
he said.

But Steinberg's most important observation is that
prosecutors are not legislators. They don't make laws and
we cannot fault a DA, even if he has a heartless attitude
about people like Smith, for enforcing a law.

My personal preference would be to find a way to induce
Smith's symptoms in every state legislator and then see how
long it takes them to endorse a less heartless approach to
the therapeutic use of marijuana.

California and Arizona have done just that, and Oregon
seems ready to, although the Clinton administration has
threatened any doctor who dares comply with the laws in
those states, the 10th Amendment in the Bill of Rights be
damned.

If enough states take the merciful approach, even the
feds may relent. But it is the usual practice of the
Pennsylvania General Assembly to be dead last when it comes
to doing anything worthwhile.

So maybe we should ask that other legislative body
juries in criminal trials to step forward. Only one
juror on each jury is necessary to nullify an unjust law.

Am I asking, egad, that individual jurors ignore the law
and refuse to convict people like Denise Smith?

That is exactly what I'm asking.