Trial of marijuana dispensary owner goes to jury
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 at 4:25 pm | By: Radical Russ
Trial of marijuana dispensary owner goes to jury – Los Angeles Times
A closely watched trial involving conflicting marijuana laws went to a federal court jury Monday, with jurors asked to determine if the owner of a Morro Bay pot dispensary is 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 Charles Lynch, the owner of the dispensary, as a common drug dealer who sold pot to teenagers and carried a backpack stuffed with cash.
Lynch is charged with distributing marijuana, conspiring to distribute marijuana and providing marijuana to people under the age of 21.
He faces a minimum of five years in federal prison if convicted.
Lynch’s defense attorneys sought to portray him as a responsible businessman who had the blessing of Morro Bay’s mayor and city attorney before opening his Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers.
Moreover, they argued, he was told by an official with the Drug Enforcement Administration that enforcement on such facilities would be left up to local authorities, implying that Lynch would avoid federal prosecution if he obeyed the local laws.
That became the basis for their defense, known as entrapment by estoppel, in which a defendant essentially argues that he broke the law based on bad advice from a government official.
Prosecutors scoffed at the argument. They called to the witness stand a DEA agent who they said spoke with Lynch, and she said she never would have given him such advice.
Well, of course not! Only a person who could believe that the government would lie in order to set up a dispensary bust would think such a thing.
Lynch isn’t allowed to bring up California’s medical marijuana law in his defense. He followed the laws of his state, got the blessings of the city, and helped so many patients in the process. That is all irrelevant to the federal government, because, according to them, marijuana has no medical efficacy (even though they grow it and send it to four federal medical marijuana patients, even though they have numerous patents on cannabinoids, even though they recognize the medical efficacy of THC).
My hope is that there are citizens on that jury who understand their rights and their power. Jurors can decide the law itself is unjust and refuse to convict a defendant, even if the evidence clearly shows they broke the law.
