Pot times
Sentencing Season: Robert Schmidt Gets 41 Months
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n1106/a06.htmlNewshawk: Jay Bergstrom
Pubdate: Wed, 13 Jul 2005 SENTENCING SEASON: ROBERT SCHMIDT GETS 41 MONTHS
Source: Anderson Valley Advertiser (CA)
Column: Cannabinotes
Copyright: 2005 Anderson Valley Advertiser
Contact:
editor@theava.com
Website: http://www.theava.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2667
Author: Fred Gardner
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115
(Cannabis - California)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm
(Cannabis - Medicinal)
Cited: Gonzales v. Raich (www.angeljustice.org/)
Robert "Duke" Schmidt has been sentenced to 41 months in federal
prison for growing and distributing marijuana.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer meted out the terms in his San
Francisco courtroom July 7. Schmidt reports to the Bureau of Prisons Sept.
1. He is one of about 30 West Coast medical-marijuana growers,
distributors and/or users whose cases had been put on hold pending the U.S.
Supreme Court's ruling in Gonzales v. Raich.
Schmidt first appeared before Breyer in March 2003, soon after Ed Rosenthal's
widely publicized trial.
Although Rosenthal had faced similar charges, he received a one-day sentence,
time served.
What was different about Schmidt's case?
In 1999, Schmidt had founded a non-profit dispensary, Genesis 1:29, which he ran
out of his home in Petaluma. As membership grew, he supplemented his
homegrown with cannabis produced at other sites.
Schmidt says his goal was to develop standardized plant strains with known
cannabinoid contents and study their effects on patients with various
conditions. As he put it in one of several applications filed with the
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, "It is the intent of Genesis
Research Group to develop well characterized drug substance and document patient
input to develop efficacy correlations between the chemical components of the
cannabis plant for different clinical indications."
Schmidt was inspired to seek DEA approval after learning about Registration Form
225. "It's an application to manufacture and distribute scheduled
drugs," explained Schmidt in a March 2003 interview. "I filed an
application, and the DEA issued me a receipt." Schmidt said he also
informed the state Attorney General's office of his activities. "For
three seasons I told them in advance what I was going to plant, I updated them
during the growing season, and I reported how much I harvested."
The DEA raided Schmidt's house in the early morning hours of Sept. 12,
2002. Schmidt, a small, wiry man in 50s, attempted to wrestle the rifle
away from the agent who had awakened him with a prod of the barrel -for which he
is also charged with assault on an officer in the line of duty. "My
post-traumatic stress disorder is triggered by having guns pointed at me,"
said Schmidt, "especially when I'm woke up with one in my face." The
DEA also confiscated 2,600 plants from a site Schmidt leased in Sebastopol.
The jury that found Ed Rosenthal guilty of cultivation ( as well as conspiracy
and maintaining a grow-op ) determined the amount to be not 3,000+ plants, as
alleged by the feds, but fewer than 100, which carried "only" a
five-year mandatory minimum.
Ed's lawyers had challenged the number of rooted plants seized at his warehouse,
and the definition of a viable plant.
But whereas Ed was growing cloned seedlings, Schmidt was growing big, healthy
outdoor plants. "The place looked like a Christmas tree farm,"
he recalled with some pride.
Ed, by dint of his savvy and status as a writer/publisher, and his connections,
and his fundraising ability, and his family and extensive support system, had
unique resources to bring to his court fight. Also, Ed was a nonviolent
first offender, somebody about whom jurors could declare, "Ed Rosenthal is
not a criminal."
"Duke" Schmidt, however, did not have a middle-class aura or a
private-sector lawyer, and he had, in fact, done time in federal prison.
Schmidt was born and raised on Put In Island in Lake Erie. His father was
a tugboat captain, then a boatbuilder. "Boats were second nature to
me," says Schmidt. "The sea, no matter how bad it got in a
storm, I knew how to work a boat through it." He was turned on to marijuana
in the late '60s by Midwest college students vacationing at Great Lakes resorts.
He helped ferry a few of them to Canada ( instead of Vietnam ). Somebody
suggested that his skills could be put to use bringing marijuana in from
Colombia, and he eventually did, making regular runs to Florida and Louisiana.
"It was a mistake of youth and I know it, and I've paid my debt to
society," said Schmidt in '03. "All I can say in my own defense
is that I was offered a lot of money to run guns, and more money to run cocaine,
to run heroin, and I always turned it down. My interest was always
marijuana."
Schmidt remembers the Paraquat days: "In 1978 there was more than 12
million acres of land in South America growing the finest cannabis sativa.
One morning when we were loading up and getting it ready for transport to the
coast, we noticed a lot of American C-140 aircraft flying overhead. Then
the sky became orange, the whole valley was orange with the defoliant they were
dropping.
We had a DC-3 there and the wings were so heavy with this spray that it would
not lift off. We pulled our t-shirts over our heads, we grabbed what stuff
we had baled up, and we made it to the coast. It took us four days
overland. When I got back to the United States I asked, 'When did we
declare war on Colombia?' Everybody was wondering what I was talking about...
That area now is all heroin fields and coca fields."
Schmidt pled guilty to bringing in 2,780,000 pounds of marijuana between 1973
and '78. He did only two years at a federal penitentiary in Michigan
because he could trade something the government wanted: knowledge of how he had
avoided them on the high seas. ( He had a scanner monitoring every Coast
Guard cutter, and when they headed into port, he shot over their wake. )
Given his prior conviction and facing a mandatory minimum of 20 years, Schmidt
accepted the federal public defender's advice and pled guilty before Breyer to a
charge of maintaining a place for the manufacture of marijuana, which carried a
five-year maximum.
The sentencing phase was put off until the Raich decision came down.
Schmidt expresses no animosity towards Breyer. "I was hoping for less
time, of course," he said July 8, "but his hands were tied.
Judges don't have much leeway, even under the Booker decision." Schmidt has
no forgiveness for his prosecutors, who, he says, "made false allegations,
including that I had children working for me." Schmidt, a true believer,
reiterates his original rationale for Genesis: 129 -de facto approval from the
DEA. "I registered with the federal government and they cashed my
check for three years.
This is what I get for complying with the law. This is an allowable issue,
otherwise the University of Mississippi wouldn't be growing marijuana and the
University of Massachusetts wouldn't be arguing for the right to do so with help
from the ACLU. I was trying to run a bona fide research facility with 1500
patients. The federal government has seven patients left in their research
program. Who had the broader platform?"
Support Requested
Among the defendants whose cases will move forward now that the Supreme Court
has ruled on Raich are two growers who were released from prison pending the
outcome, Bryan Epis and Keith Alden. Epis, who helped launch a dispensary
in Chico after Prop 215 passed in 1996, was convicted in September '02 of
cultivating more than 1,000 plants.
He was given a 53-month sentence by U.S. District Judge Frank Damrell.
He served 22 months before the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
directed that he be let out on bail. Epis will be re-sentenced by Damrell
August 1. The U.S. Attorney's office is asking that the full
sentence be re-imposed. Attorney Brenda Grantland is hoping that letters
from people who know Epis will convince Damrell that her client "is not a
typical commercial pot grower." She's also urging medical cannabis users
who can give concrete examples of its efficacy to write The Honorable Frank C.
Damrell, Jr., U.S. District Court, 501 I Street, Suite 4-200, Sacramento,
CA 95814.
Keith Alden of Windsor ( Sonoma County ) served 20 months of a 44-month sentence
for cultivation before being released on bail in April 2004. His sentence
is on appeal before the 9th Circuit. Letters of support for Alden should
go to Cathy Catterson, Clerk of the Court, U.S. Court of Appeals Ninth
Circuit, P.O. Box 193939, San Francisco, CA 94119. Form letters are
available at www.commonsenselaw.com
WAMM -the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, a Santa Cruz collective whose
directors, Mike and Valerie Corral, were arrested by the DEA in September 2002-
will hold a march July 16 as "a preemptive attempt to influence the
perception of the federal government." Supporters are invited to assemble
between 11 a.m. and noon at the corner of Pacific and Cathcart streets.
For details contact Mimi Hill ( 831 ) 425-0580 or visit www.wamm.org.
WAMM is hoping for a serious show of support -1,000 people or more.
As we go to press word comes word that San Diego organizer Steve McWilliams has
taken his life. McWilliams, 50, was a tough guy, a former cowboy who used
cannabis to cope with excruciating migraines His friend David Bronner emailed on
Tuesday, after hearing from Barbara MacKenzie, Steve's partner: Steve committed
suicide by overdose late last night/early morning. Steve had been
depressed and in terrible pain, and been hospitalized last week. Steve's
depression was apparently a combination of dread of going to jail in light of
Raich and his deteriorating health. He had had to take powerful
pharmaceutical opiates, anti-nausea, anti-migraine, etc. drugs in far
higher amounts than when he was able to medicate with marijuana, and evidently
was what he used to overdose.
"Steve was an incredibly kind, compassionate, intelligent and wise man, as
well as a balls to the wall activist. He inspired me and many others, and
will be dearly missed. I was proud to know him and be his friend.
Steve will be cremated and flown back to his family in Colorado." A
memorial service is being organized. There will be a gathering at Police
Dept. Headquarters on Wednesday 7/13 to protest law enforcement hounding
Steve McWilliams to death.
