May 18, 1999

IT AIN’T OVER YET

By Ralph Ellison

Pete Brady, the marijuana journalist and medical pot user arrested in connection with the politically-motivated bust of Libertarian politician Steve Kubby, continues to twist in the wind in rural Butte County, California.

Brady was arrested on January 21, two days after Kubby and his wife were arrested for growing medical pot. Butte County sheriffs, along with officials from the task force that busted the Kubbys, told Brady that if he didn’t provide information damaging to Kubby, he would be sent to prison.

Citing his first amendment rights as a journalist, his doctor’s medical pot recommendation, and his belief that Kubby was not breaking any laws, Brady refused to cooperate. Police then claimed to have found a handful of ornamental house plants which they falsely labeled as peyote. They charged Brady with felony cacti, possession of marijuana and a probation violation arising from a 1996 pot-growing case.

In the interim, however, Brady appears to have made officers sorry they ever met him. His tell-all article on the Kubby bust is the cover story in this month’s CANNABIS CULTURE magazine. www.cannabisculture.com An upcoming HIGH TIMES article will also detail the horrors faced by medical marijuana defendants such as Brady. He has also been appearing on US and Canadian radio shows, discussing government drug war abuses.

A local conservative daily newspaper, the Chico Enterprise-Record, ran an article about Brady’s case, revealing that Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey feels that medical marijuana recommendations are usually fraudulent. Ramsey also told the paper’s reporter that police and prosecutors are too busy to call doctors to find out if they’ve recommended pot for defendants.

Brady helped organize and participated in a public panel discussion on Prop 215 implementation, during which HIGH TIMES grow guru "Ask" Ed Rosenthal pilloried Ramsey for harming sick people and wasting tax dollars enforcing marijuana laws in general.

Ramsey joked that Rosenthal was upset because he hadn’t been smoking enough of Butte County’s potent, locally-grown "Berry Creek bud," but Rosenthal didn’t get the joke.

"You sir," Rosenthal thundered, "should resign. It’s time to get police and prosecutors out of our medical lives."

At an April hearing, prosecutors admitted that they had no proof that anything allegedly confiscated from Brady’s home was actually sacred, illegal peyote cacti. In fact, prosecutors presented no evidence at all that Brady was guilty of any crimes. A judge said he would dismiss all charges, but the prosecution threatened to refile charges and have Brady re-arrested. Because Brady fears for his safety from the undercover marijuana narcs used to arrest him the first time, he stipulated to continuing the pot charge, thus removing the need for new charges and a potentially-fatal new arrest.