From [c--o--n] at [dsmnet.com] Sun Oct  9 11:38:46 PDT 1994
Article: 16985 of talk.politics.drugs
From: [c--o--n] at [dsmnet.com] (Carl E. Olsen)
Newsgroups: alt.hemp,alt.drugs,talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Ron Kiczenski
Date: Sun, 9 Oct 1994 07:53:06

 Message: 152 of 155 on NORML - *Ref: 1366373
 Message Created: Thu, Oct 6, 1994 AT 17:55:33
 Message Posted: Sun, Oct 9, 1994 AT 02:49:11
 From: Myopic Glaucoma                   To: All

 Subject: News item.


    This Article taken from The Fresno Bee dated September 21, 1994

                 MEN WANT TO TEST MARIJUANA LAWS

          Defendants charged with planting marijuana say
           executive order sanctions hemp cultivation.

                     By Charles McCarthy
                       The Fresno Bee

BASS LAKE -- Three men who were arrested July 4 after erecting a sign
beside Highway 41 advertising their marijuana patch said Tuesday that
they will key their defense to an executive order issued by President
Clinton in June.

  Despite objections from the prosecution, Judge Thomas Fletcher ruled
to continue a preliminary hearing in Sierra Justice Court for Douglas
Weissman, Ron Kiczenski and Craig Steffens on Nov. 16 after Weissman's
new lawyer said he needed more time to subpoena witnesses, possibly from
across the United States.

  "We are raising extremely complex constitutional issues," lawyer
William Logan of Three Rivers said.  "This is an issue that's very
possibly going to end up in the California Supreme Court.  It is a case
of at least national, if not international, import."

  The three San Luis Obispo County men said they decided to plant
marijuana near Coarsegold on land owned by Weissman after they found
hemp among food sources in a Clinton executive order listing strategic
materials the nation needed to stockpile.  They are charged with
planting and cultivating marijuana.

  The defendants said they wanted a test case to convince officials that
by signing the executive order, Clinton overrode marijuana laws and made
the crop legal to grow openly.

  "We are serious about this," Logan said.  "Does anybody know the
effect of a presidential directive on the Bass Lake justice court?"

  Because of the continuance, it will be Nov. 16 before Logan and the
three defendants can test their arguments in court.  Despite rules
calling for speedy trials, Fletcher said if he didn't grant time to call
witnesses, an appellate court probably would reverse his decision.

  Kiczenski, who won permission to act as his own attorney, said outside
of court that Clinton's order also provides for guaranteed government
loans and equipment upgrading in factories to process hemp.  The
government also guarantees that it will buy the crops, he said.

  "We intend on walking out of here with some kind of basic precedent
that would lead people to believe that we have the right to do this,"
Kiczenski said.  "We plan to educate farmers.  They'll be able to grow a
crop that's guaranteed to sell."

  Logan and Kiczenski say there's no difference between legal hemp
plants and the marijuana Madera County Sheriff's deputies confiscated
when then arrested the three men.

  "They are all Cannabis Sativa L," Logan said.

  "The main difference between the plants is how you plant them,"
Kiczenski said.

  The emphasize the case, Kiczenski said he delivered some home-made
hemp-seed ice cream to Hillary Rodham Clinton recently in Southern
California, where she was campaigning for Democratic gubernatorial
candidate Kathleen Brown.

  "Ten minutes after you eat it, you feel revived," Kiczenski said about
his ice cream.  "It's pure proteins, amino acids, vitamins."

  He said agents who intercepted his gift assured him it hadn't been
routinely thrown away.

  --30--


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