Date: 11 Dec 93 21:19:45 PST
From: [d c green] at [pro-harold.cts.com] (David Green)
Subject: SAMUEL SKIPPER: Of Marijuana, AIDS -- And Choosing Prison
Newsgroups: sdnorml

The following article is from the San Diego Union-Tribune for today, December
11, 1993. Samuel Skipper now has both a computer and an account on this BBS.
His e-mail address is [s--p--r] at [pro-harold.cts.com], but please go easy at
sending him mail until you see him posting here. He's new to all this, and
has only managed two three-minute sessions so far. Be patient. :>


Of marijuana, AIDS -- and choosing prison

By Anne Krueger
Staff Writer

A La Mesa man, who says he needs marijuana to relieve symptoms associated
with AIDS, refused to accept a judge's offer yesterday to remain on probation
for growing the drug, saying he'd rather go to prison than face another
arrest for using it.

San Diego Municipal Judge Charles Rogers proposed that Samuel Skipper, 39,
remain on probation another nine months for a 1991 conviction on a charge of
cultivating marijuana.

He said Skipper would have to agree to allow police searches of himself and
his car -- but not his home, where Skipper admits he's grown marijuana, or
pot.

Although Rogers offered some words of sympathy about the situation, Skipper
refused to continue his probation under that condition, and the judge set new
sentencing on the case for Jan. 13.

Skipper's lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Juliana Humphrey, said Skipper could
face a maximum of three years in prison.

"I am not going to live under the thumb of the DA (district attorney) any
longer," Skipper said. "If they want to put me in jail, let them."

His case comes at a time when the issue of legalizing drugs -- prompted by
the recent comments of Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders -- has erupted again
on the national political scene.

Skipper himself received widespread attention and helped fuel the debate
locally in October when he was acquitted of two felony charges of growing
marijuana in his home.

Jurors agreed with his argument that he has a medical need for the drug
because he has the HIV virus that results in AIDS, and because he has shown
symptoms associated with AIDS.

Skipper had been placed on three years' probation in 1991 after pleading
guilty to growing marijuana, a plea he said he made at a time when his lover
was dying of AIDS.

Under the terms of that sentence, authorities were allowed to search Skipper
and his house at any time without a warrant. The charges Skipper was
acquitted of were the result of one of those searches.

After his recent trial, Skipper asked Rogers to end his probation or at least
to prohibit authorities from conducting further searches.

Yesterday, Rogers took the unusual step of issuing a nine-page ruling, saying
he expressed his sympathy for Skipper's situation, but said he had to uphold
the drug laws.

"Whether the laws against marijuana are good laws or bad laws is not the
question. Terminal illnesses aside, any reasonable person has to be troubled
by a scheme of law that makes alcohol legal and marijuana illegal," Rogers
wrote. "Those laws may in fact be poor public policy."

Rogers said that possession of drugs is illegal, and noted, "There is nothing
in the law which says people facing terminal illness are exempt from these
rules."

But the judge said that the death of Skipper's lover, and his probable death
in the near future from AIDS, to some extent excuse Skipper's use of
marijuana.

"The act of privately using marijuana -- particularly to relieve symptoms
experienced by a person facing AIDS -- does not hurt other people, even if it
is a violation of the law," Rogers wrote. "It is not as if a critically ill
person seeks to be excused from, say, a criminal battery or a theft."

Rogers said that as a judge, he must uphold laws against the transportation
and sale of marijuana "despite the court's personal questions as to the law's
wisdom in this regard."

In excluding Skipper's house from searches by police without a warrant,
Rogers said authorities could still search the house if they had enough
evidence to get a warrant from a judge.

Skipper said outside court that he could not abide by the terms of probation
offered by Rogers, because he has had to resort to buying his marijuana off
the street since authorities confiscated the greenhouse equipment he used to
grow his own plants. He said it takes three to four months to grow marijuana.

"How do they expect me to do it? It doesn't come from a stork, it comes from
the ground," he said.

Skipper said he realizes he could be sent to prison, where he wouldn't get
the marijuana he says he needs to live.

"If I'm sent to prison, I will have as much access to marijuana as I do
here," he said with a touch of sarcasm. "I have no choice but to do what
I'm doing."

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