Bryan Epis, a 35-year-old Chico resident growing cannabis for himself and four seriously ill patients under California’s 1996 medical-marijuana law, was sentenced to a mandatory minimum of 10 years in federal prison in Sacramento.[1] U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. refused to let Epis present a medical defence, citing the Supreme Court’s Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative ruling, after a jury convicted him of growing more than 100 plants and conspiracy to grow more than 1,000 following a 1997 raid.[1]
Prosecutor Samuel Wong argued Epis was no different from any other drug trafficker and urged findings of perjury and supervision of a criminal enterprise, ending with the words He’s a crook.[1] California NORML director Dale Gieringer called the term atrocious, saying Epis had acted in good faith under state law and thought what he was doing was legal.[1]
Epis had faced Sacramento on an original sentencing date of 23 September, when supporters held what organisers called the largest medical-marijuana demonstration to date and 29 people were arrested in civil disobedience at the federal courthouse.[1] By June 2004 he remained in federal prison, separated from his 9-year-old daughter, while his lawyers took his case to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.[2]
