 Hello, I'm James Randi. Now this video will be somewhat different from the usual material that I offer you for consideration. It's prompted by a letter I just received from the Reason Corporation in California. A letter that has me infuriated and dismayed. In fact, I must admit that I'm embarrassed at the fact that this video will be viewed beyond the bounds of the United States of America and that I have to share this with audiences worldwide who may very well choose to snicker at those crazy Americans. As many of you may know, I was not born a citizen of the USA. I chose to become a citizen and I worked hard at it. That's why I believe that such matters as the one I'm about to discuss with you take on a more than ordinary importance for me. In late 2007, a man named Charles C. Lynch was arrested on federal drug charges for operating a medical marijuana dispensary in California. Now, as you may know, medical marijuana has been legal in California since 1996, as well as in 12 other states. Mr. Lynch was doing all that he legally could to help people get the medicine they needed to manage their specific health problems. One prominent example of his work was providing doctor-approved medication to a teenager named Colin Beck, who is suffering from bone cancer and had been told by his oncologist that using medical marijuana would help ease the pain of losing a leg to the disease. Owen Beck played football at soccer for his high school. You know, pretty oblivious to all the problems in the world until it happened. I was playing soccer and it was really hurting one day when I was running. So I just kind of had to stop playing soccer and I went and got an MRI and it was just a medium-sized tumor just in the middle of my leg. Doctors told Owen he had bone cancer. I started crying. Owen's parents, Debbie and Steve. And then they said to Owen, doctors said to Owen, this is going to change your life. Actually, at the time I was just concerned with, you know, me getting through the next day. The whole family's calm California life stopped and the Beck's headed to Stanford Medical Center. I was worried that he was going to die. 17 years old, your life just stopped. Chemotherapy began right away and the chemicals attacked Owen's hair follicles, stomach cells and mouth. So I got a bunch of mouth stores, which was very painful, couldn't eat very much. And then it destroys your appetite and then whatever you can eat, you throw up. And for Owen the athlete, yet another blow. Doctors amputated his leg to try to stop the cancer from spreading. All the powerful medications available in drug stores seemed worthless. We had a whole medicine cabinet in there full of pills that he took every single day and it did nothing. Debbie and Steve searched for anything that would help Owen feel better. One option, however, just wasn't on their radar. You know, I don't think I've ever thought about that in his situation because of his age. A new kind of drug store had recently come to the nearby city of Morro Bay. It offered medical marijuana. State government allow us for medical marijuana and local officials welcome the new dispensary and its owner, Charlie Lynch. Before we even opened, I had the mayor and the city council members all came by and toured the facility. That's the mayor shaking Lynch's hand at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. The new dispensary helped spark discussion between Owen and his dad. I was just talking one day with my dad and we just, we brought up the subject of it. And it was like, that'll work, that's what we're going to do. This is only one example of how Charles Lynch has been able to help sufferers, ethically, correctly and in a perfectly legal and approved manner under the law. In March of 2007, federal agents raided Charlie's dispensary and home with guns drawn. A raid by armed federal agents. Local medical marijuana users will have to go elsewhere for the time being after federal agents and sheriff's deputies shut off their supply. The Arroyo Grande home of dispensary operator Charles Lynch was also raided Thursday morning. They came in and threw me on the ground and rushed through the house like I was a criminal or something. The dispensary was later reopened with the city's approval, but was then shut down again after the Department of Justice threatened the landlord with foreclosure if the dispensary wasn't closed. That dispensary was permanently closed down in May of 2007. Mr. Lynch was forced to the ground at gunpoint, then arrested and charged under federal statutes with distributing marijuana, conspiring to distribute marijuana, and providing marijuana to persons under the age of 21. He stayed in federal custody until his family posted a $400,000 bond for his release. He was placed under house service for nearly 10 months and forced to wear an electronic ankle monitor. Just to show you how understanding the federal agents were, I'll tell you that the cord on the man's ankle monitor was too short to even reach the bathroom. He had to find a way around that problem. Now consider, the average first degree murder sentence in California is only 20 years. I repeat, for the first degree murder, a killer usually gets a 20-year sentence. Charles Lynch faces up to 85 years in prison if convicted. Something else you should know. In courts, Charlie's lawyers were precluded from discussing the actual legality of his dispensary. They could even mention the term medical marijuana, and statements from his character witnesses were incredibly edited from the court record. No, this is not a backward two-bit nation somewhere out in the wilds. This is the United States of America, though I think that you'll be finding this hard to believe, as I do. The verdict, Charles Lynch was found guilty on all five counts. Sentencing was delayed until late March 2009, two years after the initial raid on the dispensary. A week before the sentencing was scheduled, Attorney General Eric Holder told a news conference that the Obama administration now planned to target only persons who violate both federal and state law. Perhaps thanks to this change of emphasis, the federal judge again postponed the sentencing procedure. On this matter, Google returns over 100,000 links. I hardly think that using Swift to emphasize my outrage over this matter will make very much difference to the outcome of the case, but I had to come here to you to save my peace. The reason people drew Kerry, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Facebook, John Stossel of ABC News, Larry King, Time Magazine, the people at Google and NBC's Al Roker on an MSNBC documentary had been very active in publicizing this matter and rightly so. It is an egregious misuse of authority, a shame that no American citizen should have to live with. Are you angry and dismayed as I am? If so, I urge you to go to www.reason.com and express your concern. This is James Randi, and I thank you for your close attention to this matter.