RELUCTANT JURY CONVICTS MEDICAL POT GROWER

SAN FRANCISCO -- The man who has been called the Martha Stewart of
marijuana was convicted by a reluctant federal jury Friday of supplying
hundreds of pot seedlings to patients through Bay Area dispensaries.

Edward Rosenthal, 58, the author of a dozen books on marijuana and an
advice column that runs in two national marijuana advocacy magazines, faces
at least five years in prison and steep fines for violating U.S. laws on
marijuana cultivation and conspiracy.

The jury refused to convict him of growing more than 1,000 pot plants, as
the government had charged. The higher number would have subjected him to a
10-year minimum sentence.

Rosenthal, who remains free on $200,000 bond, will be sentenced in June.

The conviction was the federal government's biggest trophy so far in a
two-year war that has closed pot farms and cooperatives from Chico to West
Hollywood, some of them sanctioned by their communities as official pot
providers under California's medical marijuana initiative.

"My case clearly demonstrates that it is time for a national debate on the
issue of medical marijuana," Rosenthal said after the verdict.

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration, however, issued a new warning
to marijuana outlets Friday.

"None of them should be surprised when we pay them a visit," said DEA
spokesman Richard Meyer.

No pot operation should view itself as being condoned, he said, by "the
fact that we have not gotten to all of them."

Valerie Corral, a leader of the state's medical marijuana movement, said
the federal efforts had not diminished pot use among patients. The chief
effect of Rosenthal's conviction, she said, would be to further divert
marijuana trade to the black market and "just make prices higher."

The jury that convicted Rosenthal on three counts had been screened to
disqualify dozens of potential jurors who voiced sympathy for Proposition
215, passed in 1996 to permit the cultivation of marijuana as medicine for
seriously ill people.

Nevertheless, the jurors that remained "absolutely" would have acquitted if
it could have -- "no doubt about it," foreman Charles Sackett said outside
the courtroom.

The Sebastopol man said sympathy or lack of it wasn't the issue because of
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer's instruction that, regardless of
Proposition 215, no pot cultivation could be consistent with federal law.

The case bore striking similarities to the federal trial last summer of
Bryan Epis in Sacramento. Epis, the moving force behind a pot buyers' club
in Chico, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after a trial in which U.S.
District Judge Frank Damrell barred medical evidence and took extraordinary
steps to shield jurors from demonstrators.

Some of the same groups that rallied outside Epis' trial passed out
leaflets outside the court in San Francisco. Two blocks away, in San
Francisco's Civic Center Plaza, a billboard featuring Epis' 8-year-old
daughter was erected as part of a statewide medical pot campaign.

Rosenthal's wife and 12-year-old daughter sat in the front row and openly
cried as the verdict was read to the packed courtroom.

Jurors said they were made aware that medical use was the issue by Breyer's
striking of all allusions to it during testimony. One such instance
occurred Thursday, when Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley, called as a
witness for Rosenthal, testified he met the defendant "in the context of
Proposition 215."

Breyer struck that testimony. He also did not permit Miley to testify about
Oakland's deputizing of Rosenthal in an attempt to shield him from federal
prosecution for supplying a city-sponsored medical pot club.

Miley did tell the jury, "Mr. Rosenthal was growing starter plants for
people who couldn't grow them themselves."

In cross-examination by Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan, Miley said he
"probably" saw thousands of plants, some as tall as 4 feet, on a visit to
Rosenthal's West Oakland facility.

Bevan said during closing arguments that when Rosenthal's Oakland operation
was raided a year ago, agents recovered 628 rooted plants. Other plants
were linked to Rosenthal by stakes stamped with his Medfarm brand name, the
prosecutor said.

The defense, unable to argue about a possible medical justification, made a
thinly veiled plea for jury nullification in disregard of the federal
anti-pot law. "Please do justice," said defense lawyer Robert Eye. "We
don't ask you to check your common sense of justice at the door when you
judge this case. I can only hope there are those of you whose sense of
justice ... "

But Breyer interrupted. "It's not your determination whether a law is just
or unjust," the judge told jurors. "That can't be your task."

Rosenthal issued a statement Friday night that he will appeal on grounds
the truth was barred from the trial.

If the jury had known of Oakland's attempt to immunize him from
prosecution, it would have acquitted him, he said.

But Sackett, when asked if such testimony would have changed the verdict,
said, "Unfortunately, it would not have" because the judge's instruction
about the federal law left jurors no choice.