MEDICAL POT ADVOCATE FOUND GUILTY

Feds Score Big Victory Against California Law

A federal jury in San Francisco found Ed Rosenthal, one of the
nation's most prominent marijuana advocates, guilty Friday of felony
conspiracy and cultivation charges -- a triumph for federal
prosecutors seeking to override California's endorsement of pot as
medicine.

Jurors deliberated less than a day before finding the 58-year-old
Oakland resident -- a columnist for High Times and Cannabis Culture
magazines and author of more than a dozen books -- guilty of all three
felonies charged. Rosenthal faces a minimum of five years in prison.

His wife, brother and daughter embraced one another and wept in the
courtroom when the verdict was announced. Outside, demonstrators
chanted and waved signs advocating his acquittal.

The verdict ended the Bay Area's first federal medical-marijuana
trial, part of a high-profile federal crackdown that started
immediately after passage of Proposition 215, the 1996 California
initiative that allowed seriously ill patients to obtain the drug with
a doctor's approval.

"There is no such thing as medical marijuana," Richard Meyer, a
spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, told the
Associated Press. "We're Americans first, Californians second."

The only defense victory Friday was a jury finding that Rosenthal
conspired to grow more than 100 plants and not more than 1,000, which
would have carried a mandatory 10-year sentence. The 100-plant finding
requires at least a five-year term, which could be lessened only if
Rosenthal were to cooperate with prosecutors, something he has shown
no sign of doing.

"We're going to fight this case all the way," he declared outside the
courthouse.

Besides conspiracy and cultivating more than 100 marijuana plants,
Rosenthal was convicted of maintaining a place where marijuana was
grown. Federal agents said they found more than 3,000 plants last
February in an Oakland warehouse leased by Rosenthal, but his
attorneys argued that most of them were rootless cuttings that were
not technically "plants."

Jury Foreman for Medical Pot

In a final twist to the trial, the jury foreman said he hoped
Rosenthal would win his appeal.

"I am for the use of medical marijuana, as a number of jurors were,"
Charles Sackett, 51, a construction contractor from Sebastopol, told
reporters.

"We just couldn't base our decision on that. . . . We followed the
letter of the law."

Later, another juror called the verdict an injustice.

"We were made to feel like we had no choice, even though we were
residents of a state that has legalized medical marijuana," said
Marney Craig, 58, a property manager from Novato. "It seems like we
made a horrible mistake. I should have stood up and said, 'I'm not
convicting.' "

Craig said she realized how much information had been kept from the
jury when she drove home after the verdict and read newspaper accounts
that jurors had been told to avoid during the trial.

During a week of testimony, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer
rejected every defense attempt to tell the jury that Rosenthal was
growing marijuana for a San Francisco medical dispensary under the
terms of Prop. 215. He also barred evidence that Rosenthal had been
deputized by the city of Oakland to supply marijuana to a patients'
cooperative.

A Touch of Leniency

Federal law, the judge told jurors, prohibits growing marijuana for
any purpose. Earlier, he had disqualified prospective jurors who said
their support for Prop. 215 would make it hard for them to follow
federal law.

Breyer showed a more lenient side Friday, rejecting a request by
Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan to revoke Rosenthal's $200,000
bail and jail him until sentencing, scheduled June 4. He set a hearing
for Tuesday for prosecutors to press the issue.

Although defendants facing long terms are normally jailed after
conviction, "this is an extraordinary case," the judge said. "It comes
in the context of Proposition 215, the vote of citizens of this state,
and the relationship of the defendant and the city of Oakland."

Defense lawyers said they would ask Breyer for a new trial and, if
unsuccessful, take the case to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
in San Francisco.

Hoping for a sympathetic jury in a liberal stronghold, supporters of
Rosenthal demonstrated outside daily with tape on their mouths, handed
out flyers proclaiming jurors' right to acquit, and jammed the
courtroom. But prosecutor Bevan doggedly presented a textbook case of
marijuana growing, and Breyer thwarted defense attempts to bring the
medical marijuana debate into the courtroom.