DRUG TRIAL BEGINS FOR THE ANN LANDERS OF POT

OAKLAND, CALIF. - As a marijuana celebrity, Ed Rosenthal has been on
a career high. The author of a dozen cannabis self-help books and a
magazine advice column, "Ask Ed," Rosenthal is the pothead's answer to
Ann Landers, Judge Judy, Martha Stewart and the Burpee Garden Wizard
all in one.

Can't get rid of the mildew on your cannabis seedling? Try a 20
percent skim-milk solution. The feds got you in court on charges of
cultivation? Challenge their crop yield estimates. Want a high without
the tar? Use a pipe that vaporizes.

Rosenthal's renown has taken him to the Senate, where he testified
about marijuana sentencing laws, and to a dozen foreign countries,
where he served as a consultant to hemp and marijuana growers.
Throughout it all, he has carried on with impunity.

Until now.

Rosenthal is on trial in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on
charges of marijuana cultivation and conspiracy. The charges stem from
a business he ran growing marijuana to be sold for medicinal uses
under the auspices of the city of Oakland's medical marijuana
ordinance, one of many such municipal statutes in California.

If convicted on all three counts, Rosenthal, 58, faces a minimum
sentence of 10 years in prison; the conspiracy charge carries a
possible life sentence.

The trial has riled his many fans in the marijuana community, but its
implications are far broader. At its core, Rosenthal's prosecution
exposes a deepening rift between the state of California and the Bush
administration over the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, with
no middle ground for compromise in sight.

On one side, federal law enforcement officials view Rosenthal's arrest
and possible conviction as a trophy in the stepped-up war on drugs.

"There shouldn't be any doubt about our determination to enforce the
laws of the United States," said Richard Meyer, a special agent and a
spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration in San Francisco.
"Marijuana is illegal regardless of the intended use, regardless of
the person cultivating it and regardless of where it
originated."

On the other side, some state and local officials regard Rosenthal's
prosecution as an effort by the federal government to subvert the 1996
statewide voters' initiative, known as Proposition 215, that made
marijuana legal for medicinal purposes. Since it passed in California,
eight other states have approved similar laws.

"I am just speechless," said Nathan A. Miley, an Alameda County
supervisor who helped write the ordinance in Oakland when he was a
councilman. "What we were attempting to do through the city was put
together as tight a medical practice as possible. Ed was just part of
that whole effort."

A handful of court cases have failed to defuse the federal-state
tensions. In the most significant ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court
decided in 2001 that under federal law "medical necessity is not a
defense to manufacturing and distributing marijuana."

But the ruling did not address Proposition 215 and whether it violated
federal law. Moreover, it involved an organization, not an individual,
and it arose from civil litigation, not a criminal case. And rulings
by other courts since have offered some protections.

In July the California Supreme Court ruled that Proposition 215
granted medical users of marijuana "limited immunity from
prosecution." In October a federal appeals court in San Francisco
decided the federal government may not revoke the licenses of doctors
who recommend marijuana to patients.

"This is a huge conflict," said Hallye Jordan, a spokeswoman for
Attorney General Bill Lockyer, California's top prosecutor and a
supporter of the state statute. "State law legalizes medical marijuana
and federal law makes marijuana illegal. Period."

In a letter to Asa Hutchinson, the administrator of the Drug
Enforcement Administration, Lockyer characterized a flurry of federal
raids on medicinal marijuana providers last fall as "wasteful, unwise
and surprisingly insensitive." In pointing a finger directly at the
Bush administration, Lockyer's office reported that federal efforts
against "authorized California cooperatives" began only in 2001.

"While I am acutely aware that federal law conflicts with California's
on this subject and needs to be reconciled, surely an administration
with a proper sense of balance, proportion and respect for states'
rights could and should reconsider the DEA's policy and redirect its
resources," Lockyer wrote.

In a reply, Hutchinson rejected the notion of medicinal marijuana as
unsound, legally and scientifically. He mocked the suggestion that a
voters' initiative might change that. The Food and Drug
Administration, he wrote, "has never in the past approved medicine by
popular referendum, and I believe it would be ill advised to set the
precedent now."

Robert V. Eye, a criminal lawyer from Topeka, Kan., who is
representing Rosenthal, said his client was caught in the legal
crosswinds of difficult social change.

"Ed is a friction point between these competing interests," Eye said.
"It is remarkable to see this social change on the ground."

Rosenthal says it was never his intention to be drawn into the legal
tug of war. He and his wife, Jane Klein, run a publishing business out
of their hillside home, a picture-book Victorian with a lush garden
and terraced back yard.

When Rosenthal was arrested in February for growing marijuana in a
warehouse in an industrial area near the Port of Oakland, he was
engaged in what was more of a hobby than a business, he said.

"I already have my business," he said. "To me, this was a chance to do
work in the field. My profit out of it is the books. I could write
about what I learned."

Oakland is one of scores of cities and counties that enacted
ordinances to permit marijuana for medicinal purposes under
Proposition 215. The law allows seriously ill people, with a doctor's
recommendation, to grow and use marijuana as a form of treatment.

Officials in Oakland, where drug abuse and streets sales of narcotics
are a serious problem, concluded that it would be better to offer
marijuana to sick people in a regulated environment than to have them
buy it on the street. Even before the state initiative, the City
Council told the police not to pursue crimes "regarding the
distribution of marijuana for compassionate medical use."

Beginning in the early 1990s, Rosenthal devoted much of his research
and writing to exploring the medicinal benefits of marijuana. His most
recent book looks at the varieties of marijuana, with the long-term
objective, he said, of better determining which ones may be most
effective in alleviating the symptoms of diseases like cancer, AIDS,
multiple sclerosis and depression.

"I started experimenting with marijuana in the 1960s," Rosenthal said.
"When the '60s ended, I continued into the '70s. Now it is sort of
like a Framingham study: I am working on a life study."

Rosenthal's interests and the city of Oakland's needs matched. By 1998
he was deemed "an officer of the city" under the city's ordinance and
was growing thousands of marijuana starter plants at the West Oakland
growing facility. At the time of his arrest, federal agents seized
3,163 plants.

Rosenthal had sold starter plants to a variety of cooperatives and
medical marijuana clubs in Oakland and the Bay Area that dispense
marijuana as medicine. Among his customers was the Harm Reduction
Center in San Francisco, where federal agents seized 714 marijuana
plants the same day Rosenthal was arrested.

According to the indictment against Rosenthal, an undercover federal
agent and a "confidential source" bought 405 marijuana plants at the
center in January 2002 for $3,600.

Barbara J. Parker, Oakland's chief assistant city attorney, said the
city ordinance was written to give immunity under the federal
Controlled Substance Act to people like Rosenthal. She said the
immunity was the same kind afforded police officers and other public
officials who enforce laws related to controlled substances.

"The federal government didn't come after the city and say this
ordinance can't stand," Parker said. "They didn't come after the state
and say this proposition can't stand. Instead, they are going after
individuals. That makes this very difficult."

Rosenthal said he had never been told that he was doing anything wrong
or even given a hint that the city's ordinance might be "pushing the
limits of the law." By prosecuting him, Rosenthal said, the Justice
Department had put U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer in the
untenable situation of the commander of the ship in Melville's "Billy
Budd."

"He knows Billy Budd shouldn't be punished, but he is just following
the law," Rosenthal said. "Ultimately, because of the law, Billy Budd
winds up hanged."

It seems George L. Bevan Jr., the assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting
the case, anticipated such an argument. In a motion to exclude
medicinal marijuana as a defense for Rosenthal, Bevan declared,
"Ignorance of the law or a mistake of law is generally no defense to a
criminal prosecution."

Breyer granted the motion.