RALLY URGES RELAXATION OF POT LAWS

There may have been a haze in the air, but organizers of the annual Freedom
Rally on the Boston Common clearly saw their goal, to decriminalize
marijuana and allow medicinal use.

As the smell of pot mixed with incense, and the band onstage competed with
numerous bongo players and guitar strummers, organizers from the
Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition spoke of their confidence that
marijuana will be decriminalized in the state. They cited the non-binding
results of votes last November in 20 districts where citizens, by an average
of 2-to-1, instructed their state representatives to decriminalize pot. No
bills have made it out of committee, but that has not discouraged MassCann
president Bill Downing .

"We expect very soon to see Massachusetts decriminalize marijuana," Downing
said. "It will probably have to be done through the initiative process,
because legislators are reluctant to pursue it unless they are forced to do
so."

About 45,000 attended the festival, Boston police said. At least 45 arrests
were made on drug-related charges, police said. An organizer said attendance
appeared to be down from last year.

Canada's decision to decriminalize possession of less than two-thirds of an
ounce of marijuana also encourages MassCann, Downing said, along with the
case of Ed Rosenthal , a Californian who was deputized by the city of
Oakland to grow marijuana for medicinal use and convicted in January in
federal court of cultivation and conspiracy to grow more than 1,000
marijuana plants, after a raid on his home.

A judge sentenced Rosenthal to a one-day prison term and said he had already
served it after he was arrested. The activist has since become a symbol of
the movement and spoke twice at yesterday's Freedom Rally.

"The government did in six months what I've been trying to do for 35 years,"
said Rosenthal, coauthor of "Why Marijuana Should Be Legal" and author of 12
other books about marijuana. "The whole legal situation has catapulted me
into being a spokesman for the movement, and I really appreciate their
help."

Rosenthal is appealing his conviction, while federal prosecutors are
appealing his sentence.

Rachel, a 34-year-old government worker in Rhode Island who did not want her
last name used, called Rosenthal "courageous" after buying two of his books.

"I'm glad to see people getting together on the issue," she said. "Most
people walk around and don't express an opinion, because they're afraid of
persecution. But the numbers here speak for themselves, when you look at
everyone who's come here."