ROSENTHAL PLEDGES TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA USE

SAN FRANCISCO - Ed Rosenthal is on a crusade. And a federal felony
conviction isn't going to slow down his fight to legalize marijuana.

"No law should be more harmful than the behavior it's attempting to
regulate," Rosenthal said Thursday. "How harmless does a drug have to
be to be legal?"

The self-described "Guru of Ganja" barely hung on to his freedom
Wednesday when a federal judge sentenced him to one day in prison,
then credited him for time served and let him go.

Prosecutors had asked U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer to sentence
Rosenthal to 6 1/2 years behind bars for his January marijuana conviction.

Sounding anything but contrite, a red-faced Rosenthal immediately
lashed out.

"I don't think one day in jail is justice," Rosenthal shouted to
dozens of supporters outside federal court Wednesday. "There should be
no criminal penalties for marijuana. All marijuana should be legal."

Rosenthal, who received three years supervised release and was ordered
to abide by state and federal laws, including drug laws, has
repeatedly refused to answer questions about his own marijuana use.

"I'm not doing anything that's outside the restrictions placed on me,"
he said Thursday. "I'm not growing marijuana."

Rosenthal, who dropped out of college in 1967, had a brief stint as a
stockbroker before becoming interested in marijuana cultivation and helping
launch High Times magazine. He's authored several books on marijuana,
including "The Big Book of Buds" and "Ask Ed: Marijuana Law. Don't Get Busted."

Despite the lenient sentence, Rosenthal filed his notice of appeal
Thursday.

GreenAid, the Medical Marijuana Legal Defense and Education Fund,
Inc., has received more than $100,000 to help pay for his defense.

His attorney, Dennis Riordan, believes his case is strong and was only
bolstered by Breyer's symbolic sentence.

"You like a case where the claims of error -- when you connect the
dots -- add up to a theme," he said. "In this case they do."

Rosenthal will ask the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to consider
whether Breyer erred in excluding medical marijuana evidence from the
trial.

"There's very good law that says judges can't take defenses from
juries," Riordan said.

The appeals court also will be asked whether a city or municipality
may grant immunity to people growing and distributing medical
marijuana. It's the same protection offered to undercover police
officers buying drugs, Riordan said.

The law says "any official who's enforcing state or federal law
relating to drugs cannot be arrested," he said.

California's Proposition 215, which allows marijuana as medicine, was
passed by voters in 1996. Eight other states also have declared
medical marijuana legal, although federal authorities say any
marijuana use is illegal.

Deputy U.S. drug czar Andrea Barthwell, in San Francisco on Thursday
visiting a drug treatment center, called the notion of smoking pot for
medicinal purposes "silly."

"We prefer to deliver the active ingredient in the pill form," she
said, referring to the drug Marinol, which contains a synthetic form
of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. "We do not want to
encourage patients to smoke weed ... or smoke opium when we have much
more effective ways of delivering that stuff."

Rosenthal was arrested Feb. 12, 2002, for marijuana cultivation and
conspiracy. He had been growing starter plants in a warehouse in
Oakland, in his capacity as an "officer of the city" under the city's
medical marijuana ordinance. The plants were distributed to
organizations and clubs that serve the seriously ill.