BILLBOARD CAMPAIGN URGES SUPPORT FOR OAKLAND POT GURU

East Coast Nonprofit Bankrolls Bay Area Ads Backing Cannabis Reform

A Massachusetts-based nonprofit group is placing 150 billboards in Oakland
and San Francisco to urge support for convicted marijuana grower and
activist Ed Rosenthal.

The billboards, of various sizes, have two slogans. One is "Free Ed. Free
The Jury. Free America," and the other is "Vote Your Conscience. Free
America." The signs are the work of Change the Climate Inc., a Greenfield,
Mass., educational nonprofit group.

"Change the Climate is a national organization primarily of parents and
business people," said executive director Joseph H. White Jr. "Our
perspective is that existing marijuana laws for the most part are really
counterproductive, they're a waste of tax dollars, ... and as a parent,
they put my children at risk."

The all-volunteer group has run ad campaigns in Washington, D.C., and
elsewhere calling attention to the government's huge spending on
prosecution and imprisonment of marijuana offenders.

California law allows medical marijuana use, but federal law still bans all
growing, possession and use. Rosenthal, 58, of Oakland, was arrested in
2002 by Drug Enforcement Administration agents. Jurors at his federal trial
were not allowed to consider his status under California's medical
marijuana law, and were not told of his protection by an Oakland ordinance.

"When the stormtroopers of the federal government busted in while he was
doing the city's good work, and the judge would not allow any consideration
of a law now supported by over 80 percent of Americans, it cried out for
justice, and that's why we chose the case," White said.

White, 47, is a father of three and a co-founder of Share Group Inc., a
telemarketing firm that does fund-raising, voter outreach, customer service
and grass-roots organizing for progressive nonprofits and socially
responsible companies. Among Change the Climate's directors is Mal Warwick,
founder and chairman of a direct-mail fund-raising business in Berkeley.

This is the largest billboard campaign Change the Climate has mounted so
far, White said, estimating its cost "in the tens of thousands." White said
the group's funding "comes from business executives like Peter Lewis --
chairman and CEO of insurance giant Progressive Corp. -- and others" as
well as parents and others who see the ads.

Lewis has helped bankroll drug reform efforts across the nation, including
California's 1996 medical marijuana initiative. Financier George Soros and
University of Phoenix founder John Sperling, who often pool their money
with Lewis' for drug reform efforts, are not donors to Change the Climate,
White said.

The group's 2001 tax return shows revenue of about$34,000, of which $31,000
came from just two donors whose names are blanked out; White said he
doesn't recall who they were.

"We don't have a lot of contributors -- we have a handful of well-off
individuals who are often the kind of people who help fund new
organizations, whether they be in marijuana reform or other social issues,"
he said, adding that more donors have given since 2001. "One of our larger
contributors over the last two years is a well-known Bay Area high-tech
entrepreneur."