MEDICAL MARIJUANA ACTIVIST ROSENTHAL'S FEDERAL DRUG TRIAL TURNS SURREAL

They viewed the glossy color photographs of meticulously tended
marijuana mother plants flourishing under timed lights inside an
Oakland, Calif. warehouse. Then they watched a videotape showing DEA
agents uprooting nearby marijuana cuttings to determine which had
roots, and could thus be considered "plants" under the federal
sentencing guidelines.

It was all in a day's work for jurors in the ongoing, and often
surreal, federal drug trial of former High Times advice columnist
"Ask Ed" Rosenthal, who is facing 20 years in prison for cultivating
medical cannabis.

Federal prosecutors have built their case against Rosenthal by barring
pre-trial testimony of Oakland city officials who said Rosenthal grew
the plants for the city's medical marijuana program. But the
government has subpoenaed testimony from an array of people who simply
saw the plants, including a fellow grower, the proprietor of a medical
cannabis club, Rosenthal's landlord, an electrician and even a
fireman. These legal tactics offer a blueprint of the government's
strategy to halt the distribution of medical marijuana in California -
and perhaps in the other seven states that have voted for it.

"This is the federal government at war with its own citizens and I
like to think that years from now we will look back on this as a dark
chapter in our nation's history," said California State
Assemblymember Mark Leno. "The thought of a man like Ed Rosenthal
being threatened with twenty years of imprisonment is an outrage. The
man is not a criminal."

Federal prosecutors contend that marijuana is illegal and do not
recognize California's 1996 Compassionate Use Act (Prop. 215) which
permits patients to possess, grow and consume cannabis with a doctor's
recommendation. Rosenthal, who has authored a half dozen how-to books
on marijuana growing, has been charged with maintaining a place to
grow marijuana at the Oakland warehouse and cultivating more than 100
marijuana plants at the site.

He has also been charged with conspiring to grow more than 1,000
plants with Ken Hayes and Rick Watts at the Harm Reduction Center, a
San Francisco medical marijuana club. Prosecutors say Hayes fled to
Seattle where he chartered a small plane and flew to a remote Canadian
airfield with $13,000 hidden in his pants. Watts crashed his car after
learning that he too was facing 20 years in prison and his attorney
says his injuries prevent him from appearing in court.

Rosenthal's trial has become a cause celeb in Northern California
where activists have launched a billboard campaign to condemn the
imprisonment of medical cannabis growers. The billboards read:
"Compassion, Not Federal Prison."

Federal prosecutors made an unsuccessful appeal to the judge to keep
Rosenthal and his attorneys from speaking to the press after the San
Francisco Examiner published a front page photo of Rosenthal and his
daughter with the headline, "My Dad's A Hero."

The government kicked off its case against Rosenthal by subpoenaing
James Halloran, his former marijuana cultivation and racquetball
partner, who was arrested in the same DEA sweep last February.
Halloran testified that shortly after the passage of Prop. 215, he
signed a lease on the 800-square-foot warehouse and brought in lights,
fans and growing trays to raise a crop of cloned cannabis plants with
Rosenthal. Halloran dissolved the partnership in 1998 and purchased
plants from Rosenthal for his own 4,000 plant medical marijuana
growing operation.

Halloran, who was facing three life terms for these activities, agreed
to cooperate with the government for a reduced sentence of 56 months.
Rosenthal's former landlord, Leslie Wilmer, also testified that he saw
Rosenthal's cannabis crop, as did German Sierra, a firefighter with
the Oakland Fire Department. Sierra, who conducted a fire safety
inspection at the warehouse, noted that Rosenthal had an Oakland
business license. Both men were prevented from explaining why it did
not occur to them to report the crop to police.

"I've ruled that the purpose for which the marijuana was grown is not
a defense and is irrelevant," said Judge Charles Breyer.

Judge Breyer also rejected the defense's argument that the government
entrapped Rosenthal and blocked the testimony of a DEA agent who told
local activists that he would respect California's medical cannabis
laws. DEA agent Dan Tuey was permitted to take the stand to
painstakingly document over 3,000 plants and cuttings seized from the
warehouse, a process that appeared to exhaust jurors. Defense
attorneys doggedly challenged the plant counts, but were admonished by
the judge for commenting on the government's evidece.

Divide And Conquer

The DEA contends that Rosenthal is using Prop. 215 as a smokescreen
for drug profiteering, and prosecutors trying the case have attempted
to turn growers and club operators against each other.

When Hayes fled to Canada, his medical marijuana club underwent the
same upheaval that many businesses endure when a founder suddenly
leaves. But prosecutors moved to take advantage of the turmoil. "The
feds are using us as an example to scare all these other dispensers of
medical cannabis into submission," said Ken Hayes, who is seeking
political asylum in Canada. "I didn't want to be used as a federal
government trophy."

Former club employee Robert Martin, who was forced to testify under a
grant of immunity, alleged that Hayes drew down the club's accounts to
pay for his exile. Bills went unpaid and the power was shut off.
Martin, who now runs another medical marijuana club, began covering
expenses out of his own pocket, but testified that he wrote Rosenthal
bad checks for his plants because he believed Rosenthal was attempting
to take over the operation. The prosecution then produced an unsigned
letter to Rosenthal, seized from Watts' computer. The letter suggests
that Rosenthal was selling bug-infested plants as an act of "willfull
sabotage" to infect other growers and corner the medical marijuana
market, a charge Rosenthal denies.

Both Rosenthal and Watts discount the government's claim that there
was a power struggle at the club.

Rosenthal says he was simply concerned that the club, "continue to
take care of patients and supply them with marijuana." Watts says the
Harm Reduction Center was being run by a board of directors that San
Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan had encouraged to avoid
management disputes. "I never intended to run the club," said Watts,
who said he was in charge of building maintenance and overseeing the
club's counseling program.

Jane Weirick, a long-time medical marijuana activist and consultant to
Bay Area medical cannabis dispensaries, said the Harm Reduction Center
simply suffered from a lack of leadership. "There was no one really
qualified to run the place and we were concerned that the people who
had legal control of it were becoming an embarrassment to the city,"
said Weirick. "It was a very big ship with no rudder in an ocean full
of icebergs."

Leno, a former San Francisco city supervisor, believes that that the
city should consider growing and distributing its own medical
cannabis. Leno authored a successful ballot measure last November
which directed the city to study the project. Some patients are
frustrated that the measure did not compel the city to act, but Leno
says a select committee of city supervisors is pursuing the issue.

"The question is how to give patients access to their medicine if
the federal government is going to continue their assault on those
growers who, at great risk, attempt to provide patients with their
physician recommended medicine," said Leno.