DRUG TRIAL BEGINS FOR THE ANSWER MAN OF POT

As a marijuana celebrity, Ed Rosenthal has been on a career roll. The
author of a dozen cannabis self-help books and a magazine advice
column, "Ask Ed," Mr. 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 powdery 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 harmful tar? Use a pipe that vaporizes it.

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

Until now.

On Tuesday, Mr. Rosenthal goes on trial in federal 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 counts, Mr. Rosenthal, who is 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, Mr. 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 Mr. 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 Special Agent Richard Meyer, a
spokesman for the federal 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 Mr.
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 that
initiative passed in California, eight other states have approved
similar laws.

A handful of court cases have failed to defuse the federal-state
tensions. In the most significant ruling, the United States 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 then have offered some
protections.

Mr. 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 here, a picture-book Victorian
with a lush garden and terraced backyard. When Mr. Rosenthal was
arrested last February for growing marijuana plants 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.

Oakland is among the cities and counties in California that have
enacted ordinances to permit marijuana for medicinal purposes under
Proposition 215. The law allows seriously ill people, who have a
doctor's recommendation, to cultivate and use marijuana as a form of
treatment.