The 'Guru of Ganja' Gets a Day in Jail
A judge frees activist who has become a symbol in a clash with the federal government over California's medical marijuana laws.

By Eric Bailey and Marcelo Rodriguez, Special to The Times

Ed Rosenthal has the look of a high school biology teacher and the resume of a stoner. For years he has written passionately about marijuana for High Times magazine, authored books about pot and served as a high priest of the medical marijuana movement.

On Wednesday, he added a new chapter.

The 59-year-old pot activist entered federal court in San Francisco facing years behind bars for cultivating more than 100 marijuana plants for a Bay Area medical pot dispensary. He walked out a free man.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer brushed aside a plea from prosecutors for a 6 1/2-year sentence, declaring that Rosenthal should spend just one day in jail. He then waived the sentence for time already served after Rosenthal's arrest last year by drug agents.

Breyer cited the "extraordinary circumstances" of the case, including eight jurors who said after the trial that they would have acquitted Rosenthal had he been allowed to present evidence that his pot plants were intended for medical use.

The judge's decision was met by wild cheering and applause in the courtroom.

"I take responsibility for my actions that bring me here today. I took these actions because my conscience led me to help people who are suffering," Rosenthal said. "These laws are doomed."

It brought an end to a topsy-turvy legal case that thrust Rosenthal into the national spotlight. He became a symbol of the ongoing clash over California's medical marijuana laws and the uncompromising prohibitions of the federal government.

"I think Ed becomes a little more of a folk hero," said Mike Corral, co-founder of a Santa Cruz medical pot cooperative that drew national attention after a celebrated drug bust led the City Council to rush to its defense. "It really doesn't change anything in terms of the law. But it's great for Ed and gives some hope to the movement."

Others were more circumspect. Richard Cowan, editor and publisher of MarijuanaNews.Com and former director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said Rosenthal's one-day sentence does not undo stiff federal sentences handed down to other medical marijuana patients in California.

"I'm delighted for Ed," Cowan said. "But this doesn't do anything for any of the others."

Tom Riley, a spokesman for the president's Office of National Drug Control Policy, said the government would not be deterred from continuing to aggressively prosecute pot cases. He said Rosenthal and many others are "cynically using the suffering of sick people to advance their agenda."

"His mission is to legalize marijuana," Riley said. "That is his religion. Let's not portray him as a social worker."

A 'Cash Cow'

Assistant U.S. Atty. George Bevan argued that Rosenthal's pot-growing operation was not a "humanitarian" enterprise, but a "cash cow."

"He put out thousands of plants," Bevan said. "I don't think anyone disagrees with helping sick people, but as far as we're concerned, it was a business."

With the faint scent of cannabis wafting outside the courtroom, Rosenthal walked into the streets to cheers from a throng of about 150 supporters. His wife and two grown children joined Rosenthal at a victory rally in a parking lot across the street from the San Francisco Federal Building.

A woman in a wheelchair held up a sign reading, "That's my medicine they want to take away," and led chants of "Ed! Ed! Ed!" when Rosenthal took the makeshift podium.

Rosenthal said his triumph represented "Day 1 in the crusade to bring down the marijuana laws, all the marijuana laws All marijuana should be legalized."

Despite the lenient sentence, the self-professed "Guru of Ganja" called Judge Breyer and prosecutors "corrupt" and demanded their resignation. Rosenthal has appealed his conviction.

His lawyers had tried to argue during trial that Rosenthal was protected by California's voter-approved Prop. 215, the state's 1996 medical marijuana initiative, and was shielded as well because the city of Oakland had deputized him to grow pot for patients.

But the judge did not let the jury hear those arguments. They found Rosenthal guilty of marijuana cultivation. Several jurors later said they would have acquitted him if they had known he was growing the plants for patients.

In a May 27 letter to Breyer, eight of the 12 jurors asked the judge "to bring the law into alignment with morality and ethics" by sparing Rosenthal prison time "because we convicted him without having all of the evidence."

Last week, California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer also asked Breyer for leniency in Rosenthal's sentencing, citing the protections he could claim under California's medical marijuana law.

"This is huge," said San Francisco Dist. Atty. Terence Hallinan. "They [federal prosecutors] thought that if they could stop medical marijuana here, they could stop it anywhere."

Rosenthal had mounted an aggressive public relations effort to draw attention to his case. Some activists said that effort paid off.

"I've always said there's two courts you have to win in -- the trial court and the court of public opinion," said Steve Kubby, a medical marijuana activist who co-authored a book with Rosenthal that advocates legalizing pot. "Ed puts a face on the drug war and forces the government to own up to what it's been doing."

Though eight other states have laws legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana for medicinal use, California has been the focal point for federal prosecutions.

Since 2000, federal prosecutors have filed charges against 42 people -- all of them in California -- in cases related to medicinal marijuana, according to Americans for Safe Access, a group pushing to legalize marijuana for patients. Additionally, six dispensaries of medical marijuana in California have been raided by federal agents in the last two years.

A spokesman for U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft would not comment. But an agent in the Drug Enforcement Agency's San Francisco office said that Prop. 215, which requires patients to obtain a doctor's recommendation, was purposely "written very vaguely."

"The advocates are deceiving the public," said Richard Meyer, DEA special agent and public information officer. "Their agenda is not only to legalize medicinal marijuana, but to legalize the use of all marijuana and ultimately all drugs."

Meyer said there is nothing unusual about enforcing federal marijuana laws in California.

"Proposition 215 is in direct conflict with federal law, and the U.S. Constitution makes it clear that federal law supercedes state law," he said. He compared federal efforts against medicinal marijuana to mandated desegregation in the 1960s in the South.

Some medicinal marijuana advocates believe California has been singled out because President Bush did not carry the state in the 2000 election. But Rosenthal contends that it is more a government jobs issue.

California is the heart of medical marijuana in the United States, he says. For federal drug warriors, the fight against pot is "big business."

"When you add up all they spend to enforce marijuana laws, it comes out to about $15 billion a year," Rosenthal says. "That's a lot of law enforcement jobs."

The graying Rosenthal, grandfatherly in dress and manner, doesn't look the part of poster child for the marijuana movement. Yet he has been at the center of the pot wars for nearly 30 years.

He has written a number of books on marijuana cultivation. His advice column in High Times magazine, "Ask Ed," has become a sort of "Dear Abby" for the stoner set. He has been a longtime advocate for the drug's full legalization.

Rosenthal insists his own pot growing is "exclusively for medicinal" purposes. Personal usage was not an issue in Rosenthal's case.

Focus on Research

Recently, he says, he has focused on researching whether different strains of marijuana are better able to alleviate symptoms of diseases such as AIDS, cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy.

"There are about 30 different active substances in marijuana, and they deal with symptoms differently," he said.

As a result of the Rosenthal case, U.S. Reps. Sam Farr (D-Carmel) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) have proposed a bill -- the Truth in Trials Act -- that would amend the federal Controlled Substances Act to allow state laws relating to medicinal marijuana to be raised in federal court cases.

In May, U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) introduced a more comprehensive bill, HR 2233, that would force the federal government to recognize state laws on medical use of marijuana.