MEDICAL POT ACTIVISTS STAGE PROTEST RALLY

SAN FRANCISCO -- About 50 medical marijuana activists rallied under
Wednesday's leaden skies near the United Nations Plaza farmer's
market, wielding a bullhorn and picket signs to demand that federal
officials act on a formal request to loosen the drug's ban.

This weekend, "Guru of Ganja" Ed Rosenthal of Oakland hosted a
"Wonders of Cannabis" festival in Golden Gate Park featuring
joint-rolling contests and an appearance by comedian and noted stoner
Tommy Chong.

Mixed messages, some drug policy experts say sadly.

"Sometimes I think cannabis activists are their own worst enemies,"
said University of California, Berkeley public policy professor
Robert MacCoun. "They rely too heavily on a 1960s countercultural
playbook, but it's precisely that kind of association that inflames opponents."

Rosenthal insists McCoun and other critics miss the point: The Bay
Area supports medical marijuana, and the ease with which the region
has assimilated it should be a model for the rest of the nation.

"It's not like we're trying to be far out, we're just appealing to a
rainbow," he said. "Marijuana is the one issue that crosses gender,
age, ethnic and political lines. There's only one group that's
opposed to marijuana and that's the criminal justice system. It's fat
in the budget for them and they don't want to lose it."

Part of the festival's proceeds benefits Green Aid, a medical
marijuana legal defense and education fund that's defraying legal
costs for defendants including Rosenthal himself, as he appeals his
2003 federal conviction and one-day jail sentence for growing marijuana.

Besides Chong, other guests include policy heavyweights such as
Marsha Rosenbaum, the Drug Policy Alliance's West Coast director,
politicos such as San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, and an
array of medical-marijuana lawyers. That said, "we think it's going
to be a really fun festival," Rosenthal added. "I'm known for my parties."

Methods may vary so long as the goal is the same, said Bruce Mirken,
the Marijuana Policy Project's communications director, who speaks
Sunday at Rosenthal's event. "What we're seeing is the sign of a true
grassroots movement where, frankly, you can't control people."

Federal drug-war leaders paint drug policy reform -- particularly
marijuana reform -- as an insidious, well-funded and carefully
orchestrated plot, Mirken said. Actually, it's "a very disparate
collection of folks from all corners of society who've come to the
honest conclusion that our current marijuana laws make no sense," he insisted.

"If this were a great, disciplined conspiracy, there probably
wouldn't be a 'giant rolling contest' -- I'm willing to bet no poll
or focus group has tested that as an effective method of reaching the public."

Mirken said his own organization strives for a "straight-laced and
buttoned-down approach" so as to shatter stereotypes and emphasize
facts. "But in any mass movement you've got people with different
attitudes, different styles, different approaches. And let's face it,
the Bay Area is not a community that does straight-laced really well."

As for his participation in Rosenthal's event, "part of what any
organization needs to do is reach out to the people who are
interested in your issue," Mirken said. "We do want to reach out to
those folks even if the event itself is not necessarily the kind of
thing we ourselves would organize. Even at a lighthearted event,
we're hoping there's an opportunity to address some serious issues."

Perhaps foremost among those issues is how to proceed with national
efforts to change marijuana policy.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June squashed activists' and patients' best
hope of judicial relief by upholding the federal ban. In a case
brought partly by an Oakland patient, the court found medical
marijuana activity even occurring entirely within California's
borders and with no money changing hands still affects the overall
national market for marijuana, and so falls within Congress'
constitutional reach to regulate.

Nine days after the Supreme Court ruling, the House of
Representatives voted 264-161 against a bipartisan amendment to bar
spending federal tax dollars to prosecute patients and caregivers in
states with medical marijuana laws. Marijuana advocates noted the
amendment got 13 votes more than it had a year earlier; it still fell
57 votes short of the 218 it needed to pass.

The latest, bipartisan iteration of a perennial House bill to carve
out an exception in federal law for states to allow medical marijuana
was introduced in May. It was referred to the House Energy and
Commerce Committee's health subcommittee -- chaired by Rep. Nathan
Deal, R-Ga. -- where it has languished without action like its many
predecessors.

And neither this Republican administration nor its Democratic
predecessor has shown any interest in making the administrative
decision to move marijuana to a less restrictive schedule of the
Controlled Substances Act, thus acknowledging and allowing its medical use.

Oakland-based Americans for Safe Access in 2002 helped petition the
Department of Health and Human Services and the Drug Enforcement
Administration to reschedule marijuana. HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt at
his Senate confirmation hearing in January said the department's
review would be done by August.

That didn't happen, so activists gathered Wednesday outside HHS
offices in seven cities. In Washington, they brought Leavitt notice
of their intent to sue; in San Francisco, they rallied in U.N. Plaza.

"We're hoping this has an effect on D.C., although not much seems to
move them," said ASA legal campaign director Kris Hermes.

ASA campaign director Caren Woodson was one of two representatives
who met Wednesday with HHS regional director Calise Munoz.

"She said, 'I have communicated all of your concerns'... so Leavitt
is hearing the message, which is a success as far as I'm concerned,"
Woodson said.

"The battle continues, and I feel the voices are getting louder and
louder... The walls are going to tumble, at some point."