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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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US: King Of Pot Books Pleads Innocent To Marijuana Charges
Michelle R. Smith Associated Press
Monday 04 Mar 2002 To generations of marijuana enthusiasts, Ed Rosenthal is the answer man, his mind brimming with information on how to grow the world's best buds. To the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Rosenthal is just a big drug dealer. Caught in a struggle between federal and state authorities who have been at odds since California and other states legalized medical marijuana, Rosenthal freely admits he was growing the 600 pot plants that agents seized from an Oakland warehouse on Feb. 12. "The laws against medical marijuana put anyone with a conscience in the middle of a major conflict," Rosenthal said. "You want to help the patients, but the federal government says it's illegal." On Monday, Rosenthal pleaded innocent to conspiring to grow 1,000 or more marijuana plants, federal charges that carry a minimum 10-year prison term. The DEA also raided the Harm Reduction Center, a medical marijuana club in San Francisco, and arrested its director, Richard Watts, along with another alleged supplier, James Halloran of Oakland. Halloran also pleaded innocent Monday. Watts is awaiting arraignment. The U.S. Attorney's office won't comment on the case. But Richard Meyer, spokesman for the DEA in San Francisco, said Rosenthal and the other defendants simply were breaking the law. "Our job is to enforce the federal drug statutes and we're committed to doing that," he said. Rosenthal, 57, says he's anything but a drug dealer out for profit, noting that the plants agents seized didn't have buds -- the part of the plant normally smoked for a high. He planned to give out cuttings to seriously ill people. "I was growing clones so patients could clone their own," he said. Rosenthal, who helped found the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and used to write the "Ask Ed" column for "High Times" magazine, has researched and written nearly 20 books on marijuana. Millions of copies have been sold, mostly in the United States, with titles such as "The Growers Handbook," "The Big Book of Buds," and "Ask Ed: Marijuana Law. Don't Get Busted" which offers tips on avoiding arrest. "It worked up until a few weeks ago," he says, with a wry smile. He and his wife, Jane Klein, run their publishing company, Quick Trading Co., out of their rambling Victorian home on an Oakland hill. The self-taught expert in botany spends much of his time in his garden, tending to his orchids, pineapples, olive trees, and dozens of other legal plants. A letter on his office wall thanks him for the lettuce-growing tips he published in "National Gardening" magazine. But primarily, Rosenthal is known for being what another letter on his office wall calls him -- "the Michael Jordan of pot." Lately, he's used that expertise in a radio talk show on Berkeley's KPFA-FM, talking up how pot can help people deal with chronic illnesses, AIDS or other painful conditions. "If I don't help them, it will be a sin of omission," he said. On the Net: Rosenthal site -- http://www.quicktrading.com DEA site -- http://www.usdoj.gov:80/dea/pubs/factsheet/factsheet2002.html
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