At the Peace in Medicine Healing Center in Sebastopol, the wares on display include dried marijuana - featuring brands like Kryptonite, Voodoo Daddy and Train Wreck - and medicinal cookies arrayed below a sign saying, "Keep Out of Reach of Your Mother."

Several Bay Area doctors who recommend medical marijuana due to their patients said in recent interviews that their client base had expanded to add teenagers with psychiatric conditions including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

"It's not everybody's medicine, but for some, it may make a profound difference," said Valerie Corral, a creator of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, a patients' collective in Santa Cruz that has two dozen minors as registered clients.

Because California does not require doctors to report cases involving medical marijuana, no reliable data exist for exactly how many minors have now been authorized to receive it. But Dr. Jean Talleyrand cannabis flower, who founded MediCann, a network in Oakland of 20 clinics who authorize patients to utilize the drug, said his workers had treated up to 50 patients ages 14 to 18 who'd A.D.H.D. Bay Area doctors have now been at the forefront of the fierce debate about medical marijuana, winning tolerance for those who have grave illnesses like terminal cancer and AIDS. Yet as these doctors use their discretion more liberally, such support - even here - may be harder to muster, especially when it comes to using marijuana to take care of adolescents with A.D.H.D.

"Just how many ways can one say 'among the worst ideas of all time?' " asked Stephen Hinshaw, the chairman of the psychology department at the University of California, Berkeley. He cited studies showing that tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the ingredient in cannabis, disrupts attention, memory and concentration - functions already compromised in people who have the attention-deficit disorder.

Advocates are simply as adamant, though they're in a distinct minority. "It's safer than aspirin," Dr. Talleyrand said. He and other marijuana advocates maintain that it is also safer than methylphenidate (Ritalin), the stimulant prescription drug usually used to take care of A.D.H.D. That drug has documented potential negative effects including insomnia, depression, facial tics and stunted growth.

In 1996, voters approved a ballot proposition making California the initial state to legalize medical marijuana. Twelve other states have followed suit - allowing cannabis for a number of specified, serious conditions including cancer and AIDS - but only California adds the grab-bag phrase "for every other illness which is why marijuana provides relief."

This has left those doctors ready to "recommend" cannabis - in the Alice-in-Wonderland world of medical marijuana, they can't legally prescribe it - with leeway that some use to a daring degree. "You can get it for a backache," said Keith Stroup, the founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.