SAN FRANCISCO — With its pointy, jagged-edge leaves, it could simply be a robust houseplant. But in this hip downtown gallery, placed under a display case, it's art.

It's also illegal.

Michele Pred's "Marijuana Project" is part of a new show at the Frey Norris Gallery called "Who's Afraid of San Francisco?"

The 2-foot-high cannabis plant stands in a plain, plastic pot on a square, white podium. It's covered by a clear, Plexiglas box with air holes. On the wall nearby is the artist's medical marijuana card and grower's permit, which she obtained for this project.

California is one of 11 states (including Hawai'i) that allow medical marijuana, though it remains illegal under federal law.

Also displayed are buds encased in resin and mounted in petri dishes, which Pred calls "Marijuana Culture." She recently stopped by the gallery to sign a set of three dishes that sold for $1,200.

"This symbolic five-leaf imagery that you see on T-shirts or caps — you associate that with a certain kind of person or lifestyle," says the 41-year-old Berkeley artist. "I wanted to demystify it. It's a plant. It's a weed."

The show was the idea of gallery owners Raman Frey and Wendi Norris.

"We were talking about current events, social issues in San Francisco that take on a much larger national context," Frey says, rattling off a list of San Francisco-centric issues such as gay marriage and anti-war activism. "They begin here as social experiments then diffuse out to the rest of the country. At first, when they arise, they freak everybody out."

Lawrence Rinder, dean of the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, called the show "intriguing." He said Pred was clearly trying to make a point with "Marijuana Project."

"I smelled it and that was interesting," he said. "Most people would look at this and ask, 'Why is this art?' ... Art in our society is extremely broadly defined."

Frey and Norris solicited proposals from about two dozen Bay Area artists who were engaged in social issues, settling on the 26 works by nine artists that make up the show running through Nov. 16.

Frey, whose ground-floor, unpretentious gallery that showcases local artists is a few blocks from Union Square, wants to spark discussion about everything from medical marijuana to legalizing all drugs among his clientele, roughly split 50-50 between locals and tourists.

In the current exhibition, hanging in the center of the gallery is a silver chandelier decorated with plastic syringes and colorful garlands of empty pill capsules.

"Blood Money and Tears" by Laurel Roth and Andy Diaz Hope is "meant to mimic the allure of the drug culture," Frey says. Attractive, yet dangerous. Other works illustrate Chinese and Mexican immigration, gay marriage and sexuality — paintings and drawings with much genitalia and leather.

Frey calls Pred's "Marijuana Project" a "comprehensive catalyst for discussion."

Pred, a mixed-media artist who specializes in working with everyday objects, insists she smoked pot only once, in high school, and didn't like it.

She also isn't a hard-core advocate for legalization. While she believes the drug should be legalized, she dislikes the current underground nature of obtaining it.

Pred went to a doctor in August, complaining of headaches and sleep problems. He charged her $150 and gave her an identification card. She called his clinic "sleazy."

"Here's this doctor, making a mint, churning out all these people," she said. "They don't even listen. They don't care."

She then applied for and received a grower's permit, allowing her to grow six plants for personal use.

She did some research on the Internet and at a local hydroponics supply store, then bought a clone, or small starter plant, from a pot club for $15.

She bought grow lights and special fertilizer, spending about $1,500 altogether on the project. Her electric bill alone increased by $100 a month, she says.

"I wanted to have it grow in the gallery as a living piece of artwork," says Pred, whose previous works included sculptures made of items confiscated at airports and shown at the Nancy Hoffman Gallery in New York. "People can come back and see it taller and bigger."

Despite the gallery's tourist-friendly location, the plant, which the artist plans to donate to a local pot club, hasn't generated much controversy. Pred wasn't surprised.

"It being California, and it being San Francisco," she said, laughing. "Controversy? Nah."

San Francisco exhibit aims to demystify illegal plant