Kim Tripp shows how to set which cardinality estimator you want to use on a per-query basis:
However, the bad news is the QUERYTRACEON is limited to SysAdmin only (be sure to read the UPDATEs at the end of this post). Jack Li (Microsoft CSS) wrote a great article about a problem they solved by using a logon trigger to change the CE for an entire session: Wanting your non-sysadmin users to enable certain trace flags without changing your app? Now, I do want to caution you that setting master to trustworthy is not something you should take lightly. But, you should NOT let anyone other than SysAdmin have any other rights in master (other than the occasional EXEC on an added user-defined SP). Here are a couple of posts to help warn you of the danger:
A warning about the TRUSTWORTHY database option
Guidelines for using the TRUSTWORTHY database setting in SQL Server
Read on for a couple of options.