Brownie Mary | |
|---|---|
 Brownie Mary speaking at People's Park, Berkeley, California, in 1995 | |
| Born | Mary Jane Rathbun December 22, 1922 |
| Died | April 10, 1999 (aged 76) Forest Hill, San Francisco, California, United States |
| Occupation(s) | Hospital volunteer Cannabis activist Baker Waitress |
| Years active |
|
| Known for |
|
| Children | Peggy (1955–1974) |
Mary Jane Rathbun (December 22, 1922 – April 10, 1999), popularly known as Brownie Mary, was an American medical cannabis rights activist. As a hospital volunteer at San Francisco General Hospital, she became known for baking and distributing cannabis brownies to AIDS patients.[1] Along with activist Dennis Peron, Rathbun lobbied for the legalization of cannabis for medical use, and she helped pass San Francisco Proposition P (1991) and California Proposition 215 (1996) to achieve those goals. She also contributed to the establishment of the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club, the first medical cannabis dispensary in the United States.[2]
Rathbun was arrested on three occasions, with each arrest bringing increased local, national, and international media attention to the medical cannabis movement.[3] Her grandmotherly appearance generated public sympathy for her cause and undermined attempts by the district attorney's office to prosecute her for possession. The City of San Francisco eventually gave Rathbun permission to distribute cannabis brownies to people with AIDS.[4] Her arrests generated interest in the medical community and motivated researchers to propose one of the first clinical trials to study the effects of cannabinoids in HIV-infected adults.[5]
- ^ Gumbel, A. (1999, April 15). "Brownie Mary". The Independent, p. 6.
- ^ Goldberg, 1996
- ^ Saxon, 1999
- ^ Goldberg, Stephanie B. (1993) "Not-so-secret Ingredient: How Is This Woman Breaking The Law?" Chicago Tribune.
- ^ Werner, 2001, pp. 26–28; Abrams, 2002; Associated Press, 2005, p. 2A: "Abrams started his campaign [applying for a government-funded clinical trial] in 1992 when "Brownie Mary," a 73-year-old San Francisco General Hospital volunteer was arrested for supplying AIDS patients with marijuana-laced brownies; Russell, 2003: "Abrams' own scientific studies of medical marijuana were inspired by Mary Jane Rathburn, better known as "Brownie Mary"; Holland, 2010: p. 252: Abrams on how it began: "It all started when Rick Doblin sent a little message to the director of research at the AIDS program at San Francisco General Hospital after Mary Rathbun was arrested in 1992, suggesting that a clinical trial showing the effectiveness of smoked marijuana should come from "Brownie Mary's Institution", as if she was our dean!" Doblin talks about this, In the Matter of Lyle E. Craker, Ph.D., DEA. Docket No. 05-16: "I spent about a year or so trying to find researchers willing to invest their time in this, and I couldn't find anybody. And then there was a report in the paper about a woman in California who, she was called "Brownie Mary." She made marijuana brownies for AIDS patients to help them with appetite. And she was arrested at—while she was getting marijuana to make into these brownies, and she worked at San Francisco General Hospital at the AIDS ward. And so I called doctors there, and I said one of your volunteers has just been arrested. Would you be interested in trying to do some research to show whether she was doing something that might actually have been helpful to these patients? She probably thought that it was helpful since, you know, she was permitted on the ward to do this. And so I spoke to a Dr. Donald Abrams and he said that he would be interested in trying to do research in this area, and so we started to collaborate"; Sheehy, 2000: "According to Donald Abrams, MD, lead author of the study and professor of clinical medicine in the UCSF Positive Health Program at San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center, this was the first attempt to study the effects of marijuana in people with HIV and one of the most comprehensive studies about the effects of marijuana on the immune system."