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The420Guy
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Pubdate: Thu, 22 Jun 2000
Source: Reason Magazine (US)
Copyright: 2000 The Reason Foundation
Contact: letters@reason.com
Address: 3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 400, Los Angeles, CA 90034-6064
Website: Reason.com
Author: Jacob Sullum
FATAL CONDITION
"The Drug War doesn't need another martyr," Peter McWilliams wrote last November. "It
has too many already." McWilliams, a best-selling author and activist who was arrested on
federal marijuana charges in 1998, was explaining his decision to plead guilty and throw
himself on the mercy of the court.
Mercy was not something that U.S. District Judge George King seemed to have in
abundance. King had prohibited McWilliams, who used marijuana to fight the nausea caused
by his AIDS medications, from presenting a "medical necessity" defense at his trial in Los
Angeles.
That meant that neither McWilliams nor his lawyer could so much as mention his disease,
marijuana's usefulness as a medicine, the program under which eight patients were receiving
marijuana from the federal government, or Proposition 215, the 1996 California ballot
initiative that sanctioned the medical use of marijuana. King had also refused to let
McWilliams smoke marijuana while he was free on bail, even though McWilliams said it was
the only way he could keep down the drugs that were keeping him alive.
Still, McWilliams hoped the judge would allow him to serve his sentence under home
confinement. Because of his weakened immune system, he felt certain he could not survive
prison.
It seems McWilliams could not survive the conditions of his bail, either. On June 14, two
months before he was scheduled to be sentenced, the 50-year-old writer was found dead on
the floor of his bathroom. Friends reported that he appeared to have choked to death on
vomit.
Without marijuana to treat the nausea brought on by his AIDS pills, McWilliams had
developed a regimen that included Marinol (a prescription drug containing a synthetic version
of THC, marijuana's main active ingredient), various herbs, hot baths, bed rest, and electric
massage. "The procedure of keeping down the medications is agonizing, exhausting,
debilitating, and I must do it three times a day," he wrote in February. "It [would be] entirely
unnecessary if I could use medical marijuana."
Although McWilliams' ordeal seems to be exactly the sort of thing that medical marijuana
activists want to prevent, his case aroused ambivalence within the movement. He and Todd
McCormick, a friend who used marijuana to relieve chronic pain resulting from childhood
treatments for bone cancer, were charged with raising some 6,000 plants at four different
locations.
That's a bit more than they needed for their own use. McCormick said he was growing the
plants as part of his research for a book on medical marijuana that McWilliams was
publishing. The Drug Enforcement Administration said the two planned to supply marijuana
to "buyer's clubs" serving patients authorized to use the drug by Proposition 215.
Whichever version you believe, there's no question that McWilliams and McCormick broke
federal law, which does not recognize any legitimate reason to grow marijuana. Indeed, their
operation was not even legal under Proposition 215, which allows cultivation for a patient's
personal use but not for research or for sale to others.
The McWilliams/McCormick case called attention to the absurdity of classifying marijuana as
a Schedule I drug under federal law, signifying a high potential for abuse and no accepted
medical use. Although scientifically groundless, that classification is self-perpetuating, since
any use of a Schedule I drug is "abuse" by definition and no Schedule I drug can be legally
used as a medicine.
The case also illustrated the problems caused by legalizing medical marijuana, as Proposition
215 ostensibly did, without authorizing anyone to supply it. Since relatively few patients are
prepared to grow their own pot, most have to rely on the black market.
In other words, marijuana is not really a legal medicine, even in California. By highlighting
that fact, McWilliams embarrassed the quieter, more discreet activists who are trying to make
medical marijuana respectable--especially because (unlike pharmaceutical companies?) he was
accused of a profit motive.
It probably did not help that McWilliams was not only a medical marijuana advocate but an
outspoken opponent of drug prohibition. Indeed, as a prominent member of the Libertarian
Party and the author of the 1993 book Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do, he called for the
repealof all consensual crime laws.
McWilliams' baggage made medical marijuana supporters reluctant to claim him as a poster
boy for their cause. But now he is "another martyr" of the war on drugs, no matter how
much they (and he) might have preferred otherwise.
MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart
Source: Reason Magazine (US)
Copyright: 2000 The Reason Foundation
Contact: letters@reason.com
Address: 3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 400, Los Angeles, CA 90034-6064
Website: Reason.com
Author: Jacob Sullum
FATAL CONDITION
"The Drug War doesn't need another martyr," Peter McWilliams wrote last November. "It
has too many already." McWilliams, a best-selling author and activist who was arrested on
federal marijuana charges in 1998, was explaining his decision to plead guilty and throw
himself on the mercy of the court.
Mercy was not something that U.S. District Judge George King seemed to have in
abundance. King had prohibited McWilliams, who used marijuana to fight the nausea caused
by his AIDS medications, from presenting a "medical necessity" defense at his trial in Los
Angeles.
That meant that neither McWilliams nor his lawyer could so much as mention his disease,
marijuana's usefulness as a medicine, the program under which eight patients were receiving
marijuana from the federal government, or Proposition 215, the 1996 California ballot
initiative that sanctioned the medical use of marijuana. King had also refused to let
McWilliams smoke marijuana while he was free on bail, even though McWilliams said it was
the only way he could keep down the drugs that were keeping him alive.
Still, McWilliams hoped the judge would allow him to serve his sentence under home
confinement. Because of his weakened immune system, he felt certain he could not survive
prison.
It seems McWilliams could not survive the conditions of his bail, either. On June 14, two
months before he was scheduled to be sentenced, the 50-year-old writer was found dead on
the floor of his bathroom. Friends reported that he appeared to have choked to death on
vomit.
Without marijuana to treat the nausea brought on by his AIDS pills, McWilliams had
developed a regimen that included Marinol (a prescription drug containing a synthetic version
of THC, marijuana's main active ingredient), various herbs, hot baths, bed rest, and electric
massage. "The procedure of keeping down the medications is agonizing, exhausting,
debilitating, and I must do it three times a day," he wrote in February. "It [would be] entirely
unnecessary if I could use medical marijuana."
Although McWilliams' ordeal seems to be exactly the sort of thing that medical marijuana
activists want to prevent, his case aroused ambivalence within the movement. He and Todd
McCormick, a friend who used marijuana to relieve chronic pain resulting from childhood
treatments for bone cancer, were charged with raising some 6,000 plants at four different
locations.
That's a bit more than they needed for their own use. McCormick said he was growing the
plants as part of his research for a book on medical marijuana that McWilliams was
publishing. The Drug Enforcement Administration said the two planned to supply marijuana
to "buyer's clubs" serving patients authorized to use the drug by Proposition 215.
Whichever version you believe, there's no question that McWilliams and McCormick broke
federal law, which does not recognize any legitimate reason to grow marijuana. Indeed, their
operation was not even legal under Proposition 215, which allows cultivation for a patient's
personal use but not for research or for sale to others.
The McWilliams/McCormick case called attention to the absurdity of classifying marijuana as
a Schedule I drug under federal law, signifying a high potential for abuse and no accepted
medical use. Although scientifically groundless, that classification is self-perpetuating, since
any use of a Schedule I drug is "abuse" by definition and no Schedule I drug can be legally
used as a medicine.
The case also illustrated the problems caused by legalizing medical marijuana, as Proposition
215 ostensibly did, without authorizing anyone to supply it. Since relatively few patients are
prepared to grow their own pot, most have to rely on the black market.
In other words, marijuana is not really a legal medicine, even in California. By highlighting
that fact, McWilliams embarrassed the quieter, more discreet activists who are trying to make
medical marijuana respectable--especially because (unlike pharmaceutical companies?) he was
accused of a profit motive.
It probably did not help that McWilliams was not only a medical marijuana advocate but an
outspoken opponent of drug prohibition. Indeed, as a prominent member of the Libertarian
Party and the author of the 1993 book Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do, he called for the
repealof all consensual crime laws.
McWilliams' baggage made medical marijuana supporters reluctant to claim him as a poster
boy for their cause. But now he is "another martyr" of the war on drugs, no matter how
much they (and he) might have preferred otherwise.
MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart
