GOP ADVISER WHO LOST DAUGHTER CAMPAIGNS FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Ruling On Pot Strikes Home

HE understands that to all but his closest friends, he might well be
considered a "right-wing kook'' who has gone over the edge. But tragedy,
like politics, can make strange bedfellows. And yes, it really is Lyn
Nofziger stumping these days for the medical use of marijuana.

Nofziger, 76, spent most his life on the inside of Republican political
circles; a conservative tough guy who served on the staff of President
Nixon and as political director for former President Reagan.

But it is his private life that defines him these days, forcing him to part
company with his conservative cronies and join a campaign led by those he
might once have derided as "potheads.''

And it wasn't politics that Nofziger was thinking of this month, when the
U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal law prohibits the medical use of
marijuana. It was the torturous death of his oldest daughter 11 years ago,
and the fact that her only respite from the pain of cancer was delivered by
a puff of marijuana smoke.

It is a hazard of living in the real world, this clash between ideology and
reality, often prompted by personal tragedy.

"I recognize that my position is an aberration, in a way; that you wouldn't
expect someone of my political persuasion to advocate the use of
marijuana,'' says Nofziger, who works today as a political consultant with
the Carmen Group in Washington, D.C.

"But this is something that transcends left wing and right wing. When you
look at the evidence, and you see people being helped -- people who have
glaucoma and multiple sclerosis and cancer and AIDS -- and you know from
personal experience that marijuana can be a tremendous help, it is not a
hard call to make.''

Before his daughter took ill, Nofziger says, "I might have looked askance''
at the notion of marijuana use. He was Reagan's political director then, in
an administration that coined the "Just Say No'' response to illegal drugs.

Then his 38-year-old daughter was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
"We tried everything the doctors wanted,'' he recalled. Nothing helped, not
even Marinol, the legally available form of marijuana's ingredients in a
pill. Finally, her pain was so overpowering, "she couldn't eat, couldn't
sleep . . . she was just in near-constant pain.

"So we said to her friends, 'Can you get her some marijuana?' They were in
the generation that knew a lot more about things like that than we did. And
they were able to get her some.''

So the right-hand man of a law-and-order president became a sort of outlaw,
on the fringe of a fledgling movement that would gain steam over the coming
decade. Today, nine states have legalized the use of marijuana for some
medical conditions, although those provisions are now in jeopardy because
of last week's Supreme Court ruling. Back in 1990 when Nofziger's daughter
was ill, there was simply no legal way to get the drug.

"I remember they got some and gave it to a friend of my daughter's who
lived about 30 miles away. And she was driving along to our house with it
in her car, scared to death that a cop would stop her for speeding and give
her a ticket and search the car. And there she'd be, with a bag of
marijuana in her car.''

His daughter didn't use much -- just a couple of puffs a few times a day --
but "it eased the pain, relieved the nausea and diarrhea and made her
comfortable,'' Nofziger said. Two weeks later, she died.

The Supreme Court decision has sent Nofziger stumping for legislation that
would support research into marijuana's medical value and lift the
prohibitions on its medical use. Ultimately, he's hoping for a chance to
spread the gospel among the Bush administration.

HE'S aware of the pitfalls of becoming a poster boy for a movement that
many say is a foot in the door for a left-wing effort to legalize drugs. "I
don't want to go out and legalize marijuana,'' he says.

"I understand the thinking (of conservatives) that if you make it
acceptable for medical purposes, it'll eventually be acceptable for
anything else, and that will lead people to hard drugs. I know that it may
be addictive. But who the hell cares if you're dying?

"My kid had lymphoma and she was in constant pain. Who the hell cares if
she risks getting lung cancer from smoking marijuana? She's going to be
dead anyway! And she shouldn't have to suffer the way she did, not when
there's something out there that can make her final days a little more
comfortable.

"The fact is,'' Nofziger says wearily, "they can come up with all these
reasons that we ought to keep it (illegal). But the guys I'm arguing with
haven't had to deal with a situation where they've needed it, when you've
had to watch a daughter die. . . . That puts a whole different spin on
things.''

Sandy Banks is a Los Angeles Times columnist.