EX-REAGAN AIDE JOINS MEDICAL MARIJUANA EFFORT

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Barney Frank, a liberal Massachusetts Democrat, has an
unlikely conservative ally, former Reagan aide Lyn Nofziger, in his
campaign to lift the federal ban on medicinal marijuana.

Nofziger, Reagan's White House political director, said Wednesday that he
became a supporter of medicinal marijuana when his daughter was dying of
cancer. Marijuana was the only drug that helped alleviate her nausea and
the other side effects of chemotherapy, he said.

"It is not a cure, but it made that part of her life more bearable," said
Nofziger, who joined Frank and other medicinal marijuana supporters at a
Capitol news conference.

Cultivating, possessing or distributing marijuana is illegal under federal law.

Frank's bill would lift the federal prohibition so states could decide the
issue.