Newsmaker Profile - Mike Nevin

Supervisor Finds New Crusade

EX-COP HOPES SAN MATEO COUNTY STUDY HELPS LEGALIZE MEDICAL POT

In his 27 years as a cop, Michael Nevin learned how easily illegal
drugs can ruin lives.

"Parents from all over the country would call the San Francisco police
and ask us to look for their kids," he recalls. "We'd find them dead
in the Haight. " Now, as a San Mateo County supervisor, Nevin believes
that one of those drugs, marijuana, can be a lifesaver.

His dedication has pushed San Mateo County to the forefront of the
medicinal marijuana debate. The county is set to start the nation's
first government study of the substance's medicinal effects -- despite
a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last week quashing California's attempts
to distribute marijuana to the seriously ill.

"The Supreme Court ruling makes what we're trying to do in San Mateo
even more important," Nevin says.

With luck, he says, the study's results will lead to loosening federal
law, which in 1970 criminalized marijuana in all uses. "Sometimes it
takes a local government to move the federal government," he says.
Nevin's memorabilia-packed window office in the Hall of Justice in
Redwood City pays homage to his days on the San Francisco police
force, in Daly City's mayoral chair and on the county Board of
Supervisors, where he has served eight years.

Nevin, 58, grew up as one of seven children, the son of a San
Francisco police officer. As a rookie himself, Nevin was a bodyguard
for former San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto. He also has protected
Mother Teresa, whom he calls "a true hero."

Throughout his career, Nevin has embraced what he terms
"quality-of-life"

issues such as transportation and affordable housing. "I keep my feet
on the ground and I'm very practical," he says. It is from this
man-of-the-people perspective that he came to the cannabis cause. Or
rather, it came to him, in the form of an unassuming health services
employee named Joni Commons, who would often stop in Nevin's office to
chat. She would drop in wearing a scarf around her head -- cancer
treatments had caused all her hair to fall out.

"She would say, 'Mike, you're a cop, you don't like drugs,' " Nevin
says. "She would say that she wanted me to know this: that the only
thing that gave her any relief whatsoever from the pain was marijuana.
I didn't even talk to her about where she got it."

Commons died in 1997. But Nevin's dedication was born. "She challenged
me to say, 'This marijuana works.' " he says. He began to consider
ways in which the county government could provide marijuana to the
seriously ill. He contemplated using marijuana confiscated by the
police, which would then be sorted by doctors. But for several reasons
- -- including the varying grades of street-sold marijuana -- Nevin
decided the plan wasn't feasible.

Three years ago, he started pushing for the county to host the current
study. Last November, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration
agreed to provide government-grown marijuana for the project. Despite
his crusade to make marijuana available to the sick and dying, Nevin
fervently opposes decriminalizing any drug for recreational use.
Nevin, who says he never smoked marijuana, nevertheless knows the
demons of addiction. He's a recovering alcoholic.

"I'm proud in my own life that I quit drinking 12 years ago," he says.
He finds no contradiction between his stance against illegal drugs and
his support of medicinal marijuana.

"They say that drugs are habit-forming," he says. "What are we talking
about here? These are people who are going to die."

Nevin thinks his mix of personal experiences validates his cause. "I
concluded that I could make a big contribution if I were outspoken on
an issue where you wouldn't expect a policeman to come out, while
having credibility at the same time," he says.

Nevin is finally seeing the fruits of his labor. Any day now, a carton
of marijuana cigarettes will be arriving at San Mateo County General
Hospital. There, Dr. Dennis Israelski is signing up AIDS patients for
the $500,000 outpatient study, which is being paid for by taxpayers.

There will be 60 subjects in the study, expected to take about 1 1/2
years, but they will be recruited gradually, says Israelski, medical
director of the San Mateo County AIDS Program. Among other requisites,
these patients will have at least a six-month prognosis for survival
and will have smoked marijuana before.

The study is too small to yield authoritative results regarding the
efficacy of medicinal marijuana use, says Israelski, although it will
monitor how the drug affects appetite, nausea, pain and lucidity. More
likely, the effort will prove that larger studies are practical,
Israelski says, that it is possible to acquire uniform-grade marijuana
from the federal government and distribute it on an outpatient basis
to subjects who will use it as directed and not allow it to fall into
the hands of friends or family.

The cigarettes contain marijuana grown on the government's 5 1/2-acre
farm at the University of Mississippi as part of that school's
Marijuana Project. The marijuana is rolled by machine into cigarettes.
The study may be a small step on a long road, but it is, at least, the
first step, says Nevin.

"We want to do our share to get this substance to the pharmaceutical
position it deserves," he says. "We will take the lead."