INNOCENTS ARE DYING IN USELESS WAR

Last Wednesday, Peter McWilliams was found dead in his bathroom. Some
maintain that it was murder, plain and simple. The question is, who was
responsible for his death?

McWilliams was afflicted with the cancer of non-Hodgkins lymphoma and with
AIDS. To treat his illness, he had to take so many pills that nausea and
constant vomiting made it impossible for him to keep down his expensive
medication.

The only treatment that McWilliams found effective in controlling his nausea
was medical marijuana. Since the diagnosis of his cancer in March 1996, he
was able to keep his illness in check with medication by controlling his
nausea with marijuana. It kept him alive.

Voters in California passed Proposition 215 in 1996 to make the use of
marijuana legal for medical purposes.

Following the passage of Proposition 215, McWilliams teamed up with Todd
McCormick to grow medical marijuana for cooperatives that supply the drug to
medical patients in California.

Unfortunately, the federal government cares not a whit about what
Californians want. In 1998, McWilliams and McCormick were arrested, their
crop was confiscated and they were put on trial by federal prosecutors who
charged them with conspiring to possess, manufacture and sell marijuana.

At his trial, the judge prohibited McWilliams from introducing any mention
of his illness, the medical marijuana issue or Proposition 215 in his
defense. Unable to defend himself, McWilliams was forced to plead guilty or
face a mandatory 10-year prison sentence.

While waiting for sentencing, he was free on bail and prohibited from using
marijuana. His parents put up their house for the $250,000 bail. They would
have lost their home if McWilliams had tested positive for marijuana.

At the time of his arrest, his illness was under control and his viral
content was down to zero. But, as ordered by the judge, McWilliams stopped
using the nausea-controlling medicine that had enabled him to keep down his
cancer and AIDS medications. The judge even denied him the use of Marinol,
the "legal" pill-form of synthetic THC.

His health deteriorated and earlier this month, being denied the use of his
anti-emetic, he choked to death on his own vomit. And so, at age 50, Peter
McWilliams became another casualty of the government's insane war on drugs.

Who killed Peter McWilliams? Some argue that it was the drug-war agents who
initiated the raid on the house where the medical marijuana was grown.
Others blame Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jackie Chooljian and Mary Fulginiti,
who prosecuted McWilliams and who now say, We are very saddened by Mr.
McWilliams' death.

Still others say that U.S. District Judge George H. King is responsible by
first denying him a defense, and then by denying him his nausea-controlling
medicine.

By their actions, all of these bear responsibility for the early death of
McWilliams. But ultimately, they were carrying on the war on drugs mandated
by the laws passed in Congress. Thus, this death, as so many others, must be
laid at the feet of Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Buck McKeon, Brad
Sherman, Elton Gallegly, Howard Berman and all the other senators and
representatives who voted for the war on drugs and who let it continue by
not repealing it.

But you, dear reader, are also responsible -- you voted for these people.
OK, perhaps you didn't vote for them, but why do you not write or call them
- -- they are your representatives -- and demand that they put an end to this
tragic war and its innocent victims? How long will you let this carnage
continue?

Ernst Ghermann lives in Winnetka and is a delegate to the Libertarian Party
National Convention in Anaheim from June 30 through July 3.