AUTHOR PETER MCWILLIAMS

LOS ANGELES - Peter McWilliams, 50, a best-selling author who advocated the
medicinal use of marijuana, died June 14 at his home here. He had AIDS and
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

At his death, he was awaiting sentencing in federal court on a charge of
conspiring to possess, manufacture and sell marijuana.

He and co-defendant Todd McCormick were arrested in 1997 after law
enforcement officers raided an estate where the two allegedly were growing
more than 4,000 marijuana plants.

They pleaded guilty to the charge last year after U.S. District Judge
George H. King ruled that they could not rely on California's medical
marijuana initiative as a defense.

Federal courts have refused to recognize the initiative, which California
voters approved in 1996.

Accused of bankrolling the operation, Mr. McWilliams contended that he was
growing the marijuana for cooperatives that supply the drug to medical
patients in California. Government prosecutors argued that he wanted to
make money.

"They're making me out to be some kind of drug kingpin, and I'm not," he
once said in an interview.

Mr. McWilliams, who was to be sentenced in August, remained free on
$250,000 bail on the condition that he not use marijuana.

He said that being denied the drug left him nauseated most of the time and
sapped his strength. At his last court appearance, he sat slumped in his
wheelchair.

He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1996. He had not smoked
marijuana for years but found it eased the side effects of chemotherapy.

Mr. McWilliams wrote several popular books, including "Ain't Nobody's
Business If You Do," a wry treatise on the absurdity of consensual crimes.
He also wrote "How to Survive the Loss of a Love" and "The Personal
Computer Book."

Survivors include his mother and a brother.