JOSEPH A. HART, MEDICAL MARIJUANA ACTIVIST

Joseph Anthony Hart, the founding director of Key West Cannabis, a club
supplying marijuana for medical uses, died Saturday of cancer. He was 51.

Hart, an AIDS patient, made a full-time job of pushing for legalization of
marijuana and dispensing marijuana to AIDS patients and others suffering
from illnesses.

The Key West resident said he often smoked up to 10 marijuana cigarettes a
day for relief of nausea that accompanied AIDS. He died at the Veterans
Administration Medical Center in Miami.

"All the way up to the day he died, he was working passionately on the
cause," said Kay Lee, a friend and housemate. "People were calling the
hospital and asking him for advice. His words to people were to never give
up, never give up. He was really tough."

Bold about supporting the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, Hart ran
Key West Cannabis out of an office across from the Monroe County Courthouse.

Hart was arrested in 1995 after a postal employee in New York noticed that
several packages being sent to him from Switzerland smelled of marijuana.
Charges were dropped, however.

Highly decorated for his service in the Army during the Vietnam war, he
received the Purple Heart twice, five bronze stars and an air medal for
service. He was wounded in duty.

Hart belonged to more than a dozen clubs that sold marijuana for medical
use.

Hart's advocacy work was not limited to Florida. He lived in San Francisco,
where he defended the use of marijuana, And he was involved in the
Philadelphia Project, a federal class-action lawsuit seeking to legalize the
medical use of marijuana. The case is pending. In July, he spoke at the D.C.
Smoke-In, a marijuana legalization event in Washington, D.C.

"Advocating for the legalization of marijuana was his big quest," said
Michael Marko, a friend who photographed Hart for several projects,
including a High Times magazine article. "Often times he supported patients'
marijuana from his own pocket. He never sold it for profit."

Survivors include four brothers, Leonard Hart of Parkertown, N.J., and
Thomas Hart, Gerald Hart and James Hart, all of Staten Island, N.Y.; and
three sisters, Katherine Hart and Marianna Ciardiello, both of Staten
Island, and Nora Merlino of Parkertown, N.J.