DON'T TELL JOE HART THAT HE WON'T BE ALIVE TOMORROW

I expected to write an obituary, but my subject asked me to send him a copy
of the article. And who would presume to tell Medical Cannabis Advocate
Joe Hart that he won't still be alive on Friday?

A lot of people more knowledgeable than I expected him to be dead by now.

In 1984, the Veterans Administration sent him an unsigned letter saying
that he should check with the hospital because he might have acquired
"GRIDS" (Gay-related Immune Deficiency Syndrome, as AIDS was then called)
from plasma received during surgery to repair shrapnel damage from a
Vietnam combat injury.

They probably expected him to be just another Centers for Disease Control
statistic within the year.

In the 16 years since Hart read his first death sentence, a lot has
happened. Princess Di and JFK Jr. - younger people, who had all the health
and the resources of the world at their command - are dead and buried. Joe
Hart is (as I write this) still very much alive and fighting, albeit with a
fast-growing, cancerous bone tumor chomping at his fearless heart. He
would be 51 next week. Doctors gave him until Friday (today).

I was at Joe Hart's bedside in the Miami VA hospital Tuesday. Although he
had to reach up and punch a button from time to time to get relief from the
all-consuming pain, Joe was still vigorous, witty, and eager to talk about
cannabis and how it gave him years of quality life.

Joe Hart is a take-control-of-your-life kind of guy. He discovered for
himself what things were good for him, and what things were bad...

Hart had never liked drugs. "Nearly all the guys in my armored personnel
tank company in Vietnam were heroin junkies. I looked at them and said,
"These junkies are going to get me killed!"

He re-enlisted in the Army as a helicopter gunner. "Two years later, the
guys in my old unit were all dead. The enemy took them out. When they died,
their weapons were not even loaded.

When he learned he was HIV-positive, Joe gave up social drinking and began
trying to live a healthy life. He discovered a new ally against the pain
and nausea which accompany the symptoms of AIDS: marijuana.

Hart: "Can You Imagine the Government Outlawing Broccoli?"

Cannabis is NOT a drug, says Hart. "It's a vegetable. A vegetable with
wonderful healing properties. But the government has outlawed it. Imagine
the government outlawing broccoli!"

Hart, who came home with two Purple Hearts, five Bronze Stars and an Air
Medal, says he has no regrets for having served his country, but he does
regret some of the things he did in Vietnam, and in his later life he has
tried to make amends by fighting for civil rights.

"In Vietnam I forcibly moved people, and burned their homes. That was not
right." He learned how it felt in 1995, when Key West police raided his
home after a postal inspector delivered a package of marijuana to his door.

"My house was raped," he said, "This was what I had done to people in
Vietnam, and my own government did this to me."

Hart welcomed the opportunity to "fight the Law" for the decriminalization
of marijuana for medical use. His friends rallied. For two years
prosecutors tried to make Hart concede that they had the right to ban him
from using his herb, tried to make him quietly accept punishment. He would
not.

They would have to bully a sick gay man and drag him to jail in the glare
of public scrutiny. The law blinked. In January 1999, Judge Richard Payne
dismissed the case. He said prosecutors couldn't use the evidence seized
in Hart's house because the arresting officers hadn't given Hart enough
time to respond to the door before breaking in.

Hart was indignant at the dismissal - he felt they stole his chance to
publically defend cannabis and restore it to its proper place in society,
as a homegrown medical resource that can improve life and reduce suffering.

"My mother died of cancer. She died a morphine junkie. I guess I'm going
that route, too," he said with a touch of regret, fingering the button of
his morphine drip. "I think she could have lived longer and better if she
had been able to use cannabis. But like many people, she didn't want to do
anything that was against the law."

That must and will change, he said. "I don't say "IF" cannabis is
decriminalized. I say "WHEN." I just may not be here to see it."

Stress, nausea and wasting are the worst enemies of the HIV-positive
outlook which only cannabis could provide him.

He says nobody has ever died of cannabis, and the worst "side effect" of
cannabis use is arrest and forfeiture.

"Children die every year from taking aspirin, but they don't outlaw
aspirin," he said.

Today, August 3rd, is Joe's Birthday. He turns 51 years old today. If you'd
like to call him, his number at the VA is 305-325-7459.