OBITUARY - MARY JANE RATHBUN

Mary Jane Rathbun, “Brownie Mary”, died on April 10th, aged 77

IN 1996 California eased its law on the use of marijuana. The change
allows a doctor in the state to prescribe the drug if he believes it
will lessen a patient’s pain. The relaxation in the public mood
towards the use of marijuana was ascribed chiefly to Mary Jane
Rathbun. She was in the line of American zealots who come to the fore
whenever some moral matter grips the nation. Racism, abortion, the war
in Vietnam have all produced their heroes and heroines. Ending the ban
on the use of marijuana may seem of less moment than those great
issues. Yet the ban affects huge numbers of people. Last year 695,000
people were arrested in America for possessing marijuana. Perhaps ten
times that number, nearly 7m, occasionally take a puff. Perhaps only
jaywalkers break the law more frequently.

Mrs Rathbun certainly considered the ban unnecessary. She seems to
have reached this conclusion through what she called simple common
sense, rather than wrestling with the pros and cons of the drugs
debate. Her skill was as a cook, especially of cakes. On visits to San
Francisco General Hospital to help out as a volunteer she would take
along a bag of her brownies, squares of rich cake with nuts. It is not
known exactly when Mrs Rathbun started to incorporate marijuana into
her brownies, or indeed how she got the idea. She was in and out of
the hospital for getting on for 17 years and for much of this time her
brownies were the all-American sort, flavoured with nothing more
subversive than sugar. It may be that on one visit a patient at the
hospital presented her with a copy of a cookbook written by Alice B.
Toklas, an American who tried out recipes that included marijuana.
Whatever the reason, Mrs Rathbun found that her laced brownies were in
ever increasing demand, especially in ward 86 in the hospital, where
most of the patients were dying of AIDS.

That smells like pot

Inevitably the police got a whiff of Mrs Rathbun’s baking. She was
turning out her brownies in the kitchen of her small flat in San
Francisco, but the distinctive smell of pot wafted through the
building and to the pavement outside. She was arrested a number of
times. One prosecutor gave warning that the trial of “the grandmother
who bakes pot brownies” would attract national attention, and had the
charges against Mrs Rathbun dropped, but other courts went ahead with
prosecutions. She received only nominal sentences, of some hours of
community service (which she served at the hospital), but, as
predicted, “Brownie Mary” became a national figure. Even those opposed
to the legalisation of marijuana for recreational use sympathised with
giving it to the dying if, as was claimed, it lessened their
suffering. The hospital where Mrs Rathbun was handing out her cakes
allocated $1m for research into the possible medicinal benefits of
marijuana, and similar studies have since been set up elsewhere in
America. August 25th, the date when she made one of her appearances in
court, is celebrated by her supporters as Brownie Mary Day.

Curiosity grew about Brownie Mary. What sort of person was she? She
was not a grannie. Her marriage had been brief. She had had one child,
a daughter who had died in a car accident at the age of 22. Most of
her life she had worked as a waitress. But in her 60s, when she
started to become famous, she looked like a grannie, with her curly
grey hair and forthright language. The young men in ward 86 were “my
kids”, she said.

Mary Jane Rathbun was on every platform in campaigns in California to
ease the law on the use of marijuana. She was familiar with the
soapbox. In earlier years Mrs Rathbun had campaigned for miners’
rights and for a woman’ s right to have an abortion. She liked to call
herself an anarchist. Larry Bittner, a lawyer who campaigned with Mrs
Rathbun, said she had the strength of purpose of Harriet Tubman and
Sojourner Truth, two former slaves who became prominent in
19th-century reformist movements in America.

The change in the Californian law in 1996 came about when voters
supported a “state initiative’’ over marijuana. Similar initiatives
have since changed the law in several other American states. However,
under a federal law, passed in 1937, possession of marijuana remains
prohibited, and this law takes precedence over state law. As a result,
users of marijuana for medicinal reasons, even where the state law
sanctions such use, are not necessarily safe from arrest.

It is unlikely that the Clinton administration will come to their
help. Mr Clinton is beset with enough problems without taking this
trip. Last year a petition seeking an easing of America’s drug laws
was signed by 500 eminent people. Barry McCaffrey, a retired general
who advises Mr Clinton on drugs, dismissed the petition as the work of
the “intellectual, literary and academic community engaged in
pseudo-science.’’ It was a slap in the face for a group of
well-intentioned people; but not unexpected, certainly not by the
anarchistic Mrs Rathbun, who believed that direct action was the way
to get things done.