ACTIVIST WHOSE POT BROWNIES FUELED MEDICINAL-MARIJUANA PUSH

SAN FRANCISCO -- "Brownie Mary" Rathbun, the grandmotherly activist
whose arrests for distributing pot-laced brownies to AIDS patients
built momentum for the medicinal marijuana movement, has died at 77.

Mary Jane Rathbun died in a hospital here Saturday of undisclosed
causes. She had been hospitalized and in considerable pain since she
injured her spine in a fall last August, said a friend.

Ms. Rathbun became a fixture at San Francisco General Hospital in the
early days of the AIDS epidemic, preparing and delivering
marijuana-laced baked goods to sick people to relieve nausea and pain.

"I think she made 134 dozen a month during the heyday, 1984 to 1990,"
Dennis Peron, who with Ms. Rathbun founded the now-defunct San
Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club.

Ms. Rathbun was arrested three times and twice agreed to perform
hundreds of hours of community service, spending the time with AIDS
patients, Peron said.

The arrests helped build support for the 1996 state initiative that
made growing and using marijuana with a doctor's permission legal
under California law.

Her arrests also prompted research into whether marijuana really does
have medicinal benefits.

In 1991, she and Peron published "Brownie Mary's Marijuana Cookbook,"
which is missing the brownie recipe. Peron said that, before she died,
she asked him to try to sell the recipe and give the proceeds to charity.

"She would never put the famous brownie recipe in it," Peron said.
"Now I've got to get the recipe from her safe-deposit box and approach
Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, whatever, and sell it and use the proceeds
for her `kids.' "