'BROWNIE MARY' GAVE POT TO DYING AIDS PATIENTS

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -- "Brownie Mary" helped launch California's medical
marijuana movement by using her kitchen to churn out pot-laced brownies for
San Francisco AIDS patients.

"She knew more than anybody else how to help," her friend, Dennis Peron,
said yesterday. "She was our grandmother, she was our best friend, She
inspired a lot of people."

Mary Jane Rathbun died Saturday of a heart attack after suffering increasing
pain from arthritis and other ailments for several months, said Peron, who
followed her in pushing for legalized marijuana use in the early days of the
AIDS epidemic. She was 77.

A native of Minnesota, Mrs. Rathbun arrived in San Francisco after World War
II and lost her only daughter in a car accident in the early 1970s, Peron said.

Without family of her own, she took up the young, gay men who were flocking
to the city, and was spurred into community service as many of her friends
fell in the first wave of the AIDS epidemic.

Believing that marijuana could help boost appetite and reduce pain, Mrs.
Rathbun soon became a well-known presence in San Francisco hospitals,
distributing hundreds of pot brownies to the sick and dying, many of whom
had been rejected by their own families.

"She would have a list, and would call that list when she was baking to see
who needed what" Peron said.

"Of course, people were dying all the time. Sometimes you would see her
walking on the street, just crying for her 'kids.'"

Mrs. Rathbun was arrested several times for distributing her pot brownies,
and lent her little old lady image to the medical marijuana movement gaining
strength in San Francisco.

That movement eventually led to California's first-in-the-U.S. state
initiative in 1996 which legalized medical use of marijuana, under certain
conditions, for treating symptoms of AIDS, cancer and other serious illnesses.

While the U.S. government has sought to quash California's state law,
similar initiatives were passed by voters in six more states in 1998 --
increasing pressure on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to consider
removing marijuana from the "Schedule I" list of the most dangerous narcotics.

Peron said Mrs. Rathbun's contribution to the gay cominunity and the
pro-marijuana cause went beyond her famous brownies the recipe for which he
hopes to sell to raise money for charity.

"This was a woman who dedicated her life to service," Peron said.

"Before it was a cliche, Brownie Mary was compassionate.

"She was willing to go to jail for her kids . . . I think she went
peacefully into the night. At the same time, we are going to miss her
terribly."