PETER J. COHEN, 75

Peter J. Cohen, 75, an anesthesiologist who became a law professor
and expert on the medical use of marijuana, died Aug. 14 at
Georgetown University Hospital. He had pancreatic cancer.

Dr. Cohen, who during the 1970s and 1980s chaired the anesthesiology
departments at the University of Colorado and University of Michigan
medical schools, became an outspoken supporter of the legalization of
medical marijuana. He published articles in legal and ethical
journals and gave television and radio interviews on the subject.

He parlayed his medical career into advocating for the research and
testing of medical marijuana when he earned a law degree from
Georgetown University in 1995.

During the mid-1990s, he worked as a policy expert for the National
Institute on Drug Abuse. Since 1998, he was an adjunct law professor
at Georgetown University teaching public health law and a course that
explored the legal, medical and ethical issues surrounding
alternative medicine.

He wrote, "Drugs, Addiction, and the Law: Policy, Politics, and
Public Health" (2004), as well as books and articles about the
effects of anesthesia on the brain.

Peter Jacob Cohen, who was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., received a
bachelor's degree in chemistry from Princeton University in 1956 and
a medical degree from Columbia University in 1960.

From 1964 to 1966, he served in the Army Medical Corps, conducting
medical research at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver
Spring and setting up a hospital near Tokyo to treat wounded soldiers
from Vietnam.

During the late 1960s, he was a professor of anesthesiology at the
University of Pennsylvania medical school. He chaired the Society of
Academic Anesthesiology Chairs, was an examiner for the American
Board of Anesthesiology and from 2000 until June was chairman of the
Physician Health Program of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia.

He had been a Garrett Park resident since 1995.

Survivors include his wife of 54 years, Cynthia Bachner Cohen of
Garrett Park; three children, Holly C. Cooper of Bethesda, Elizabeth
C. Cohen of Camden, Maine, and Christopher J. Cohen of Bridgeport,
Pa.; a brother; and six grandchildren.