October 23, 1999
From The Boston Globe
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By Lynda Gorov, Globe Staff

US PROSECUTES CANCER PATIENT OVER MARIJUANA

McWilliams, 50, still laughs about the time he leaned over a trash can at a political convention, lost his lunch in front of strangers, then casually wiped his mouth with a cocktail napkin before continuing the conversation.

The other day, at his home high in the Hollywood Hills, he simply shrugged when he returned from retching in the bathroom.

''You get used to vomiting,'' he said. ''You get used to anything, I suppose. But it's insane that anyone has to go through this.''

McWilliams, who has AIDS and cancer that is in remission, said he and his doctor know the solution to his suffering: medical marijuana. He said he knows from experience that it helps him keep down the powerful drugs he needs to survive and the food he needs to keep up his strength. Without it, the book publisher and best-selling author fears he will die.

But for more than a year, McWilliams has been barred from smoking marijuana while he awaits trial on a variety of marijuana-related charges. He says he was growing it for his own consumption, and had not used it for more than 20 years until he became ill. Federal prosecutors charge that he was conspiring to sell it along with his codefendants, all of them users of medical marijuana.

See
Judge Rules Against Defense On All Major Motions In McCormick/McWilliams Case;
Ruling On Medical Necessity Defense Scheduled For October.
Selective Prosecution and Unequal Injustice.
Special To MarijuanaNews

Either way, McWilliams's situation underscores the ongoing conflict between the state and federal governments over the use of marijuana by patients with AIDS, cancer, or chronic pain - despite some medical studies and much anecdotal evidence showing its palliative benefits.

California voters became the first to approve medical marijuana for patients with a doctor's approval in November 1996 - the same year McWilliams discovered a lump in his neck and learned he had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and AIDS. Washington followed last fall, and several states are considering similar measures. But the federal government maintains that the sale or distribution of marijuana remains illegal under all circumstances.

''The laws against medical marijuana are crazy in the first place,'' said state Senator John Vasconcellos, a Democrat who has led the charge to legalize medical marijuana and keep it legal in California. ''But to say that people who are dying of cancer and AIDS can't relieve their pain is awful. By denying Peter McWilliams the right to smoke marijuana while he's out on [$250,000] bail, they're denying him life.''

See
"The federal prosecutor personally called my mother to tell her that if I was found with even a trace
of medical marijuana, her house would be taken away." -- Peter McWilliams

McWilliams's trial is still a month away. For now, he is mostly confined to his home, relying on friends to bring him the milk he gulps by the glassful and the honey-roasted peanuts he eats by the fistful because they do not make him nauseated.

Unable to work, McWilliams finds his Prelude Press bordering on bankruptcy.

Unable to walk even short distances, he uses a wheelchair for court appearances. The other day, his face dripping sweat, he nodded off in the hallway while inside the courtroom where his hearing was being postponed.

Of the first time he smoked marijuana after chemotherapy, McWilliams said, ''I had this epiphany: 'Oh my God, this stuff really works.' Then I got mad, furious, thinking about all the millions of cancer patients who this could be helping.''

Repeatedly turned down by a federal judge who says he cannot authorize someone to break the law, McWilliams now hopes a federal appellate court, which recently ruled that seriously ill people should be allowed to use medical marijuana, will give him access to the only drug that he has found to keep his nausea under control. Other defendants in federal marijuana cases are expected to mount similar appeals based on the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision.
See
McWilliams To Petition Court To Be Allowed To Use Medical Marijuana
Following Appeals Court Ruling

To federal prosecutors, however, McWilliams's case has nothing to do with medical marijuana and everything to do with a drug ring, regardless of why the defendants were growing the plants or who was using them. McWilliams is accused of masterminding the plot, in part because of the $120,000 that McWilliams says he paid codefendant Todd McCormick, a medical marijuana patient and researcher, to write two books on the subject. If convicted, they could face life in prison.

''We all admit to what we've done,'' said McWilliams, who previously bought marijuana on the black market or at the cannabis clubs that had sprung up around California after the passage of the law known as Proposition 215.

''We all grew marijuana; we all used marijuana,'' he continued. ''The 300 plants I had were my own personal stash ... Todd was studying which strains work best for which types of illnesses. I mean all his plants were labeled.''

But federal prosecutors say that is no defense. In fact, they do not want the defendants to be able to introduce a medical-necessity defense, discuss the benefits of marijuana, or even mention Proposition 215 to jurors. Both sides are scheduled to argue their positions next week before US District Court Judge George King.

''The way that I characterize this case is that it involves a conspiracy to conduct a commercial marijuana-growing operation involving more than 6,000 plants at four separate growing sites,'' said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the US Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, which is handling the case. ''It doesn't matter where they were going to sell it. It doesn't matter if they say, `I'm doing this to save my life.' It's illegal to manufacture or cultivate marijuana under federal law.''

If prosecutors succeed in keeping those issues out of court, McWilliams's attorney, Thomas Bollanco, said the defendants may as well head straight to prison. Without medical necessity, they have no case.

''We're going to be left unable to answer to the charges because we can only answer with what's true, and what's true is that these guys were motivated by their medical needs and Prop 215,'' said Bollanco, who recently lost a federal jury trial in Sacramento in which the judge refused to allow a medical necessity defense.

Yet even on a state level, the answer to the medical marijuana debate remains murky. Lacking clear-cut guidelines, law enforcement officials in some jurisdictions actively pursue arrests, others tend to look the other way. Last year, a task force including advocates and opponents worked to craft a compromise. This year, the resulting bill was tabled. Faced with federal opposition, California Governor Gray Davis has resisted giving it his approval.

But California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, unlike his predecessor, appears to favor the voters' decision to allow the use of medical marijuana, although he has called Prop 215 poorly written and open to too much interpretation. This month, he urged US Attorney General Janet Reno to let the appellate court ruling stand.

See
California AG Lockyer Asks Reno Not to Appeal Court Ruling Upholding Medical Necessity.
A Very Major Development!

Possibly turned off by the number of marijuana plants involved - or by McWilliams' admitted eccentricities - few have rallied around his case and some have turned against him. He insisted he is hurt but not angry or surprised by his isolation. After his arrest, McWilliams spent almost a month in jail until he could raise the money to post bail.

''I am the representative of all the sick people and what they are doing to me is only the worst case right now, but there will be others,'' McWilliams said. ''I am living on borrowed time anyway. I owe this part of my life to luck and modern medical science. But I can't imagine what the rest of it will be like if they won't let me use medical marijuana.''

Copyright: 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.