THE GUARDIAN ANGEL OF GANJA
Of the handful of key advocates who pioneered the early medical marijuana movement, “Brownie Mary” Jane Rathbun was probably among the most grandmotherly, selfless and empathetic. Few marijuana freedom fighters risked their own wellbeing more than Rathbun to serve medical cannabis to people dying from cancer, and particularly AIDS, at a time when some believed the virus was contagious via contact. The Seattle Weekly called Rathbun the “Florence Nightingale” of the medical-marijuana movement, and for good reason, as she fearlessly marched into crowded AIDS wards when few others dared to enter.
Thomas Coy was 15 years old when he first met Rathbun. He weighed 90 pounds and suffered from Kaposi’s sarcoma and toxoplasmosis. He looked skeletal and was barely alive. As a teen runaway working the streets of San Francisco, Coy was among the first wave of patients to be diagnosed with what would eventually become known as AIDS. Most effective drugs would not become available for over 10 years. “I’m alive today because of people like Brownie Mary,” says Coy. “If I didn’t meet Brownie Mary, who knows what my life would have been like. I probably wouldn’t be here today. I owe my life to Brownie Mary. She saved a lot of us.”
Rathbun helped thousands of other AIDS patients,
