Pubdate: Wed, 30 May 2001
Source: Tampa Tribune (FL)
Section: Nation / World page 11 Commentary
Copyright: 2001, The Tribune Co.
Contact:  http://www.tampatrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/446
Author: Sandy Banks, Los Angeles Times columnist.

BELIEFS CAN CHANGE IN A PUFF OF SMOKE

He understands that to all but his closest friends, he might well be 
considered a "right-wing kook" who has gone over the edge. But tragedy, 
like politics, can make strange bedfellows. And yes, it really is Lyn 
Nofziger stumping these days for the medical use of marijuana.

Nofziger, 76, spent most of his public life on the inside of Republican 
political circles, a conservative tough guy who served on the staff of 
President Nixon and as political director for President Reagan.

But it is his private life that defines him these days, forcing him to part 
company with his conservative cronies and join a campaign led by those he 
might once have derisively dismissed as "potheads."

And it wasn't politics that Nofziger was thinking of this month when the 
U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal law prohibits the medical use of 
marijuana. It was the tortuous death of his oldest daughter 11 years ago, 
and that her only respite from the pain of cancer was delivered by a puff 
of marijuana smoke.

It is a hazard of living in the real world, this clash between ideology and 
reality, often prompted by personal tragedy. An ardent pro-lifer learns her 
teenage daughter was raped and is pregnant and suddenly abortion seems the 
lesser of two evils. An anti-death penalty activist loses his family to a 
killer and begins to understand the thirst for vengeance. A political 
conservative watches his daughter wrestle with the pain of terminal cancer 
and begs her friends to score a bag of weed.

"I recognize that my position is an aberration, in a way; that you wouldn't 
expect someone of my political persuasion to advocate the use of 
marijuana," says Nofziger, who works today as a political consultant with 
the Carmen Group in Washington, D.C.

"But this is something that transcends left wing and right wing. When you 
look at the evidence, and you see people being helped - people who have 
glaucoma and multiple sclerosis and cancer and AIDS - and you know from 
personal experience that marijuana can be'a tremendous help, it is not a 
hard call to make."

Before his daughter took ill, Nofziger says, "I might have looked askance" 
at the notion of marijuana use. He was Reagan's political director then, in 
an administration that coined the "Just Say No" response to illegal drugs.

Then his 38-year-old daughter was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. 
"we tried everything the doctors wanted," he recalled. Nothing helped, not 
even Marinol, the legally available form of marijuana's ingredients in a 
pill. Finally, her pain was so overpowering, "she couldn't eat couldn't 
sleep ... she was just in near-constant pain."

"So we said to her friends, 'Can you get her some marijuana?' They were in 
that generation that knew a lot more about things like that than we did. 
And they were able to get her some."

So the right-hand man of a law-and-order president became a sort of outlaw, 
on the,fringe of a fledgling movement that would gain steam over the coming 
decade. Today, nine states have legalized the use of marijuana for some 
medical conditions, although those provisions are now in jeopardy because 
of the recent Supreme Court ruling. Back in 1990, when Nofziger's daughter 
was ill, there was simply no legal way to get the drug.

"I remember they got some and gave it to a friend of my daughter's who 
lived about 30 miles away. And she was driving along to our house with it 
in her car, scared to death that a cop would stop her for speeding and give 
her a ticket and search the car. And there she'd be, with a bag of 
marijuana in her car."

His daughter didn't use much - just a couple of puffs a few times a day - 
but "it eased the pain, relieved the nausea and diarrhea and made her 
comfortable," Nofziger said. Two weeks, later, she died.

The Supreme Court decision has sent Nofziger stumping for legislation that 
would support research into marijuana's medical value and lift the 
prohibitions on its medical use. He has made the rounds of talk shows. 
Ultimately, he's hoping for a chance to spread the gospel among the Bush 
administration.

"I'm willing to do anything that I can as far as medical marijuana is 
concerned," he says.

He's aware of the pitfalls of becoming a poster boy for a movement that 
many say is a foot in the door for a left-wing effort to legalize drugs. "I 
don't want to go out and legalize marijuana," he says.

"I understand the thinking [of conservatives] that if you make it 
acceptable for medical purposes, it'll eventually be acceptable for 
anything else, and that will lead people to hard drugs. I know that it may 
be addictive. But who the hell cares if you're dying?"

"My kid had lymphoma and she was in constant pain. Who the hell cares if 
she risks getting lung cancer from smoking marijuana? She's going to be 
dead anyway! And she shouldn't have to suffer the way she did, not when 
there's something out there that can make her final days a little more 
comfortable."

"The fact is," Nofziger says wearily, "they can come up with all these 
reasons that we ought to keep it [illegal]. But the guys I'm arguing with 
haven't had to deal with a situation where they've needed it, when you've 
had to watch a daughter die. ... That puts a whole different spin on things."
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