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CONTROVERSIAL TREATMENT: WIFE, MOTHER OF TWO SAYS SHE OWES HER LIFE TO MEDICAL MARIJUANA

A rabbit's foot, a wedding ring, a photo of the kids - the little things in life that people keep close by.  For Angel McClary Raich, it's a blue- and gold-flecked glass pipe packed full of sticky green marijuana.  ``My whole life depends on cannabis,'' the gaunt 37-year-old says unapologetically, the thin pipe held tight between her bony fingers.  "It's my medicine.  I would die without it."

Raich, the wife of a prominent Oakland attorney and mother of two teenagers, is a medical marijuana patient.  Every two hours, she either smokes, eats or inhales marijuana through a vaporizer, consuming more than eight pounds of cannabis a year.  She cooks with thick green marijuana olive oil and is massaged with a creamy hemp balm.

Though she says she hates it, the dank smell and earthy taste of the drug now permeate every aspect of her life.  It's come to be her sustenance and her lifeblood, and without it, both Raich and her Berkeley doctor say she would become gravely ill.

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