Pubdate: Sun, 17 Jul 2005
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2005 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.uniontrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Note: Does not print LTEs from outside it's circulation area.
Author: Jeff McDonald

SAN DIEGAN WHO WAS LEADER OF CAUSE COMMITTED SUICIDE

In the same public square where he poked government in the eye so 
many times, where he smoked marijuana in the open and even handed out 
samples, Steve McWilliams will be heard from one last time Tuesday.

Friends and supporters of McWilliams, who killed himself last week in 
a desperate effort to end his suffering and draw attention to his 
cause, will gather at City Hall at noon to remember the activist who 
pushed San Diego into becoming the largest city in the nation to 
adopt a medical marijuana law.

McWilliams' suicide Monday, the day he turned 51, has reverberated 
far beyond San Diego County.

Activists in at least 15 other cities are planning events to coincide 
with the San Diego memorial. They expect the gatherings will be part 
remembrance and part protest over the way they say McWilliams had 
been targeted by the federal government.

In Washington D.C., supporters are planning a candlelight vigil 
encircling the Capitol. Medical marijuana advocates said they want to 
get a proposed law, aimed at permitting a medical-necessity defense 
in federal cases, named after McWilliams.

"He was a pioneer in the movement," said Claudia Little, a retired 
nurse from Point Loma who is helping to organize the San Diego 
service. "He was the one who brought the issue of the implementation 
of Proposition 215 to the forefront."

McWilliams almost single-handedly forced the San Diego City Council 
to address Proposition 215, the 1996 initiative that for the first 
time gave ailing Californians the legal right to use marijuana to 
ease symptoms.

Week after week for years on end he showed up at meetings, often 
carrying a small marijuana plant, to urge the council to take action 
to implement the state law.

His activism took many forms; he alternately ran for City Council and 
sued the city for allegedly violating his civil rights.

Ultimately, his efforts paid off. The council formed a task force to 
draw up medical marijuana guidelines, and in 2003 it passed an 
ordinance outlining how many plants patients would be allowed to grow 
in San Diego.

McWilliams served on the committee for a time but quit when he felt 
the process had become bogged down in bureaucracy.

"There were clearly others, but Steve McWilliams was the driving 
force" behind those guidelines, said Councilwoman Toni Atkins, who 
plans to request that the City Council adjourn tomorrow's session in 
his memory. "He was willing to take on that role when many people 
would not, or couldn't."

Barbara MacKenzie, McWilliams' longtime partner and co-founder of the 
Shelter from the Storm medical marijuana resource center, said 
Tuesday's memorial service at City Hall will be a fitting tribute.

The service will include eulogies from McWilliams' friends and fellow 
medical marijuana advocates, but MacKenzie said anyone who shows up 
will get a turn on the podium.

"That was his true belief, getting people to realize they have the 
power to change and improve their lives, if they just join together 
and speak," she said.

McWilliams drew the attention of federal agents in 2002 after he 
smoked pot and gave away small bags of the drug on the steps of City 
Hall to protest a raid on a medical marijuana cooperative in Santa Cruz County.

In 2003 he was convicted of illegal cultivation and received a 
six-month federal prison term. The sentence was stayed pending 
appeal, but he was not allowed to use marijuana while the case was unresolved.

When he died, McWilliams was in serious and persistent pain from an 
earlier motorcycle accident, a condition he said was made worse by 
his abstinence from marijuana. In a note he left at his side, he said 
the discomfort was too much for him to bear and he hoped his suicide 
would help change the government's position on the medicinal value of 
marijuana, MacKenzie said.

Last month's Supreme Court ruling confirming the government's 
authority to prosecute medical marijuana patients struck a severe 
blow to McWilliams' hope of winning his appeal, MacKenzie said. He 
was afraid of going to jail but also feared waiting in limbo for 
months or years.

He had often said the prescription painkillers he used as a 
substitute for marijuana were far more expensive and left him 
nauseous and weakened.

Thousands of patients across California sympathized with McWilliams' 
plight, MacKenzie said, but they are afraid to confront the federal 
government because they could be prosecuted.

She hopes that will start to change Tuesday. "We want to take the 
fear away as part of the healing," she said. "We know it's there."

Leaders of the activist group Americans for Safe Access have been 
pushing supporters around the country to express their outrage at 
what they say is the government's role in McWilliams' decision to end his life.

"Steve McWilliams was tortured by the federal government because of 
the medication he needed," said Steph Sherer, executive director of 
Berkeley-based Americans for Safe Access. "There have been hundreds 
of messages mourning Steve and wishing Barbara well -- and really 
pointing fingers at the federal government."

In addition to Washington, D.C., where activists plan a candlelight 
vigil and walk around the Capitol, mourners are planning memorial 
services in Texas, Pennsylvania, Utah, Oregon, Indiana and Colorado, 
McWilliams' home state.

"Patients are having to suffer, even though laws have been passed," 
said Jim Greig, a medical marijuana patient from Eugene, Ore., who is 
organizing the event there. "We still don't have access to our medicine.
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MAP posted-by: Beth