"Brownie Mary", who has admitted cooking pot brownies as a mission of mercy for nine years, and her stepson Steve Rider have been busted last july in Sonoma County. They are charged with two felony counts of possession for sale of two pounds of marijuana and trasportation of the drug.Mary Rathbun is a vocal advocate of legal marijuana use for medicinal purpose and gained national recognition for her work with AIDS patients in San Francisco. She is also a proponent of the Proposition P, the measure overwhelming approved by San Francisco voters last year to add pot to California's list of approved medicines.
"My kids need this and I'm ready to go in jail for my principles. If I go to jail, I go to jail. I'm 70 years old. I can handle jail" she said.
On october 9 Mary and Steve appeared in court in Santa Rosa for a seven-hour pretrial hearing.
The judge will decide on november 13 whether there is enough evidence for a Superior Court trial and if the defense team can question a parade of AIDS patients and doctors - as attorneys Tony Serra, J.David Nick and Rebecca Young strongly requested.
"If they get Mary for anything it could be simple possession" Serra said, adding that he hopes to question several medical authorities on the benefits of marijuana for people with AIDS.
Nick claimed since government has done nothing to legalize marijuana for medical use in spite of the evidence of its benefits, the court should do it.
Wearing red, white and blue "Free Brownie Mary" buttons, about 50 advocates of marijuana for medical use crowded into a small coutroom, while a crew from Cable Network TV taped the entire proceedings and other Bay Area journalists had to wait in the corridor.
Rathbun wore a marijuana leaf necklace and a button that said "Weed not Bush".
"If I win this," she said outside the courtroom, "the marijuana for medical use issue will take off like the shot heard around the world."
