The badass weed brownie grandma, 1980

The badass weed brownie grandma, 1980

Mary Jane Rathbun was a medical cannabis advocate during the 1980s during the AIDS epidemic. She gained the nickname of "Brownie Mary". 

Rathburn learned of the medical benefits of cannabis to people who can be in extreme physical pain. She worked as a hospital volunteer in San Francisco and witnessed the pain and suffering that some patients were going through. As she was already a heavy consumer of cannabis herself, she decided to help those around her by baking weed brownies and giving them away to people in medical need. 

Cannabis has been proven to have positive and negative effects on human health. It has been used for patients suffering from significant pain levels, in which it can offer excellent pain relief without using more intense painkillers like morphine. 

Rathburn decided to bake brownies containing cannabis to give to AIDS patients for free. She also supplied these brownies to patients with cancer. She did this all for free and never charged for her services. People who were sympathetic to her cause would donate illegal cannabis to her, and she would buy the brownie ingredients herself and bake them in her kitchen at her home. 

Rathburn was arrested 3 times because of her activities, as cannabis was illegal in California then. She gained sympathy, locally, nationally and internationally, from people who were part of the Cannabis movement at the time. 

During the height of her activities, Rathburn would bake 500 brownies a day and never charged money for them, believing in helping those who needed it. 

She passed away in 1999. She is still iconic today in the cannabis movement globally for her efforts. She is admired by those who might not even consume cannabis for her attempt to support those dying, in great pain or who were rejected by society. 

At the time, AIDS was very poorly understood, and many AIDS patients died alone in hospital wards, as AIDS patients have been stereotyped as being gay. Rathburn would offer comfort to those often rejected by others around them in their darkest hours.

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