Brownie Mary

LGBTQI+ and Cannabis cultures are intertwined, and occasionally an extraordinary person brings them even closer. Mary Jane Rathbun, a.k.a Brownie Mary, was one of these people.

Mixing Cannabis into Brownie Batter

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that she’s known for her homemade pot brownies. It was a side hustle she ran, but was arrested for selling it in 1982. What seemed like a setback, actually sparked a life long passion.

Instead of prison time, Mary was able to do community service at the Shanti Project, a non-profit that supported those in the AIDS crisis in San Francisco, CA.

The intensity of the experience led Mary to volunteer at the San Francisco General Hospital, where she baked nearly 600 cannabis brownies a day for AIDS/HIV patients from 1984 to 1992. Mary’s brownies were helpful especially with patients with wasting syndrome, helping increase appetite, slowing the fast metabolic loss, and easing their symptoms.

The Legalization of Medicinal Cannabis

In 1992, Brownie Mary was arrested again but she defended her case stating the benefits of medicinal marijuana for the treatment of HIV which led the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to determine medicinal cannabis possession as a “minor priority” in arrests and prosecutions. August 25th was also declared as “Brownie Mary Day” in recognition of her work at the San Francisco General Hospital.

After the trial, Mary helped open the first cannabis dispensary in the United States. The San Francisco Buyers Club (SFBC) was a basement café where they weighed, packaged, and sold cannabis. It allowed the media to film the establishments. Because of her reputation, the SFBC was never busted by the police and in 1996, California passed Proposition 215 which permitted the legal use of medical marijuana.

Mary Brownie was at the centre of the LGBTQI+ community and the HIV/AIDS crisis that eventually helped legalize cannabis in California. Her legacy and impact lives on.

Happy Pride!

By Fernanda Soldera, Muse Wayfarer