Remembering “Brownie Mary”, an Unexpected Angel to AIDS Patients in San Francisco

Today is the 14th anniversary of the death of Mary Jane Rathbun, better known as “Brownie Mary”, a medical cannabis activist and San Francisco General Hospital volunteer. Rathbun became known in the 1980s and ’90s for illegally distributing pot brownies to AIDS patients to ease the nausea and pain many patients feel at the later stages of the illness.

Rathbun became a hero among San Francisco’s gay community, who were often faced with living with AIDS without medical, psychological, or social support from the community. She was also well-known among other activists for marijuana legalization, many of whom would anonymously leave the medicine at her doorstep.

Rathbun’s relationship with San Francisco’s gay community began in the early 1970s. Her 22-year-old daughter died in a car accident, her marriage was long since over, and in her loneliness, she befriended a young gay man in the Castro. The so-appropriately-named Mary Jane began to bake and distribute pot brownies in the Castro as a way to make money, but the work evolved into activism when the AIDS epidemic in the early ’90s proved her baking talents could support a higher cause.

Word has it in the San Francisco Bay area that during the height of the AIDS epidemic, when most people were rife with fear, Brownie Mary would touch and hug the children dying of AIDS.

in the Though she was arrested for her illegal activities several times in San Francisco, Rathbun’s grandmotherly appearance and motherly demeanor in the community made her tough to fight! She garnered little more than hours of community service, and the city  eventually accepted the palliative benefits of marijuana for the symptoms of AIDS and other terminal illnesses. They honored Rathbun by officially declaring August 25 “Brownie Mary Day” in 1992. She was even given a “de facto license” to distribute marijuana for AIDS patients by the city in 1993, as part of an early move by San Francisco to back off on prosecuting marijuana use and distribution for medical purposes. Word has it in the San Francisco Bay area that during the height of the AIDS epidemic, when most people were rife with fear, Brownie Mary would touch and hug the children dying of AIDS.

In 1996, Rathbun co-authored Brownie Mary’s Marijuana Cookbook and Dennis Peron’s Recipe for Social Change with fellow medical cannabis and LGBT rights activist Dennis Peron.

Well-loved and likely still well-remembered in the city of San Francisco, Brownie Mary’s story is as sweet as it is powerful. At a time when she was lost and grieving in her own life, she became part of the city’s community for like-minded souls. An unexpected path lay ahead for this woman from Minnesota. As she told the Chicago Tribune in 1993, “I didn’t go into this thinking I would be a hero … It was something I wanted to do to help my gay friends, and it just spiraled.”

Learn more about living with AIDS in San Francisco from our interview with Michael Smithwick, Executive Director of Maitri.