Grandma Marijuana Dances Into The Spirit World

[Swampy]

Mae Belle E. Nutt
Nutt, Mae Belle E.
Antelope, California
Mae Belle Emma Nutt, passed away on January 1, 2008 in Roseville, CA. Born June 28, 1921 in Rochester, NY, the daughter of Louis and Gladys (Yaw) Wallace. She was predeceased by her husband of 46 years, Arnold Nutt and two sons, Keith and Dana.
She is survived by her daughter, Joyce Born of Westland, Ml, and her son, Marc Nutt and his spouse of Antelope, CA. She is also survived by her grandchildren: Amy Korte and David Born, their spouses, and
5 great-grandchildren.
Mrs. Nutt was a medical marijuana activist for over 25 years, motivated by the cancer battle she witnessed in her son, Keith, who
alleviated his chemotherapy symptoms by secretly smoking marijuana. When she discovered that the drug reduced his nausea, she proceeded to battle the government to make marijuana available to anyone who could prove a medical need. She and her husband were instrumental in the passage of the first medical marijuana legalization bill in Michigan in 1979. They were the recipients of the national Citizens of the Year for The Drug Policy Foundation in Washington, DC in 1990. They regularly traveled to state and federal hearings to put a personal face on the medical marijuana cause. She had been profiled on CNN News and the CBS Evening News, and was labeled Grandma Marijuana in an extensive article in High Times Magazine. She regularly participated in conferences and was also a focal point in the recently
completed documentary Waiting to Inhale by award winning film maker, Jed Riffe.
A memorial service will be held June 28, 2008 at the Billings Twp. Cemetery.

Sisson Funeral Home
Gladwin, Michigan

[jb247]

Thanks for passing that along for us, Swampy, it sounds like she has done alot for us...

Peace...j.b.

[Marco Renda]

May she rest in peace. Condolences to all her family and friends

Take Care and Peace
Marco

[Swampy]

I met Mae the first time in either 1977 or 1979 at the Smoke In at Washington DC every July 1-4 and tried to get a ride back home to Michigan with them but they were already three people in a two seat triumph :D I didn't talk to her again until I met a lifetime friend of her son Keith's in rehab and grew with him and we took two garbage bags full of buds to her. Keith was already dead but she was helping all kinds of people still and going before congress ,senators whoever would listen. I contacted her again right after my fire and she put me in touch with a leagal smoker(I think Tonya's friend) who told places to find med cases for my defense and that was how I found TY(Bless you Mae). I last contacted her 2 years ago by phone, she was living in a nursing home in Midland still(I'm so glad she got to go to Cali and be with her daughter for the end). We never did get together for dinner but she gave me an address to donate a couple thousand seeds to sick people in Virginia. I will do some research and write an article about Mae or "Grandma Marijuana" the name she truely loved :D and deserves. It was all young long hairs except Mae in the marijuana back in the 70's. She actually arm-twisted the politicians and made it ok for older folks to accept that their kids smoke pot and come out in support of lessening drug laws when they saw her on TV.

[Unicorn]

Rest is peace Grandma...your work will carry on... healing hugs to her family... Uni ;)

[Swampy]

Grandma Marijuana Fights On
Posted by FoM on March 21, 2000 at 10:45:39 PT
By Kathy Roberts, Times Writer
Source: Michigan Live

Former Beaverton resident continues 21-year battle to make medicinal pot legal.
Mae Nutt, 78, is an expert at baking marijuana brownies.

She also has a terrific recipe for marijuana tea. She has sauteed untold pounds of marijuana in butter (not margarine, she insists) to concoct suppositories.

About the only thing Nutt doesn't know about the illegal drug is what a marijuana high feels like. She doesn't smoke it.

Nutt, who moved to Midland from Beaverton in July, is a 21-year advocate for the legalization of marijuana as medicine. She's been an opponent of recreational use of marijuana even longer.

From April 6-8, Nutt will be one of 26 speakers at the First National Clinical Conference on Cannabis Therapeutics in Iowa City, Iowa. The conference is sponsored by the College of Nursing and the College of Medicine at the University of Iowa.

"This is going to be a world program and, of course, they're hoping we can get somebody to listen," Nutt said.

Al Byrne, co-founder of Patients Out Of Time, said his organization is holding the conference to educate medical professionals about the positive effects of marijuana. His wife, Mary Lynn Mathre, is an addictions consultant for the University of Virginia Health Systems.

Byrne said he hopes that through education, voters will learn how marijuana can help and pressure politicians into changing laws. Currently, seven states and the District of Columbia allow marijuana to be used as a prescription medicine.

During the April conference, doctors, nurses and attorneys from all over the world will explain the health care applications of marijuana and U.S. laws governing its use. On April 7, Nutt will talk about her personal experience with marijuana and cancer.

Her son, Keith, was diagnosed with testicular cancer in April 1978. The cancer had spread throughout his abdomen and lungs. He started chemotherapy in Columbus, Ohio the following February.

A short time later, though, the debilitating side effects of chemotherapy forced Keith to move back home to Beaverton from his college apartment. After chemotherapy, he'd be so ill he stuffed a towel under his bedroom door to seal out the smell of food.

Nutt soon read an article about marijuana helping chemotherapy patients re-gain their appetites. It also alleviated the pain from cancer. Keith admitted to his mom he knew firsthand that marijuana could help. She asked Keith why he never told her.

You made it abundantly clear many years ago that marijuana was not acceptable in this house,'" Nutt remembers Keith saying. "I told him, "Well, this is different.'"

Within days, Nutt contacted a minister who worked with troubled youth in another community. The minister found someone to get marijuana for Keith. Nutt was so far removed from the world of buying drugs that she paid for the first delivery with a check.

Marijuana made the difference. Keith could eat dinner with his family. He could sit in the living room. He could play his guitar.

When Keith died in October 1979, Nutt's battle for medicinal marijuana was just beginning.

Her efforts to legalize marijuana as medicine earned her the nickname "Grandma Marijuana." Because of the number of gifts of marijuana that appeared on the doorstep and in the mailbox, her Beaverton home became known as the "Green Cross."

She appeared on national television twice, pushing her cause.

Nutt testified in federal court in Washington, D.C., in 1988. Her testimony came at the start of a weeklong hearing on a suit asking the Drug Enforcement Administration to change the classification of marijuana to allow cancer, glaucoma and multiple sclerosis patients to use it.

As a result, doctors in 33 states were allowed to prescribe marijuana, but only under rules that were so cumbersome only a few bothered. Many states later rescinded the laws. Nutt said Michigan doctors also told her they didn't pursue the license to prescribe marijuana because the paperwork burned up so much time.

Patients complain that the federal law only allows them to smoke joints under the supervision of a doctor. That isn't always practical. The relief lasts only a short time, so a patient needs to smoke a few puffs several times a day.

The paperwork to get approval for the prescription is long, detailed and confusing.

Even patients who opt to buy marijuana illegally run into problems. Some don't smoke. Toddlers with cancer can't be taught to smoke.

Nutt, who is in touch with cancer patients, health care professionals and lawyers all over the country, has a solution for every problem.

She refers patients to an expert on the federal paperwork. She finds smokers to help non-smokers learn the skill. She passes on recipes for marijuana brownies, tea and suppositories.

She counsels everyone who seeks the drug illegally to be careful.

In 1990, those kinds of efforts earned Mae Nutt and her husband, Arnold, the Robert Randall Award for Citizens Action from the Drug Policy Foundation, which is dedicated to liberalizing U.S. drug policies. Heart disease and stroke took Arnold Nutt's life in August.

Re-kindling some of the relationships that Nutt and her husband developed over the last 21 years is one reason she is looking forward to the conference in Iowa.

Kevin Zeese, president of Common Sense Drug Policy and the attorney who accompanied Nutt to Washington, D.C., is also one of the speakers.

Robert Randall, a glaucoma patient who uses marijuana legally and who has been friends with the Nutts for years, also is on the roster.

Nutt hopes to pay the conference expenses of a Wisconsin woman who has a disease that causes her joints to loosen and muscles to atrophy. The only thing that gives her relief is marijuana. The woman hasn't been able to complete the paperwork to get federal permission for the drug. On Wednesday, Nutt got word that police were raiding her friends' home in connection with her marijuana use.

That is the sort of incident she hopes no one else ever has to face. If marijuana provides relief from intense pain, it should be a legal, prescription medicine, Nutt believes.

The upcoming conference could convince some politicians of that, Nutt said.

Published: Tuesday, March 21, 2000

[Swampy]

Mae Nutt: Grandma Marijuana (1921-2008)


Mae Nutt, who passed away on New Year's Day at age 86, was the unlikeliest poster person for pot. But after her son Keith died of cancer in 1979, she began a one-woman campaign to educate the world about marijuana's medical properties.

Keith had smoked pot to counter the effects of chemptherapy. Mae approved and was impressed with how Keith was able to fight off nausea, eat and prevent weight loss thanks to a little weed. It didn't save his life, but made the suffering more bearable.

Mae, who lived in Midland, Michigan at the time (she'd since moved to Antelope, California after her husband's death), became the Mother Theresa of pot. People gave her quantities and she distributed it to sick people in need. The Michigan media dubbed her "Grandma Marijuana."

In 1988, Mae testified at DEA hearings concerning the scheduling of marijuana. Despite DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis Young determining that marijuana was the "one of the safest therapeutically active substances know to man," the anti-drug agency refused to change the drug's status. It remains listed as a Schedule I narcotic with no accepted medical use.

Mae contended that marijuana not only helped people but it saved lives. "I think putting people in jail for smoking it is ridiculous," she told CelebStoner's Steve Bloom, who interviewed her for High Times, in 1991. "Letting people suffer when something so simple will help alleviate such horrible pain and misery is ludicrous. It's absolutely insane."

Bloom says about Grandma Marijuana: "Mae was an amazing person. Consider how far she was ahead of the medical-marijuana curve. She broke the law to help sick people and never was arrested. They loved her in Michigan. She deserves a statue in Midland's town square."

Photo of Mae Nut by Andre Grossmann

[Swampy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcMAX72exUk

[Pain Pal]

God be with her as I know He is.She realy sounds like a great lady and I would have been honored to meet her and expect to when my time comes.
Thank you Swampy for bringing her to our attention and I will be saying prayers for her famely.
Love Peace & Prayers
John