Chapter 28 - Prizes, Pawns & Patrons

In early October 1989, Steve L. called for help from his bed at the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Hospital in San Antonio, Texas. He was dying.

"I told’em if I kept looking I’d find you," Steve said, sad as a sick puppy. "I told’em I’d find you."

Steve L. was a backwoods Texas boy. Reared in poverty he quit school in the seventh grade and worked odd jobs doing lawn care, chopping firewood, etc. By the time he reached thirty Steve was just another aimless, angry alcoholic, addicted to methamphetamine and selling blood to make ends meet. A dark bedeviled life of hard scrabble and hard luck.

Steve’s life got much harder when, unable to breath, he ended up at Audie Murphy diagnosed with AIDS from a dirty needle. He lapsed into coma, then awoke to slow recovery and transformation.

"What happened in your coma?" I wanted to know.

"I remember walking down this path," Steve began. "Trees, like a tent overhead. Dark, but there was people, shadow people, standing off to both sides. But I paid’em no mind, just kept walking ‘til I come over a rise and saw this wide, black river, flat as glass. So I walked on by the river awhile ‘til I come upon this small boat. I was getting in to go to the other side when a man with no face stopped me. ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘Not yet.’ Then I woke up. And now I’ve found you."

"Were you looking for me?" I asked, trapped by the imagery.

"Oh, yeah. Looking hard," Steve said with gravity. "Looking a year or more."

Steve’s pneumonia-induced coma was followed by ineffective, highly toxic medical treatments and rapid weight loss. Constantly nauseated by disease and drugs, his weight collapsed. "I’m not a big man," Steve explained, "but I lost half my weight; down to 80 lbs. Skin and bones. Then I discovered marijuana."

Following his comatose journey to the river Styx, Steve emerged spiritually transfigured. "No booze. No drugs. No anger. No fear. Like I woke from a bad dream. Happy," he said.

Happy, but terribly thin. A friend, alarmed by Steve’s bone bruising thinness, urged Steve to take a toke of marijuana. " He said it might help me eat. I thought, ‘What the hell?’ And it worked."

"How?"

"Well. I could eat. Once pot took my nausea away I couldn’t stop eating. Gained back my weight, mostly, started chopping firewood again. It’s like I come back to life. My doctors, everyone are real amazed. I’m telling you true; without pot I’d have died last year. That’s when I started looking for you."

"How did you find me?"

"Weren’t easy. I knew you existed cause I saw you on TV. So I started looking, making calls. I asked my doctors, the people at V.A., local police, the Texas Rangers, FDA even DEA. I kept telling people there was this man who legally smokes pot. But they all told me you didn’t exist. That got me real confused so as I didn’t know what to do. Then I got arrested."

"You’ve been arrested?"

"Yep. Six months ago: March 1989. The police they come storming in ‘n took my pot. That was real bad. Without pot I ended up back in the hospital. That’s when I started looking for you again."

"So how did you find me," I needed to know who guided this messenger from the edge of death to my door.

"Well, I called all over again. And everybody kept saying no one gets legal pot. Then I called DEA and this real nice guy, he listens to what I’m saying. Then he told me all about you. Even gave me your phone number. That’s how I found you," Steve said with the pride of a hunter who has finally cornered his quarry.

"So. You’ve found me. How can I help you?"

"I want you to get me legal pot," Steve said.

"Why?" I probed for motive.

"Because people with AIDS are dying — starving to death. That’s not right. They should know marijuana helps. So I want you to get me legal pot. Then people with AIDS will know, right? That’s what I want you to do."

Steve L., returned from death, was on a mission. He had, after a long, frustrating search, delivered his message inviting me to be his guide. "It’s why I came back," Steve said with sweet certainty. "So you could help me."

Steve spoke with fate’s voice and issued a summons I could not — dared not — refuse. He approached me with a certainty that I would somehow lead him to a new place, a new level. But it was Steve who would be the guide and he would lead me to a new universe.

Until Steve L. medical marijuana was about cancer and glaucoma and, ever so slightly, spasms and chronic pain. Could Steve’s case stretch the Compassionate IND to include the use of marijuana in treating AIDS? Steve L. was eager to try. I could not deny him the chance.

v v v v

Steve L. had good friends, chief among them Papa Bear (a.k.a. Robert C. Edwards), a big, burly, bearded man in his mid-fifties. Papa Bear founded and ran the San Antonio AIDS Foundation (SAAF), a charity that cared for AIDS patients in southeast Texas. The SAAF, fueled by Papa Bear’s energy, provided dying men medical care, operated food pantries, prepared a hot potluck dinner every night and delivered meals to men too weak to leave home. A human response to the spreading plague. Bear — the father of a gay son — could not deny Steve’s plea for help. "A lot of my guys smoke pot and say it helps." Bear told me. "Steve kept telling us you existed but we thought he was imagining things. Maybe he’s on to something. How can I help?"

Papa Bear helped a great deal. He encouraged the SAAF doctor to apply for a Compassionate IND. I altered a cancer protocol and wondered how the FDA would react to a marijuana IND for AIDS. "Then there’s Steve’s arrest," Bear reminded me.

Steve was set up; busted after buying 13 ounces of marijuana from a vice cop. "I was getting enough marijuana to last me the rest of my life," Steve explained. Instead, Steve ended up several thousands dollars poorer, out on bail, dying of AIDS while facing criminal charges and prison.

"We told the court about Steve’s condition," Bear said. "So the judge just keeps postponing a trial. No reason to drag a dying man to court." But Steve L. wanted his day in court. "Hell, I wanna fight’em. They oughtn’t be doing this to sick people," Steve said.

I contacted Kevin Zeese for help. Within days Gerry Goldstein, a San Antonio attorney and one of the nation’s finest criminal defense lawyers, agreed to represent Steve L. pro bono.

Within a week of calling, Steve L. had a doctor willing to apply to the FDA, and his criminal case was in capable hands. Within two weeks I had drafted the nation’s first Compassionate IND for marijuana/AIDS. Steve’s doctor submitted the IND and we began tracking its progress through the FDA. Time was short. Steve was sick.

Aware of the stress that comes from waiting, I made a point of speaking with Steve nearly every night. Despite his lack of formal education Steve was an intelligent, articulate fellow who wrote hauntingly beautiful poetry. Steve often spoke of his dog, Cool Breeze — C.B. — and frequently reflected on his return from death; the path and the ferryman. I listened for hours as Steve pondered the meaning of the mythic imagery he was living.

"Why wouldn’t the ferryman let you in the boat?" I asked.

"Unfinished business," Steve replied with simple certainty.

As I listened to Steve night after night I found myself far removed from congresses and courtrooms, plunged into a more ethereal, less material realm governed by only vaguely apprehended energies. Ghosts of fallen allies would manifest themselves in Steve’s simply articulated goals. I hoped I could faithfully discharge the commission he presented.