The American Spectator

In Memoriam

Lyn Nofziger: An Appreciation

By Nicholas Thimmesch, II on 3.29.06 @ 12:07AM

(Page 2 of 2)

ALSO TO BE FOUND AMONG Lyn Nofziger's "Musings" was something that related to another one of my greatest admirations for Lyn: his common sense sensibility, even if it was contraire to the current conventional conservatism. As I mentioned, Lyn's daughter died a painful death from cancer, one in which she found little relief from mainstream medicine's traditional medication. In a Washington Post in the late 1990s, Nofziger wrote about something that did work:

When our daughter was undergoing chemotherapy for lymph cancer, she was sick and vomiting constantly as a result of her treatments. No legal drugs, including Marinol, helped her.

We finally turned to marijuana. With it, she kept her food down, was comfortable and even gained weight. Those who say Marinol and other drugs are satisfactory substitutes for marijuana may be right in some cases but certainly not in all cases. If doctors can prescribe morphine and other addictive medicines, it makes no sense to deny marijuana to sick and dying patients when it can be provided on a carefully controlled, prescription basis.

Nofziger, who valiantly agreed to participate in a 2002 Capitol Hill news conference in support of Congressman Barney Frank's "State's Rights to Medical Marijuana Act" legislation, took to task a "compassionate conservative" Bush over the issue:

"Next week I will participate in a news conference that calls for an end to federal persecution of persons using or supplying marijuana for medicinal purposes in states where law permits it."

Addressing the president, who as a candidate, seemingly supported states' rights when it came to medical marijuana, Nofziger wrote:

"It seems to me that the very definition of compassionate conservatism should convince President Bush to support legislation that would allow states to legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes. In fact, if the president understands the meaning of those two words ('compassionate conservative') not to support Frank is to reject the philosophy for which he says he stands and on which he ran for president."

Lyn Nofziger: a conservative, a true conservative, a Reagan conservative to the very end.

Lyn was a stand up guy in a town full of men who sit down when they urinate: he will be sorely missed.

Letter to the Editor

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