"To have a reward named after someone who made that kind of contribution to a person whose role was to create repressive and suppressive drug policies dishonors the memory of Norman Zinberg and runs counter to the award," Brodsky says.

"Norman Zinberg would have rolled over in his grave if he had heard [McCaffrey will give the Zinberg lecture]," Grinspoon says.

Adding fuel to opponents' flames is the wording of the lecture's title: "The Annual Norman E. Zinberg Memorial Lecture Award." The flyer lists McCaffrey and McGovern and "the 1997 Recipients."

Grinspoon and others said that in asking McCaffrey to give this lecture, the Medical School and Cambridge Hospital are bestowing an award--and tacit approval--on him.

Conference organizers disagree. "He's not being honored. He's been asked to present a lecture, to speak on the nation's drug policy," says a spokesperson for Harvard Medical School.

In a recent speech at the Kennedy School of Government, McCaffrey softened his stance, particularly on medical marijuana and suggested he may reconsider his hard-line approach.

The issue of medical marijuana "ought to be looked at and will be looked at," McCaffrey said in a speech at the Institute of Politics (IOP) earlier this month.

Still, the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition plans to protest during McCaffrey's upcoming lecture, as they did during his speech at the IOP, according to Coalition President Bill H. Downing.