Previous drug smuggler and author Howard Marks has died. He was 70 years old.

Marks, from Bridgend county in Kenfig Hill, publicized previous year that he had been diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer. He was jailed in 1990 in the US after being sentenced of smuggling cannabis. He recalled his activities in Mr Nice, a successful autobiography, which later was transformed into a movie featuring Rhys Ifans.

Marks had 4 children. He stood for Parliament election to in 1997 on ticket of restructuring cannabis laws.

He also recurrently visited a one-man show in which he narrated stories about his prison time and drug smuggling.

“In the initial hours of April 10,, Howard Marks passed away quietly in his sleep encircled by his 4 devoted children”, said a statement.

“He battled the illness with humor and grace”.

“His death was twenty-one years to the day from his discharge from jail in the United States, his 2^nd session of custody for cannabis smuggling since his amazing discharge in 1980 at the Old Bailey”.

“Among his last and final acts, one was to establish the Mr. Nice foundation, to guarantee the causes valued to him continue to get his backing.” Exposing his disease in January, Marks stated he had “no regrets” about the life he had spent.

He graduated in physics from Oxford University and indulged himself in drug smuggling in the 1970s.

He was arrested in 1988, in Spain in an operation of US Drug Enforcement Agency and deported to Florida. He was penalized to 25 years imprisonment and discharged on parole for good behavior in 1995. Regarding the film form of Mr. Nice, Marks had walk-on appearances in the movie Human Traffic and appeared on TV on a quiz show telecasted on BBC, Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

He also worked together on some songs with the Super Furry Animals and made presences at the festival of Glastonbury. Mr Nice sequel, Senor Nice, released in 2006, and 5 years later Marks issued Sympathy for the Devil, a crime novel.

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