Madison NORML

I plan to testify along with Jacki Rickert and other Wisconsin patients and advocates. Jacki was approved for the same program as Irv in 1991, but the program was suspended by Bush the elder and then closed to new participants. The program began in 1976 when Washington D.C. glaucoma patient Robert Randall sued the federal government. With the help of Randall and my U.S. Senators Gaylord Nelson and Bill Proxmire and my congressman Henry Reuss, but was unable to find a physician willing to deal with the buteaucratic red tape.

This historic hearing is the first public hearing on medical marijuana in Wisconsin's legislature for at least 25 years. Robert Randall himself spoke at a hearing held on July 31, 1979. Read a Wisconsin State Journal article click here. I was the anonymous constituent with glaucoma whose representative, Steve Leopold, spoke on their behalf in the article. I was just 24 back then and nervous about testifying. This time, at 50, and having medicated my glaucoma with cannabis for over 33 years and counting,I'm ready.

Wisconsin lawmakers passed a medical marijuana bill in 1981 by wide margins, and Gov. Lee Sherman Dreyfus signed it into law in 1982. But, patients were immediately back at square one because federal authorities refused to supply the therapeutic research program created by the bill with federal supplies of medical marijuana from the same stash Rosenfeld's comes from. And since the feds have a monopoly, glaucoma and cancer patients covered by the bill found there was little to celebrate outside of the symbolic victory.

Three other patients in the program, George McMahon, Barbara Douglass and Elvy Musikka, have visited the Capitol. McMahon and Douglass at the end of Jacki Rickert's Journey For Justice in September 1997, and Elvy spoke at Harvest Fest in Madison on the State St. steps in October 2002. Robert Randall passed on in 2001, never having lost his sight to glaucoma. Elvy is one of 2 remaining glaucoma patients in the program.

Here is a press release from the grouop, Patients Out of Time, about Irv's latest milestone of medical marijuana. I'm on their advisory board and looking forward to their next conference April 2006 in Santa Barbara, CA.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT INFO:
Patients Out of Time
Al Byrne
1472 Fish Pond Road
Howardsville, VA 24562
USA
Phone: (434)263-4484
Fax: (434)263-6753
al@medicalcannabis.com
http://www.medicalcannabis.com

220 Pounds and Still Smoking

On November 20, 2005 Irv Rosenfeld, a Ft. Lauderdale stockbroker, will have smoked 220 pounds of US government marijuana/cannabis over a 23 year period.

The longest using patient in the Federal Governments Compassionate Use Program, with only 7 US citizens being shown such compassion, Irv has benefited from this medicine without negative side effects of any type.

"The US government has never had a moment's hesitation about providing him and the other six US citizens this medicine. The researchers at NIDA knew from the outset of this program that cannabis was non-toxic to humans and of significant benefit for the health of some individuals", said, Al Byrne, co-founder of the national educational charity, called Patients Out of Time. They knew, because all of the more than two-dozen studies conducted by countries around the globe, including the US, have come to that conclusion.

"Chronic Cannabis Use in the Compassionate Investigational New Drug Programm: An Examination of the Benefits and Adverse Effects of Legal Clinical Cannabis" by E. Russo, MD and M. L. Mathre, RN confirmed that for four of the federal patients studied including Irv (the others wished to remain annonymous) the government was right, Please see www.medicalcannabis.com for the complete study.

Irv is both a teacher and competitor in the sport of sailing for the handicapped.