Madison NORML

Bob Randall, medical cannabis hero, 1946-2001, Source: www.drugscience.org.

As a glaucoma patient, I was looking forward to finally meeting fellow glaucoma patient Robert C. Randall of Washington D.C., the first legal federal medical marijuana patient.

It was Randall’s lawsuit that created the Compassionate IND program that still supplies 4 living Americans with medical cannabis today, at a minimum of ten 0.9-gram marijuana cigarettes each day.

Randall, like myself, had stumbled upon marijuana as a means to save his eyesight from the ravages of glaucoma. After smoking cannabis, the “halos” we’d see around streetlights at night would disappear. I recall around the time I was diagnosed with glaucoma as a young child of 8 or so, my mother took me for a walk after dark and asked me to look at the streetlights and if I saw halos. Growing up with the daily threat of blindness was no way to spend a childhood. When, at 17 and a half, a visit to my eye doctor on October 3, 1972 confirmed that marijuana was saving my eyesight and could control my elevated ocular pressures, I was elated. But I was still too scared to tell my old school doctor at the time. And medical marijuana was practically unheard of in 1972, with marijuana recently having been classified a Schedule One drug under the newly passed Controlled Substances Act.

Then, in 1976, I saw a picture of Randall smoking a government joint accompanying an article about how after being arrested for marijuana, he sued the federal government and was provided with 10 pre-rolled marijuana cigarettes each day. I started writing my representatives as well as Randall and his partner Alice O’Leary, who were working with NORML in DC. In an age without the internet, news of medical cannabis was scarce and Bob and Alice’s correspondence gave me hope through many a dark day. When federal authorities tried to cut Randall off, I filed an affidavit with his attorney supporting his case. He sent me the paperwork for the IND program, but I could not find a doctor willing to challenge the federal bureaucracy. The best my doctor would do was to provide a letter, which I blogged about in June click here.

I had been in touch with my Milwaukee Assembly representative, Steve Leopold, and because of fear of prosecution, I asked him to speak on my behalf – I am the person referred to in the article below. While I did not testify, I did provide committee members with a copy of my above referenced doctor's note as well as a letter I wrote stating how cannabis helped with glaucoma and ocular migraines, which included this statement:

"I resent having to violate the law to treat a medical condition, which in my case cannot be completely controlled by conventional therapy."

Bob Randall passed on in 2001. Thanks to federally-supplied medical cannabis, he preserved his vision to the end. I was fortunate enough to see him one more time at the first Patients Out Of Time Conference in Iowa City, IA in 2000. He was selling his excellent book, Marijuana Rx: The Patient's Fight for Medicinal Pot, and I purchased a copy which he autographed.

Robert Randall signs a book for Irv Rosenfeld as Jacki Rickert looks on in 2000 at the first Patients Out of Time Conference. (Photo by Gary Storck)

In 1981, lawmakers passed Therapeutic Cannabis Research Act, with the late Gov. Lee Dreyfus signing it in 1982 click here. But, federal refusal to supply material doomed it and similar laws in more than 32 US states to symbolic status. The people had spoken through their lawmakers, but federal authorities were unbending. Forward progress slowed until 1996, when California voters took it out of the hands of lawmakers and passed Prop 215. Bob Randall helped get most of these earlier therapeutic research acts passed with his tireless advocacy. Keith Stroup, the founder of NORML and director in the 1970’s when Bob Randall first approached NORML about medical use has called him the "father of the medical marijuana movement."

Over the years, Madison has seen visits from other federal IND patients including Elvy Musikka, the sole remaining glaucoma patient, at Harvest Fest in 2003. In addition, Irv Rosenfeld testified before a hearing held by Rep. Gregg Underheim in 2005 and George McMahon was at the Capitol in both 1997 and 2007, for the Journey for Justice conclusion and last November’s informational hearing on medical cannabis held by State Sen. Jon Erpenbach click here.

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Source: Wisconsin State Journal
Originally published on August 1, 1979
Author: Richard Eggleston, Associated Press
Copyright © 1979 Wisconsin State Journal

EX-ALDERMAN ASKS LEGAL MARIJUANA FOR MEDICAL USE

One man who suffers from glaucoma and another who has cancer urged Wisconsin lawmakers Tuesday to make marijuana legal for individuals in their predicaments.

"It would be cruel not to pass this legislation for fear that people might misinterpret our intent," attorney Donald Murdoch, a former alderman from Madison's 2nd (near East Side) District, told an Assembly Committee. "Marijuana can help. I know from my own experience."

Murdoch said marijuana alleviated the nausea of cancer chemotherapy and radiation treatments he underwent after cancer was discovered in its early stages in his lymphatic system.

Robert Randall of Washington, D.C., said marijuana proved to be useful in controlling his glaucoma, a disease marked by high pressure in the eyeball that eventually leads to blindness.

Without marijuana, his only recourse was risky surgery, but the government resisted his attempts to obtain marijuana legally, and he was arrested in 1974 for growing his own, Randall related.

Now Randall, who won a lawsuit to obtain legal marijuana, carries the marijuana cigarettes, prescribed for him by an eye doctor, in a brown plastic pill bottle bearing his name and the instruction, "Smoke as directed."

Randall said he smokes 10 of the cigarettes daily and has not suffered any additional deterioration of his sight.

He and Murdoch testified before the Assembly Health and Social Services Committee in behalf of a bill by state Rep. David Clarenbach, D-Madison, that would allow marijuana to be prescribed for glaucoma and cancer sufferers.

State Rep. Stephen Leopold, D-Milwaukee, said he has a constituent who has glaucoma and obtains marijuana illegally for the condition.

"Right now he has to break the law to receive adequate treatment," said Leopold, who added that his constituent was unwilling to testify in behalf of the bill for fear of prosecution.

The bill received generally favorable reception from witnesses, although there was some concern that the federal government would take too long to provide marijuana to help those who need it, and that providing them with street drugs confiscated by police might be risky because the quality of the drug could not be guaranteed.

The only opponent at the hearing was Dr. Philip F. Mussari of Necedah, a psychiatrist, who contended that marijuana had been shown to cause brain damage, a conclusion challenged by other physicians at the hearing.

Opinion was much more divided on another bill sponsored by Clarenbach, to make the penalties for possession of up to three ounces civil rather than criminal, a process commonly known as decriminalization.

Studies purporting to show brain damage from marijuana use have been discredited by later studies using more sophisticated techniques that showed no such effect, said Dr. James Halikas, a Milwaukee psychiatrist who has studied alcoholism and drug abuse for 11 years.

The victims of marijuana use are not nearly as visible as victims of alcohol or tobacco use, and marijuana appears to be the safest of the three drugs, Halikas said.

"Marijuana is relatively safe, relatively innocuous," he said. "The prohibitions against its use are inordinately excessive."

Tamerin Mathieson of Sturtevant, a high school teacher speaking in behalf of the Wisconsin Congress of Parents and Teachers, opposed marijuana decriminalization, asserting that time will prove the PTA right.

"It is our belief that very shortly the horrendous price being paid by marijuana users in brain damage, birth defects, deprivation of sensory stimulation, lung damage and more will become a well-publicized fact," she said. "This would be a very poor time to lower our legal standards."

Whitewater Police Chief Don Simon also testified against the decriminalization proposal in behalf of the Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Association.

He asked the Legislature instead to provide law enforcement with a method of detecting marijuana in the bodies of drivers similar to the Breathalyzer test for alcohol.

Andrew Kane of Milwaukee, speaking for the National Association for Reform of Marijuana Laws, said neither he or his group condone the use of the substance.

He said the civil penalties that would replace criminal sanctions under Clarenbach's bill would still be stiffer than the penalties meted out to most first offenders in Wisconsin today, but would not carry the lifelong stigma of a criminal arrest.