Irv Rosenfeld is one of a small group of patients who actually gets medical marijuana legally from the federal government -- yep, that same federal government that sends storm troopers to arrest California patients doing the same thing. He is part of the Compassionate IND (Investigational New Drug) program and gets about 300 marijuana cigarettes in a metal tin prescribed to last approximately one month.
U.S. v. Randall
In 1976, a Washington, D.C. man afflicted by glaucoma employed the little-used Common Law doctrine of necessity to defend himself against criminal charges of marijuana cultivation. On November 24, 1976, federal Judge James Washington ruled Randall's use of marijuana constituted a "medical necessity." In part, Judge Washington ruled:
While blindness was shown by competent medical testimony to be the otherwise inevitable result of defendant's disease, no adverse effects from the smoking of marijuana have been demonstrated.... Medical evidence suggests that the medical prohibition is not well-founded.
Judge Washington dismissed criminal charges against Randall. Concurrent with this judicial determination, federal agencies responding to a May, 1976 petition filed by Randall, began providing this patient with licit, FDA-approved access to government supplies of medical marijuana. Randall was the first American to receive marijuana for the treatment of a medical disorder.
In 1978, federal agencies, disquieted by Randall's outspoken opposition to the medical prohibition, sought to silence him by disrupting his legal access to marijuana.
In response, Randall, represented pro bono publico by the law firm of Steptoe & Johnson, brought suit against FDA, DEA, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Department of Justice and the Department of Health, Education & Welfare.
Twenty-four hours after the suit was filed, federal agencies requested an out-of-court settlement.
The resulting settlement provided Randall with prescriptive access to marijuana through a federal pharmacy located near his home.
The settlement in Randall v. U.S. became the legal basis for FDA's Compassionate IND program. Initially, this program was limited to patients afflicted by marijuana-responsive disorders and some orphan drugs. In the mid-1980's however, the Compassionate IND concept was expanded to include HIV-positive people seeking legal access to drugs which had not yet received final FDA marketing approval.
More patients joined the Compassionate IND program, but in the 1980s, it looked like it would grow significantly because of AIDS. So The George H.W. Bush administration shut it down in 1991.
The Compassionate IND program was closed because too many people were asking for access to medical marijuana supplies. In order for marijuana to be classified as a prohibited Schedule I drug it must not have "accepted medical use in treatment" in the United States.
The federal government knew that hundreds of approved Compassionate INDs would quickly undermine that criteria and marijuana would have to be rescheduled. Rather than respond in an honest and open way, the federal government closed the Compassionate IND program for marijuana.
The existing patients were grandfathered in because it would require public and embarrassing court cases to deny them medicine at this point. The AIDS patients in the program died (this was prior to the AIDS cocktails that could prolong life). And finally, Randall died, making Irv Rosenfeld now the oldest living legal federal marijuana patient.
Now thanks to a ruling from The Federal Appeals Court Rules Terminally Ill Patients Can Sue FDA for Treatment with Experimental Drugs With this ruling I am asking for the sick to contact me so we can get a class action suit going.