No natural substance has as many medical benefits as marijuana. Its chemical diversity rivals that of chocolate and wine. Marijuana is not only a life-saving drug but has also been used for centuries to relieve headaches, nausea, and menstrual pain. To illustrate how important medical marijuana is, Irv Rosenfeld from Florida came to Michigan in 2006 to try to educate Michigan lawmakers on the benefits of medical cannabis. The following is his testimony:
As a teenager, I had many operations using all kinds of drugs, and I was an advocate against marijuana in the late sixties. Why would a healthy… person use an illegal drug when here I would hold up my baggy with all my prescriptions and say ‘look at me, look at what I have to take, be thankful you're healthy.’ I went to college in Miami in 71 and because of peer pressure, I tried marijuana, and it did nothing to me. I didn’t get high. It did nothing. People around me were getting high. I thought they were self-inducing it.
By the tenth time I did it, I sat and played chess for thirty minutes, and I hate chess. As you can see, I have trouble sitting, and I sat for thirty minutes, which is the first time in five years I did that. Now I had morphine… any needed prescription, I had it prescribed. It dawned on me I hadn’t taken a pill for about six hours. Well, why could I sit there for the first time in five years? Then they passed me the garbage, marijuana, to me, that’s all it was, pure garbage. That’s the only thing I did differently: this garbage.
Well, I have an analytical mind, my family is in medicine, my great uncle was head of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins [University], my uncle taught pediatrics at Yale, my sister is head of nuclear medicine at Duke; here was the garbage that might have medical value. So we researched it, and lo and behold, guess what, marijuana was used in this country from 1860 to 1937. It was manufactured by Eli Lilly, Merck, and all the major pharmaceutical companies. It was used for… muscle relaxing, anti-inflammatory, and pain.
That’s just what it's doing for me, and I’m not getting high from it. I gotta have this. Well, the federal government outlawed it. You mean I have to take on the federal government to get the medicine I need? My doctor can prescribe morphine to me, but he can’t give me marijuana? I didn’t like being labeled a criminal, so I took on the federal government. Okay, it took me ten years, but in 1982 I won, and I am now using this medicine legally under the federal government, for now starting my 25th year.
I have used marijuana, 10-12 marijuana cigarettes a day for 35 years. Now I’m married, been married for 33 years, and I’m a stockbroker; I handle millions of dollars on a daily basis. All my clients know that I use medical cannabis. They applaud the fact that I took time off of work to come here and hopefully educate the people in Michigan. That this (shaking the marijuana cigarette in his hand) is not the hysteria people make it out to be.
Now you ask has the FDA done any studies? Well they’ve given me this marijuana for 25 years almost. Have they done any studies on me? No, because they don’t wanna know how well it works. Myself and 3 of the other federal patients had a complete evaluation done privately in Montana five years ago. They did brain wave testing, IQ testing, repertory, blood work, you name it, we tried to look at every aspect to see what harm this’ll cause us because again, when you have debilitating disease that you didn’t ask for, we did believe what the government's rhetoric was saying, this could harm us.
So we did this testing assuming we’d find some problems. Well, guess what, all four of us were just perfectly fine. So now the federal government says, ‘Well, you’re an anomaly.’ You’re one of the only four people in the country who marijuana doesn’t harm. That anyone else would harm. Well, you know something, that’s just not the case. They don’t wanna debate us, they don’t wanna study us, they don’t wanna know, and that’s sad because there are people in this country who are sick and didn’t ask for it. They didn’t wake up in the morning and… say, ‘you know what, if I could just catch AIDS, then maybe I can use that marijuana to take away nausea.’ Nobody asked for it. They also don’t ask to be labeled a criminal, and that’s what happened in this country.
I’m legal, okay (holding up his 11-ounce tin of pre-rolled joints). I can go anywhere in the United States in U.S. territories and I am not breaking any law. I’m a federal patient, I’m using marijuana, but that woman (pointing to an old lady in a wheelchair right behind him), she’s a criminal. She is breaking your state law; she is a criminal, okay. She should be locked up and put behind bars. I don’t know about you, but I would sure sleep better at night knowing she’s locked up behind bars. (Some chuckles can be heard) Wouldn’t you?
That’s the problem we have here. It’s the hysteria, its people being scared, okay. It’s not a harmful substance. Marijuana is one of the most benign substances known to mankind. We had D.E.A. hearings for two years from 1986 to 1988, Judge Francis Young, their own D.E.A. law review judge, did these hearings, which I thought was bias, their picking their own judge. He took one year to make his decision after the hearings. His decision was that it is one of the most benign substances known to mankind, and it should be made schedule two along with Morphine, along with Cocaine, meaning it has medicinal value but it could be potentially harmful. Well, what did the DEA do after two years of hearings from all the people on one side and all the people on the other with this decision? They said, ‘We don’t like that decision,’ and they got rid of him, and he died in disgrace.
The federal government does not want to know. They're not gonna do anything about this subject… which is unbelievably sad because it’s a federal program. I go to a pharmacy and pick up my tin can, 11 ounces of marijuana, I smoke every 25 days. 11 ounces every 25 days with no euphoric effect, no ill effect, my lungs… are 108% above normal. I am in favor of getting medicine to the patients. That’s the most important aspect. Now that’s the only way that… [they're gonna] pass laws, and the federal government is not going to enact a federal policy so other people can pick up a prescription. Well, if they're not gonna do that, the states are left on their own, the states have gotta do what they can.
Take the crime away from these sick patients. There’s no need to prosecute people who are sick and it is wasting your resources, putting people in jail. I know myself in Florida, we have overcrowding. When they arrest a non-violent criminal, they may be putting that person in jail with a violent criminal, and all because of a weed that has been around for generations and centuries and centuries.
Nobody [has] ever died off of marijuana. No one has ever gotten lung cancer off of it. Doctor Tashkin, a government doctor, this is a main doctor in the country for research for bad things with marijuana. He just came out with a study, a ten-year study, from California, that he could not find one patient that had lung cancer due to marijuana. That he found a lot of lung cases with cigarettes. What he also couldn’t explain was that people who smoked marijuana along with use cigarettes had less cases of cancer, but he wasn’t sure why.
The point being is this. I’m a living subject, I’m the proof. The government can stand up here and say how bad it is. Other people can stand up here and say how good it is. I can stand up here and say I use it. I’ve used it for 35 years. I am a productive member of society. [I’ve been] married for 33 years. I have no children because I could pass down this disease, and I wouldn’t do that. I teach disabled people how to sail in Miami. So I am a very productive member of society because I have the right medicine. I don’t take morphine, I don’t take anything; I haven’t taken any other drugs now for 19 years. All I use is medical cannabis. So what does this mean to me? If I were still alive, most likely I would’ve died of hemorrhages or something like that. I would not be a productive member of society. I would probably be hummed down on disability, and that’s not what I want to be."
"I appreciate coming to the great state of Michigan. My name is Irv Rosenfeld, and I am the longest surviving federal medical marijuana patient in the United States. There are five patients currently in the country, and there will only be five because the Bush administration shut the program down in 92. I have a severe bone disorder… [which] causes bone tumors to grow outwardly all throughout my body, growing into the muscles and into the veins.
By the tenth time I did it, I sat and played chess for thirty minutes, and I hate chess. As you can see, I have trouble sitting, and I sat for thirty minutes, which is the first time in five years I did that. Now I had morphine… any needed prescription, I had it prescribed. It dawned on me I hadn’t taken a pill for about six hours. Well, why could I sit there for the first time in five years? Then they passed me the garbage, marijuana, to me, that’s all it was, pure garbage. That’s the only thing I did differently: this garbage.
Well, I have an analytical mind, my family is in medicine, my great uncle was head of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins [University], my uncle taught pediatrics at Yale, my sister is head of nuclear medicine at Duke; here was the garbage that might have medical value. So we researched it, and lo and behold, guess what, marijuana was used in this country from 1860 to 1937. It was manufactured by Eli Lilly, Merck, and all the major pharmaceutical companies. It was used for… muscle relaxing, anti-inflammatory, and pain.
That’s just what it's doing for me, and I’m not getting high from it. I gotta have this. Well, the federal government outlawed it. You mean I have to take on the federal government to get the medicine I need? My doctor can prescribe morphine to me, but he can’t give me marijuana? I didn’t like being labeled a criminal, so I took on the federal government. Okay, it took me ten years, but in 1982 I won, and I am now using this medicine legally under the federal government, for now starting my 25th year.
I have used marijuana, 10-12 marijuana cigarettes a day for 35 years. Now I’m married, been married for 33 years, and I’m a stockbroker; I handle millions of dollars on a daily basis. All my clients know that I use medical cannabis. They applaud the fact that I took time off of work to come here and hopefully educate the people in Michigan. That this (shaking the marijuana cigarette in his hand) is not the hysteria people make it out to be.
Now you ask has the FDA done any studies? Well they’ve given me this marijuana for 25 years almost. Have they done any studies on me? No, because they don’t wanna know how well it works. Myself and 3 of the other federal patients had a complete evaluation done privately in Montana five years ago. They did brain wave testing, IQ testing, repertory, blood work, you name it, we tried to look at every aspect to see what harm this’ll cause us because again, when you have debilitating disease that you didn’t ask for, we did believe what the government's rhetoric was saying, this could harm us.
So we did this testing assuming we’d find some problems. Well, guess what, all four of us were just perfectly fine. So now the federal government says, ‘Well, you’re an anomaly.’ You’re one of the only four people in the country who marijuana doesn’t harm. That anyone else would harm. Well, you know something, that’s just not the case. They don’t wanna debate us, they don’t wanna study us, they don’t wanna know, and that’s sad because there are people in this country who are sick and didn’t ask for it. They didn’t wake up in the morning and… say, ‘you know what, if I could just catch AIDS, then maybe I can use that marijuana to take away nausea.’ Nobody asked for it. They also don’t ask to be labeled a criminal, and that’s what happened in this country.
I’m legal, okay (holding up his 11-ounce tin of pre-rolled joints). I can go anywhere in the United States in U.S. territories and I am not breaking any law. I’m a federal patient, I’m using marijuana, but that woman (pointing to an old lady in a wheelchair right behind him), she’s a criminal. She is breaking your state law; she is a criminal, okay. She should be locked up and put behind bars. I don’t know about you, but I would sure sleep better at night knowing she’s locked up behind bars. (Some chuckles can be heard) Wouldn’t you?
That’s the problem we have here. It’s the hysteria, its people being scared, okay. It’s not a harmful substance. Marijuana is one of the most benign substances known to mankind. We had D.E.A. hearings for two years from 1986 to 1988, Judge Francis Young, their own D.E.A. law review judge, did these hearings, which I thought was bias, their picking their own judge. He took one year to make his decision after the hearings. His decision was that it is one of the most benign substances known to mankind, and it should be made schedule two along with Morphine, along with Cocaine, meaning it has medicinal value but it could be potentially harmful. Well, what did the DEA do after two years of hearings from all the people on one side and all the people on the other with this decision? They said, ‘We don’t like that decision,’ and they got rid of him, and he died in disgrace.
The federal government does not want to know. They're not gonna do anything about this subject… which is unbelievably sad because it’s a federal program. I go to a pharmacy and pick up my tin can, 11 ounces of marijuana, I smoke every 25 days. 11 ounces every 25 days with no euphoric effect, no ill effect, my lungs… are 108% above normal. I am in favor of getting medicine to the patients. That’s the most important aspect. Now that’s the only way that… [they're gonna] pass laws, and the federal government is not going to enact a federal policy so other people can pick up a prescription. Well, if they're not gonna do that, the states are left on their own, the states have gotta do what they can.
Take the crime away from these sick patients. There’s no need to prosecute people who are sick and it is wasting your resources, putting people in jail. I know myself in Florida, we have overcrowding. When they arrest a non-violent criminal, they may be putting that person in jail with a violent criminal, and all because of a weed that has been around for generations and centuries and centuries.
Nobody [has] ever died off of marijuana. No one has ever gotten lung cancer off of it. Doctor Tashkin, a government doctor, this is a main doctor in the country for research for bad things with marijuana. He just came out with a study, a ten-year study, from California, that he could not find one patient that had lung cancer due to marijuana. That he found a lot of lung cases with cigarettes. What he also couldn’t explain was that people who smoked marijuana along with use cigarettes had less cases of cancer, but he wasn’t sure why.
The point being is this. I’m a living subject, I’m the proof. The government can stand up here and say how bad it is. Other people can stand up here and say how good it is. I can stand up here and say I use it. I’ve used it for 35 years. I am a productive member of society. [I’ve been] married for 33 years. I have no children because I could pass down this disease, and I wouldn’t do that. I teach disabled people how to sail in Miami. So I am a very productive member of society because I have the right medicine. I don’t take morphine, I don’t take anything; I haven’t taken any other drugs now for 19 years. All I use is medical cannabis. So what does this mean to me? If I were still alive, most likely I would’ve died of hemorrhages or something like that. I would not be a productive member of society. I would probably be hummed down on disability, and that’s not what I want to be."
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