In a New York Times opinion piece, a sitting state supreme court judge writes of his cancer and the palliative drug he depends on.
A New York state supreme court judge has written an impassioned plea to legalize medical marijuana in the state, potentially taking New York one step closer to becoming the 17th state in the nation to allow use of the drug as a palliative. In an op-ed piece in Thursday's New York Times, justice Gustin L Reichbach writes eloquently of his three-and-a-half-year long battle with prostate cancer. He describes enduring chemotherapy, brutal surgery, radiation, constant nausea and insomnia. The only remedy that has given him a modicum of relief has been marijuana. "I find a few puffs of marijuana before dinner gives me ammunition in the battle to eat. A few more puffs at bedtime permits desperately needed sleep," he writes.
"This is not a law-and-order issue; it is a medical and human rights issue."
