R. RANDALL; MEDICINAL POT ACTIVIST

Robert Randall, who won a historic court case in 1976 that gave him
access to federal supplies of marijuana to treat his glaucoma, has
died. He was 53.

Randall died Saturday at his home in Sarasota, Fla., of complications
from AIDS, which he had been fighting since 1994.

A native of Sarasota, Randall attended the University of South
Florida, where he earned bachelor's and master's degrees in speech and
rhetoric.

He developed glaucoma as a teenager but believed it was simple
eyestrain. In the early 1970s, however, a doctor diagnosed the malady
as glaucoma and predicted that Randall would go blind within five
years unless drugs stemmed the degeneration of his eyesight.

Randall moved to Washington, D.C., and found work as a speech teacher
at a community college. And although the doctor's prediction of
complete blindness was off the mark, Randall's eyesight continued to
degenerate. The only thing he found that provided relief from the
elevated pressure in his eyes, which caused milky vision or halos
around lights, was a marijuana cigarette that a friend had given him.
He had tried conventional drug therapy, but it failed to provide
anything like the same relief.

Not willing to pay the street price for marijuana, Randall started
growing his own on the balcony of his apartment. But his small crop
was discovered by authorities, and he was arrested. After undergoing
exhaustive tests to prove that no other drug could lower the pressure
in his eyes and halt the deterioration of his vision, he pleaded not
guilty, using the previously untried defense of medical necessity.

In November 1976 the Superior Court of the District of Columbia ruled
in his favor, and Randall became eligible for legal, medically
supervised access to marijuana. He was also acquitted of the drug charge.

Two years later, the government tried to cut off Randall's access to
the drug, but a court ruled that doing so would deny him his
constitutional right to adequate health care.

Randall became an activist for the medical use of marijuana. In 1981,
he founded the Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics, which tried to
exert public pressure to reform marijuana laws. In the early 1990s, he
formed the Marijuana AIDS Research Service to help people with AIDS
get the drug.

Two years ago, Randall co-wrote a book, "Marijuana Rx: The Patient's Fight
for Medicinal Pot," on his efforts to legalize marijuana for medical use.

Randall continued to get his marijuana with prescriptions written by
his eye doctor in Washington. It was then shipped to his pharmacy in
Sarasota, where he returned to live in 1995.

The prescription allowed for 10 marijuana cigarettes a day, seven days
a week, which Randall continued to smoke until he grew too weak to do
so before his death Saturday.