SCIENTEST CHAMPIONS CANNABIS

Man Advocates Legalization of Marijuana

By Molly Walsh, Free Press Staff Writer

He's a Ph.D. who studies the intricacies of DNA. He's a father with older
children and a jogger who leaps out of bed most days by 6:30 a.m.

He is also an outspoken advocate of the legalization of marijuana who says
he's been smoking pot for almost 35 years. This is Robert Melamede:
Cannabis crusader and University of Vermont researcher.

In a state where marijuana use exceeds national averages, where $54.9
million worth of homegrown port was seized last year and where the
Grassroots Party has majorparty status, Melamede is part of a small but
increasingly vocal group angling for legalization of the drug.

In Vermont, substance abuse in general is significantly higher than in much
of the nation, said Tom Perras, director of the Vermont Health Department's
Office of Alcohol and Drug Abuse.

A 1995 household survey conducted for the Health Department showed about 33
percent of Vermont adults age 18 to 24 had used marijuana in the past year.
That's almost twice the national rate of 18 percent. Last week, a state
survey showed that marijuana use among Vermont eighthto 12thgraders has
tripled since 1991. About onethird of these students say they've used pot
in the past month.

Critics blast Melamede for sending a terrible message. But the tall, lanky
scientist who bears a passing resemblance to the late Frank Zappa seems to
be everywhere stumping for pot.

On his cable access show. At his Web site. And at the biggest drug
smuggling trial in Vermont's history, where last spring Melamede testified
on behalf of his good friend, convicted drug trafficker Bill Greer of South
Burlington.

At the trial, Melamede said he smokes marijuana almost daily. Despite
frequent use, Melamede says he has never been convicted of a drug offense
anywhere, and records in Vermont District Court show this to be true at
least in Chittenden County.

Nor has disapproval followed his very public endorsements of an illegal
substance, the possession of more than 2 ounces of which is a felony in
Vermont.

"I have not received any negative comments really, from, I don't think
anybody," he said, "other than from people that are afraid within the
university and afraid for me. But these are minor, very minor. And I
receive dozens and dozens of thankyous."

Not from Perras, who says that for someone in Melamede's position to
advocate for legalization of marijuana sends a terrible message to youths
already struggling to define boundaries.

"When you've got people in the community with stature saying this, what are
kids to think?" Perras said. "It helps to erode the message that parents
are giving to children don't use this stuff."

Substance abuse drives up crime, damages families and puts people at risk
of death or serious health problems, Perras said. In his view, legalizing
marijuana would only make a staggering problem worse.

"I don't think you can justify legalizing any more substances that people
use to alter their moods and minds," Perras said. "It just doesn't make any
sense."

A MAN WITH A CAUSE

Melamede turns 50 next month.

Despite this, he speaks with the zeal and energy of a young man when he
rails about the ware on drugs and the length of drug sentences.

"We did end alcohol prohibition because it generated so much crime and
everybody ignored the law," Melamede said. "We have 20 to 40 million
Americans smoking pot. Should we arrest them all?"

Tears come to Melamede's eyes as he discusses the fat of Greer, who faces
up to life in prison for smuggling more than 100 tons of hashish into the
United States. Much of Melamede's work to legalize pot is motivated by the
thought of Greer's who is asking for a new trial languishing in prison.

"I cannot look at the federal agents who are trying to put … (Greer) in
jail for life and take him away from his family on the pretext that they
are following the law," I view them as criminally insane."

Melamede is famous for this sort of broadside.

David Kirby, an assistant U.S. attorney and the lead prosecutor in the
Greer trial, declined to respond to Melamede's remarks other than to say:
"Obviously, I'm not criminally insane."

Kirby's boss, U.S. attorney Charles Tetzlaff, said Melamede's remarks were
"so bizarre" they did not warrant a response.

GROWING UP

Melamede grew up in New York City, where his late father worked as an
airline executive and his mother was a homemaker. He first tried marijuana
when he went off in pursuit of higher learning as a bright 16yearold,
enrolling at Herbert H. Lehman College in the Big Apple.

He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees there and completed his Ph.D.
in molecular biochemistry at City University of New York. He worked as a
lecturer and researcher at Lehmann and New York Medical College through the
1970s and part of the 1980s before coming to UVM in 1988.

Melamede looks almost too big for the small, cluttered cubicle at UVM's
microbiology and molecular genetics department where he studies how the
body's ability to repair its own DNA might help in the battle against
cancer and other diseases.

Scientific journals pile up on the desk. On the walls hang photographs of
his two children, both daughters one an 18yearold freshman at UVM; the
other a dental technician student in her later 20s who lives Virginia.

There is also a poster advertising the 1930s antipot film "Reefer
Madness," complete with a topless woman and shrill warnings about the siren
song of marijuana. The poster is a symbolic reference to Melamede's
contention that the government is engaged in a misinformation campaign
about marijuana.

At UVM, he earns $53,675 in a grantdependent research position that is not
tenured. Through the years, Melamede has helped generate several hundred
thousand dollars in grants.

University officials say privacy laws prevent them from talking about
individual personnel issues including the one Melamede presents. In
general, an employer has to judge employees based on their ability to
perform their duties, said Gerald Francis, UVM's interim provost.

"No matter how irresponsible or troubling an employee's statements may be,
there's very little we can do unless those statements can be shown to
interfere with the employee's work."

Francis also said it would be "terribly unfair" to the university if one
person were made out to represent a school that is working to reduce
alcohol and drug use on campus and in the broader community.

"The reality is that no sideshow will distract us from the important work
we're doing on these issues," Francis said.

UVM has a drugfree workplace policy. Melamede says adamantly he does not
smoke before work or at work. "People would not be impaired when they are
being paid to do a job," he said.

That said, Melamede said he does enjoy smoking small amounts of pot in what
he views as a responsible context. Melamede said he tends to smoke at night
and finds it spurs creative thinking and relieves stress.

Contrary to the stereotype of marijuana users as thickheaded under
achievers, Melamede said one of his most important scientific discoveries,
a patent for an alternate method of sequencing DNA, came to him in New York
while he was under the influence.

"I had the idea for that patent many, many years ago while I was smoking
marijuana," Melamede said.

CLOUDS OF SMOKE

Although Melamede does not believe those younger than 16 should smoke
marijuana, the twicedivorced scientist likes to quote his mother, who once
quipped that a family that smokes together stays together.

His elderly mother and stepfather's tendency to bicker drops markedly when
they are stoned, Melamede said. "Boy, when they smoke pot together they get
so friendly and sweet and nice, it's great."

Melamede is a strong supporter of marijuana for therapeutic uses. As for
recreational use of marijuana among people who are not ill, Melamede
believes the benefits far outweigh the harms.

Still, he agrees with the halfdozen studies that show regular marijuana
use reduces shortterm memory. "I think marijuana is definitely bade for
your shortterm memory," Melamede said, "but it doesn't necessarily mean
you should be in jail, for not remembering things."

He also allow that smoking anything including pot is not good for the
longs and that some people get stoned too often. Education and treatment
are the solutions, he said, not incarceration.

"I think that there are a certain percentage of people that will abuse
marijuana, just as there are a certain percentage of people who abuse food.
… Yet nobody's suggesting that we should make overeating illegal."

Melamede who placed a distant fifth on the Grassroots Party ticket in a
1994 id to unseat Sen. James Jeffords, RVT. vows to keep working for the
legalization of pot. Nonetheless, he does not expect it happen anytime soon.

"I would be shocked and fall over dead," Melamede said. "But I'd be very
happy."