FEDERAL MARIJUANA PATIENT IN MONTANA TO SUPPORT CANNABIS

Irvin Rosenfeld said he wishes the federal government was truly
interested in researching the medicinal benefits of marijuana.

He said he would be the perfect subject. For the past 28 years, he
has been smoking 300 marijuana cigarettes about every 25 days,
compliments of the U.S. government.

He is walking proof that marijuana is effective as a medicine and
harmless in other respects, he said, but the government's standard
line about medical marijuana is that not enough research has been
done to determine whether it's effective.

"They don't want to know that it works. That's what sad about it," he said.

Rosenfeld is a 58-year-old senior vice president for investments for
a securities corporation in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He has been in
Montana since last week, meeting with the public to talk about
cannabis and testifying last Friday at a Senate committee hearing on
a bill to repeal the citizen-passed law legalizing medical marijuana.

Although Rosenfeld was pessimistic about the fate of Montana's
medical marijuana law when he spoke with The Gazette on Monday
morning, it was reported later in the day that the Senate Judiciary
Committee killed the repeal bill on a tie vote. A subcommittee will
now work on a bill to better regulate the drug.

Rosenfeld has made appearances in Helena, Bozeman and Billings with
Hiedi Handford of Lincoln, founder and editor of Montana Connect, a
magazine for medical marijuana patients and caregivers.

In 1982, Rosenfeld became the second person in the country to win
permission from the federal government to use medical marijuana.

The government grows it on a farm in Mississippi, processes it, rolls
it into cigarettes and sends the tin of 300 cigarettes to Rosenfeld's
pharmacy every 25 days.

He qualified under what is known as the Compassionate Investigative
New Drug program because he suffers from two conditions, multiple
congenital cartilaginous exostosis and pseudohypoparathyroidism. They
cause painful tumors to grow on his bones.

He had six operations to remove 30 of the most dangerous tumors, and,
by the age of 14, he was on more than 350 doses of medicine each
month. He said he smoked marijuana in college, and, though he
experienced none of the euphoric effects associated with the drug, it
lessened his pain right away.

Ten days after he started smoking it, he said, he sat and played
chess for half an hour - the first time he was able to sit down for
more than 10 minutes in many years. He then spent 10 years fighting
the government to be allowed to smoke it legally.

The federal program was discontinued in 1992, but the few people in
it were allowed to continue, and Rosenfeld has been receiving
marijuana from the government longer than anyone else.

Rosenfeld and Handford both object to the use of the word
"marijuana," saying it is a slang term for cannabis that perpetuates
its illicit reputation. The human body is full of cannabis receptors,
which is why it does so much good for so many illnesses, they say.

Rosenfeld said cannabis even contains neuro-protectors, which is why
he has suffered no lung or other respiratory damage after having
smoked marijuana legally and illegally for nearly 30 years.

And smoking is the best way to ingest it, Handford said, because it
takes effect immediately and the patient can smoke only enough to
deal with pain or inflammation.

The marijuana Rosenfeld gets from the government is low in THC, the
chemical that induces euphoria, and Handford said the cannabis that
she grows for herself is also low in THC.

As for complaints about the unregulated growth of the medical
marijuana industry in Montana, Handford said the blame lies squarely
with the Legislature, which failed to tighten regulations in three
legislative sessions after the citizen initiative passed.

"We should not be punished because our legislators did not act," she said.

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IF YOU GO

Irvin Rosenfeld, a federal medical marijuana patient and the author
of "My Medicine," will be at Politics at the Pub event at 5:30 p.m.
Tuesday at Bones Brewing, 1425 Broadwater Ave.

Admission is free. Rosenfeld will speak and answer questions from the
audience. Rosenfeld's appearances are sponsored by Patients Out of
Time, which promotes the benefits of medical marijuana.