Tek-Bull

There are Four People in the US Who Get Legal Marijuana From Federal Government

Marijuana has been illegal in the United States since the 1920’s; many people have been trying to change the legality of Marijuana since then. In 2005, the Supreme Court decided  Gonzales v. Raich, which hoped to legalize the growing of marijuana for self-use in a state which allowed for medicinal marijuana usage; the Court disagreed.  And in 2010, Californians voted on Prop 19, which would have legalized many types of pot uses in the state.  It failed by about 7 percentage points.  Marijuana use is still widely illegal.

But, in 1978 Robert Randall, a glaucoma patient was arrested because he was growing marijuana to relieve his pain. He took his case to the courts and used that on his defense – he won. The U.S. dropped the charges against him. Later in the year, Randall and the U.S. government came to an agreement where the government would provide Randall with free legal marijuana, as long as Randall wouldn’t press the issue of legalized medicinal marijuana against other courts.

Elvy Mussika of Eugene, Oregon is another person who gets free marijuana from the government. She is one of the only people that are still alive from the Compassionate Investigational New Drug program. The government set up the Compassionate IND to serve patients like Randall. The Government set up a marijuana crop at the University of Mississippi to supply the patients. The image in the top left is from the Mississippi field still standing to this day to supply it’s patients. In the 1980’s the program became extremely popular due to the HIV patient outbreaks, and in 1992, George H.W. Bush  finally ended the program. Ending this program grandfathered in the IND patients.

Most have since passed, but there are four people currently in the program. Mussika who is 71, is one of those last people. She’s a glaucoma patient as well, and is given 8 ounces of legal marijuana each month. This is the equivalent of 10 smokes per day. Saddly, according to a CNN story, her pot was lost in the mail earlier in the year. –  Now I know