Ailing Judge: It's 'Barbaric' to Block Medical Marijuana

A sitting justice on the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn on Thursday outed himself as a criminal in the pages of the New York Times: Gustin L. Reichbach admits he uses marijuana to ease the constant pain of his three-year-plus battle with pancreatic cancer. Friends warned him it might not be a smart move to go public, but Reichbach says he is "obliged to speak out as both a judge and a cancer patient suffering with a fatal disease."

Reichbach catalogs the miseries of his disease and says marijuana is the only thing that brings relief from nausea, and helps him eat and sleep. He pleads with New York lawmakers to pass the medical marijuana bill now winding through the Legislature. "Medical science has not yet found a cure, but it is barbaric to deny us access to one substance that has proved to ameliorate our suffering." Read his full column here. (More medical marijuana stories.)