Florida man smoked 130,000 tax-funded pot cigarettes

By Nick Swyter
@News21

FORT LAUDERDALE – Irvin Rosenfeld likes to start his Sunday mornings by smoking a couple marijuana cigarettes, enjoying another one on his drive to a softball field, playing some ball and then lighting up again after the game while his friends drink beer.

The 62-year-old stockbroker said pot helps him play ball. He uses it to treat a rare bone disorder that causes tumors to grow on the ends of his bones.

“If I didn’t have the right medicine, I probably wouldn’t be alive today,” he said.

Since 1982, Rosenfeld said he has smoked more than 130,000 medical marijuana cigarettes. His supplier is the federal government. Researchers grow it at the National Institute on Drug Abuse marijuana research facility at the University of Mississippi. Each month, the institute sends him a tin can full of 300 joints.

He is one of two surviving Americans who get free marijuana through the discontinued Compassionate Investigational New Drug program. The other patient is Elvy Mussika, an Oregon woman with glaucoma. The government discontinued the program in the early ‘90s shortly after officials brought in AIDS patients. The patients continued to receive their steady supply of pot.

Since then, Rosenfeld has become an outspoken advocate for the legalization of medical marijuana. He likes to show off his giant can of joints at college campuses, conventions and book clubs.

“I’ve smoked over 130,000 medical cannabis cigarettes provided by our tax money. If anything was negative about it, if it harmed your lungs, if it harmed your brain, if it did this, if it did that, don’t you think I would be showing it now?” Rosenfeld said.

Follow Nick Swyter on Twitter at @nickswyter. Come back in August for the full News21 report on America’s Weed Rush.