Global Ganja Report

Brooklyn judge Gustin Reichbach, who won notoriety two months ago when he wrote an op-ed for the New York Times expressing his support for medical marijuana, died July 14 after a nearly three-year struggle with pancreatic cancer. In his May 16 op-ed, he wrote: "My survival has demanded an enormous price, including months of chemotherapy, radiation hell and brutal surgery... Inhaled marijuana is the only medicine that gives me some relief from nausea, stimulates my appetite, and makes it easier to fall asleep." 

A graduate of Columbia Law School, Reichbach led protests there with Students for a Democratic Society, and later served with the New York Law Commune, an organization that shared its revenue equally among lawyers and clerical workers and provided legal help to the Yippies and Black Panthers. Elected to Brooklyn supreme court in 1999, Reichbach first made headlines as a judge by handing out condoms to prostitutes in an effort to stop transmission of the AIDS virus. In 2003, he served as a judge on a UN war-crimes tribunal in Kosovo. (NYT, July 19; Gothamist, July 15; NYT, July 15, 2003)

Photo via LawMag

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