Chapter 12 – Alone in the Lifeboat

The media blitz was intense and sustained. In the three months following my acquittal I spoke with countless reporters and radio stations. I traveled to New York to appear on "Good Morning America," gave a press conference in the fabled Playboy Towers Hotel in Chicago, posed for People Magazine, and taped numerous other TV segments. I was invited to several state legislative sessions where I testified about the medical benefits of marijuana and displayed my small plastic vials filled with government joints. Legislators would jockey to have their picture taken with "America’s only legal pot smoker."

In February 1977 I taped a segment of "To Tell the Truth," a long-running TV game show in which celebrities ask questions of three panelists in an effort to determine which one has the unusual occupation or talent, in my case "Legal pot smoker." Not surprisingly I fooled no one. The celebrities, most notably Nipsy Russell and Peggy Cass, showed a sophisticated knowledge of marijuana. Even the elegant Kitty Carlisle was able to select me from the panel.

Robert Randall wasn’t exactly a household word but my situation was well known. Invariably I would hear, "Oh yeah! You’re that guy, that guy with the eyes." It became a running joke with Alice and me as we made our way through those incredible first months.

The atmosphere was bright with promise. Sanity, it seemed, could prevail. There was a new president, Jimmy Carter, whose young staff was peppered with marijuana smokers. Keith Stroup knew many of them and was optimistic that changes would come, and soon. He spoke in glowing terms of Carter’s nominee for drug policy advisor, Dr. Peter Bourne. Throughout the latter part of my ordeal in 1976, Keith had often advised me to contact Bourne, who was then associated with the Drug Abuse Council, a D.C. think-tank funded by the Ford Foundation. But I was already working with another individual at the Council, Jane Silver, and I wasn’t sure what Bourne could do for me in that turbulent year of 1976. Now, with such a contact well-placed in the White House, it seemed the possibilities for expansion of research and medical access to marijuana were opening like the pedals on a rose.

This impression was reenforced by an editorial that appeared in The Washington Post just ten days after my acquittal entitled "Drugs and Public Policy." The December 6^th editorial decried the lack of research into marijuana’s medical use, cited my case specifically, and concluded:

"All this [uncertainty] is the clear result of permitting the criminal sanction to blind the rest of us to the fact that this substance needs a great deal of investigation in all aspects, hazards as well as benefits, so that we can protect ourselves from the former and gain what we can from the latter. None of this is happening now."

We were so overjoyed with our success, so confident of a new day dawning, that we didn’t see the storm clouds gathering. Another editorial, this one across the continent, would issue a different opinion in the early days of 1977. Appearing in the Spokane, Washington Chronicle under the headline "Pot Users Try New Angle," the editorial noted, "Claims that use of marijuana retards glaucoma, an eye disease that usually leads to blindness, is the peg on which the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) will hang its hat in a national campaign to decriminalize use and possession of the drug." The editorial would conclude with an ominous warning. "Opponents to decriminalizing marijuana should go to work immediately on building up a strong case against NORML."

Within six weeks of the decision in my case the battle lines were drawn in the war for medical marijuana. Those lines continue to this day, dug in like the weary soldiers of World War I facing an endless barrage of attack and counterattack. Caught in the no man’s land between warring factions are the patients, still waiting for sanity to prevail.

On March 3, 1977, I appeared on the "Tomorrow Show" with Tom Snyder. The Snyder program, which followed Johnny Carson’s immensely popular "Tonight Show" on NBC, had a loyal following, especially in the West where time zones presented the show at a more reasonable hour. Snyder was a skillful and playful interviewer. We connected well and the show sailed along smoothly. By that time I was accustomed to "Well Bob, how about lighting one up for the cameras?" I still rebelled against needless smoking but, under the glare of the TV studio lights, my pressures were climbing fast. When Snyder cajoled me to "light one up," I did so. It was the first time I smoked "live" on camera.

When I began my journey through the maze of federal bureaucracies I was focused on Robert Randall but as my story seeped into national consciousness in 1976 I heard from others with numerous afflictions. At first it was just a trickle of correspondence and phone calls. The dual victories of November 1976 —– legal access and acquittal —– turned the trickle to a torrent. The Snyder show amplified the interest even more.

Alice and I responded to each call or letter with increased despair. There was a growing sense of obligation and responsibility to others but what to do? The logical answer was to file more petitions, to try and do for others what had been done for me. But the circumstances were vastly different. Realistically we could not mount the type of effort that had been successful in my case. It was costly, time consuming, and far too dependent upon the petitioner doing an extraordinary amount of "legwork."

It would be better, we reasoned, if we organized the patients into a concerted effort. On April 26, 1977, we filed a petition with U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell that was signed by 13 seriously ill individuals including a schoolteacher from Ohio, a craftsman from Missouri, a prisoner from Florida, and a cancer patient from Pennsylvania. Also among them was my old roommate from Johns Hopkins, Vincent Mustachio. We asked the Attorney General to schedule open hearings to consider the reclassification of marijuana and allow its medical use.

In the Spring of 1977, such an action by a disperse group of individuals, generated another round of media attention and shifted the focus beyond me. Local news stories appeared wherever a petitioner happened to reside. In Kansas, The Wichita Eagle featured the story of 62 year-old Ara Cron, a glaucoma patient and retired schoolteacher, who lamented she was "too old to get the drug" but pleaded for an opportunity to try it. She left it clear the opportunity did not necessarily have to be legal. She cited a long family history of glaucoma and her concerns about risky surgery. Ara’s story would, in fact, generate a "donation" of marijuana from a concerned citizen. She tried smoking the drug and her husband Gerald measured the results with a Schiotz. They were impressive, dropping from 40+ mm of pressure to readings in the high teens. This was enough to convince Ara’s doctor who began pursuing an IND application of his own and was pleased with the cooperation promised by the FDA and NIDA. It seemed my case was opening the doors for others.

But it was also beginning to place me at some peril.

v v v v

May 13, 1977
Howard University
Washington, D.C.

"You’re not going to like this, but I can’t give you any more marijuana." Merritt did not mince his words.

I was just back from California where I had participated as a panelist during the Medical Marijuana session at the National Conference on Drug Abuse (NCDA). The session was particularly well attended. There was a great deal of interest in America’s Only Legal Pot Smoker and the conference received a tremendous media push as a result of my presence.

Among the other panelists was Dr. Robert Peterson, the NIDA official who once told me "you’ll never make it through the bureaucratic layers." The NCDA crowd was clearly sympathetic to me and I was highly critical of NIDA’s failure to aggressively research marijuana’s therapeutic applications. Peterson was forced to defend a policy that he obviously felt was shallow and stupid. After the panel, as I was being ushered away by a conference organizer, Peterson cornered me for an instant and asked how I could manage to travel to San Francisco on just a week’s supply of marijuana. In fact, I had a nine day supply.

Ever since my appearance on the "Snyder" show, there had been discussions about "Randall’s take home supply" and increased mobility. High-up officials were annoyed with my public exposure and growing notoriety. The bureaucrats had ignored the press rush of last fall, assuming my celebrity status would fade. But now it was obvious that I was doing everything I could to flame the fires of interest in medical marijuana. There were those appearances on TV, game shows, travel to legislatures everywhere, and now I was appearing at conferences like an expert!

On May 12^th , as I made the press rounds in Los Angeles, a little known committee of the FDA, the Drug Abuse Research Advisory Committee (DARAC) was meeting in the Parklawn Building. It had "invited" Dr. Merritt to "discuss" his research program but the discussion quickly shifted to the my personal conduct. After considerable talk, Merritt was asked to leave the room and a secret vote was held. Merritt was then informed that I would no longer be authorized to possess any more than a daily supply of marijuana. When Merritt protested that such a system would inconvenience him as well as me he was told, quite bluntly, that DARAC could revoke Merritt’s research license if he failed to cooperate. Moreover, there were criminal liabilities that could be invoked. Merritt delivered the news to me the next day.

I immediately called Ed Tocus, my contact at the FDA. Tocus was not surprised at the call but he was taken aback at the extent of my knowledge. With the delivery of Merritt’s bombshell, I had started putting the pieces together. While in California I had telephoned Dr. Hepler and learned of a "committee that was making some inquiries" about my "personality traits." Not surprisingly, Hepler refused to answer such inquiries. The committee had called Hepler shortly after the "Snyder" show.

I asked Tocus outright if it was the same committee that had met with Merritt and Tocus confirmed it was.

"Under the DARAC policy of daily supply I’d become a medical prisoner of the District of Columbia." I spoke slowly and with a measured tone. I wanted to be certain that Tocus answered the next question without any emotional overtones. "Do you expect me to stay in Washington until I go blind?"

There was barely a pause. "That, I believe, was the intention of at least some committee members in voting to restrict your supply."

Tocus’ reply was delivered with such calm that it shook me to the bone. "Look, I have three joints left. That’s enough for this afternoon. Today is Friday and Merritt has made it clear he will not be available this weekend. So, if provisions are not made to resupply me before this evening, you, DARAC, and the FDA will be in court on Monday morning."

v v v v

I had no way of backing up such a threat. I was still in debt to my lawyers from the criminal case and there was little hope of finding anyone else on such short notice. But the bluff worked. My supplies were reinstated. DARAC had seriously overstated its power. As an advisory committee they could only "recommend" policy to the FDA and the regulations did not allow policy recommendations to become true policy until the minutes were published in the federal register and public hearing was held. That was months away. The FDA was acting in a totally improper manner by implementing DARAC’s "recommendation" so quickly. Their braggadocio had been as bold as my own.

But the game was far from over. In mid-April, sensing that my days as America’s Only Legal Pot Smoker were numbered, I had decided it was time to play the Bourne card. Since entering the White House Dr. Bourne’s sensitivities to marijuana users had been considerably lessened. As President Carter’s drug abuse expert and special assistant to the President for Health, Bourne seemed to be leaning towards continued spraying of the herbicide Paraquat on Mexican marijuana plants. But he had remained silent on the matter of marijuana’s medical use and this gave me some hope.

My purpose in writing Dr. Bourne in April 1977 was to inform him of our petition effort which Alice and I had organized with the other patients. I was careful with my words. "I have had limited desire to attack those agencies responsible for my access to marijuana." I wrote. "While the system of marijuana management itself seems ill conceived and mal-administered, I did receive a measure of justice. I had reason to believe, for a time, that adjustments would go forward."

Later in the letter I would write,

The present system pits public policy against human biology. The human reaction to this conflict of values cannot greatly enhance the authority of the law and creates the possibility of ill informed individuals engaging in attempted medical self-treatment. The Schedule I prohibition has almost no benefits. It has been a failure in discouraging the recreational use of marijuana and a success at denying an expansion of our medical knowledge. It has the double disadvantage of denying millions of individuals the civil rights which are theirs and of denying additional millions of their biological well-being.

On June 6, 1977, Dr. Bourne responded. His letter was very clear.

As a physician, I understand and have great empathy with the issues you raised. I can assure you that my feelings are shared by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of physicians and researchers who have fought to bring relief and discover new treatments and cures. The responsible agency staffs and researchers involved in the marijuana and glaucoma issue all share with me a great feeling of compassion and their pledged to pursue the question. However, this compassion cannot be allowed to overshadow the basic questions.

Bourne then elaborated on the need for research and the problems with the cannabinoid eyedrop. Finally he got to the heart of the matter.

I understand that technical questions remain about your status under the law in that you are not really legally authorized to possess marijuana to treat your glaucoma. Under the law, the researcher (Dr. Merritt in your case) is authorized to possess and administer it. If you disregard some of the conditions of the study, it may be jeopardized. I understand that the agencies involved have not authorized your take-home supply but have chosen to overlook it in their compassion for your case. Publicity in the case has forced consideration of tightening up the dispensing of your supplies.

Dr. Bourne was threatening to use my medical need in an attempt to constrain my right to speak. It was medical blackmail. Bureaucrats can threaten and bluster through procedures and phone calls, but are seldom reckless enough to issue them in hard black and white.

Within three days of the Bourne letter came a second blow. As Bourne had noted, there was some concern about my status with respect to legally possessing marijuana. My lawyers had appealed to the U.S. Attorney General for a statement of immunity and the appeal was forwarded to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The drug agency refused to extend such immunity.

The warnings were now unmistakable. Either I could keep quiet and retain my marijuana or I could talk and my marijuana would be taken away.

My sight or my right to speak.

The research program at Howard University was becoming a battleground on which the government and I were playing out the game of constant escalation.