Blog

People are always amazed when I tell them I have been in the medical cannabis issue for almost 50 years. In August 1975, my late husband, Robert Randall, and I were busted for marijuana cultivation and possession. Thankfully, it was only a misdemeanor charge. We could have paid a fine and been done with it. But there was a complication. Robert had glaucoma, and cannabis was saving his sight. Undoubtedly, we would break the law and possess marijuana again. With the proverbial target on our backs, the odds were good for a second arrest and then a third and then…. We realized we had to stand and fight. The die was cast. We didn’t know it at the time, but the medical marijuana movement was conceived with that decision.

Our attorney, John Karr, thought of a masterful, completely novel defense to marijuana charges.  Based on common law, Karr did not deny that we possessed marijuana but he argued that Robert had a medical necessity for marijuana. It was definitely outside the box, a completely novel defense to marijuana charges. But it felt right, and fifteen months later, we won! Not only was Robert found not guilty because of medical necessity (charges against me had been dropped), but he also managed to secure access to the federal government’s marijuana to treat his glaucoma. He was the only person in the country allowed to use marijuana legally. It was a huge news story, and others using marijuana medically found their way to us, patients with glaucoma, cancer, multiple sclerosis (MS), Crohn’s disease, and more.

Soon, the cancer treatment grapevine began buzzing with the news that marijuana could treat the side effects of chemotherapy. In New Mexico, a young cancer patient, Lynn Pierson, was startled when his oncologist recommended Lynn try smoking marijuana to help with the terrible nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy.  It worked, and Lynn told other veterans at the VA hospital in Albuquerque, NM. Because of the illegality, however, most wouldn’t try it. This frustrated and infuriated Lynn, and he contacted us for help. Robert suggested that Lynn should try to interest NM in a state law. Just ten weeks later, in February 1978, the nation’s first law that recognized the medical utility of cannabis in treating cancer and glaucoma was overwhelmingly passed. It authorized the Department of Health to secure federal marijuana for a statewide program of compassion and research. It was a reasoned step in the right direction. In other states, legislators introduced similar bills and quickly started passing laws. By 1981, thirty-four states had enacted the New Mexico-style bill.

Now, if you’re thinking, “Wow! I never knew that,” you are not alone. Medical cannabis reform between 1976 and 1996 has been somewhat forgotten. There is no sinister plot involved in this oversight. It’s a matter of timing. The first two decades of medical cannabis reform— 1976 to 1996 —occurred before the worldwide web. As a result, most news from that period was hard copy newsprint and aging tape videos. When the internet burst on the scene around 1992, everything started to shift to digital, and by 1996, the year California’s Prop 215 passed, the internet was well-established and growing exponentially. Online information about the medical cannabis movement was contemporary, while its history was packed in boxes of faded, yellowing paper and deteriorating tape. Key aspects of this critical public health issue were simply not available.

This became apparent to me during the Covid pandemic. I was writing an article and wanted a quote from U.S. v Randall. When I tried to find it online, the only complete copies were behind paywalls. Then, I searched for information on Lynn Pierson and others from those early days. It was painfully unrewarding. I realized the history of the medical cannabis movement was in grave danger of being forgotten.

That led me to establish Project 50: Celebrating the Early Days of Medical Cannabis. The goal is to organize and digitize as much information as possible from those early days before the 50th anniversary of the medical marijuana movement, which will be in November 2026. I started with our 1998 autobiography, Marijuana Rx: The Patients’ Fight for Medicinal Pot. Sadly our publisher went out of business in 2007, the same year Kindle was launched. An electronic version has been sorely needed, but I could not interest a new publisher. So, I digitized it myself and added links to documents, videos, and pictures of the men and women with whom we worked over the years. It is available for free on my website, www.aliceolearyrandall.com.

Also, on my website, you will learn more about Project 50 and the history of the medical cannabis movement. I also have a blog, the Medical Marijuana Memory Blog, on Substack: https://aliceolearyrandall.substack.com/

Your support and interest will help us keep alive the memory of the brave patients who fought for medical cannabis. Thank you. And thanks to ASA for supporting the goals of Project 50.