A man who legally smokes marijuana for medicinal purposes should have been allowed to board a Delta Air Lines flight with the drug, federal officials said.
But the U.S. Department of Transportation dismissed a complaint filed by stockbroker Irvin Rosenfeld, who alleged that the airline discriminated against him when ticket agents refused to let him board a flight in 2001 from Fort Lauderdale to Washington.
Rosenfeld, who suffers a chronic bone condition, has legally smoked pot since he was placed in the federal government’s medical marijuana program in 1982. He is among fewer than 10 people who have the right to carry marijuana under the program, which stopped accepting new patients in 1992.
A Delta spokesman said the airline had no comment.
The government report, released Friday, said Rosenfeld’s conduct during the incident amounted to “grandstanding.”
Rosenfeld said marijuana is the only medication effective in treating a rare bone disease causing tumor growth, muscle spasms and internal bleeding. He smokes about 12 joints each day.
By: Arthur - 30th March 2004 at 17:33
There are plenty of prescription drugs which are far worse than marijuana – a pretty normal (but hefty) painkiller like Tramal for example is little more than tablet-form opium, and even fairly common medicines like ritalin are a lot more dope-like (ritalin sells well in the circuit!) than marijuana.
Funny thing is that the country which is the most rigid on any sort of (even remotely) entertainment drugs, is also the country which has the right to pursue happiness in it’s constitution. Somehow, i can’t rhyme those two.
By: kev35 - 30th March 2004 at 11:37
Ren’s right. There may be more to this than meets the eye but at the end of the day he was discriminated against. Apparently this guy has a legal right to carry and use marijuana so he shouldn’t have been denied flight. If that is so does that mean I can’t carry my insulin? I know people on MST who have never been denied travel and MST is a hell of a lot stronger than Marijuana. I know one chap who was on high dose MST and had to take oramorph in between doses and he flew to the US twice and Australia once on that regime.
Doesn’t make sense really.
Regards,
kev35
By: Ren Frew - 30th March 2004 at 11:13
There’s probably a bit more to this than meets the eye, but fundamentally he should have been allowed to travel as he wasn’t doing anything illegal. The weed was medicine in this case. Would Delta have stopped any other form of medication being taken aboard ? Was the guy intending to have a puff onboard though ? If so then he should be treated like any other smoker. Perhaps he ought have baked some hash cookies of coffee ?
Now I’m thinking of that Foo Fighters video suddenly ? 😀
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March 30, 2004 at 11:08 am