GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher says he recently used medical marijuana to alleviate his chronic arthritis pain – reportedly the first time in several decades a sitting congressman has admitted to consuming the drug while in office.
The California lawmaker told a group of marijuana activists on Capitol Hill that the wax-based, topical marijuana therapy worked,
the Washington Post reports.
Rohrabacher confessed to the group two weeks ago was the first time he tried the treatment, and that same night was "the first time in a year and a half that I had a decent night’s sleep because the arthritis pain was gone."
The remarks were captured in an audio tape posted by
Cannabis Radio News.
Medical marijuana is legal in Rohrabacher's home state of California, but remains illegal for all uses under federal law.
"Now don’t tell anybody I broke the law," he told the group. "They’ll bust down my door and, you know, and take whatever’s inside and use it for evidence against me. The bottom line is that… there’s definitely cannabis in there, and it makes sure that I can sleep now."
The National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws' executive director Allen St. Pierre tells Cannabis Radio News Rohrabacher’s staff told him it's the first time they’ve heard the congressman make a public admission of his medical marijuana use.
"This is definitely the first legislator in Congress in at least thirty-some-odd years who has acknowledged to using marijuana illegally," St. Pierre tells the news station. "Back in the 19-early-80s, there was a congressman, Stewart McKinney… and he and a guy named Newt Gingrich introduced a bill, and it was all about his [McKinney’s] need to use medical marijuana, even back in the 1980s."
The Post reports Rohrabacher is
one of the leading conservative voices in favor of overhauling marijuana laws in Congress – and crafted a provision in federal law that prevents the Department of Justice from interfering with state-level medical marijuana operations.
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