This op-ed piece was written by a sitting judge of the New York supreme court. In NY the supreme court is a trial court, a court of general jurisdiction. New York's court of last resort is its Court of Appeals. This reversal of roles is as far as I know unique in American jurisprudence.

The judge's op-ed is of interest to me because I too am a cancer patient, having been diagnosed early last year with prostatic adenocarcinoma. Unlike Judge Reichbach my cancer while large, involving some sixty percent of my prostate, was confined to the organ and the six nearby lymphnodes were cancer free. My initial Gleason Score was 7 (3+4) and I elected to have a radical prostatectomy which is the removal of the offending organ, and adjacent tissues including the seminal vesicles and nerves which control sexual function. I had this surgery eight months ago and although it was done robotically through three small abdominal incisions the recovery was slow and not so much painful as it was disturbing and disrupting and even debilitating. As a result of the surgery I am having to re-learn bladder control and my days of being a sexual being are gone and now are only a fading memory.

I too use medical marijuana not specifically because of the cancer diagnosis but to ameliorate another condition for which medical science is unanimous in its recommendation of the plant as a treatment in combination with other medical treatments. While it is prescribed for a medical condition involving my eyes, it was very helpful with the cancer diagnosis, 'cure' and recovery. Every part of the human being is being is linked to every other part of the human being and because of that basic truth it helped me in my ongoing battle to recover from the disease and it's resultant pain, heartache, constipation, appetite loss, sleeplessness, worry and plain old fear.

I too have, along with Judge Reichbach, devoted forty years of my life to the service of the law and am deeply offended that the DEA in particular and the US Government in general are spending my tax dollars in a misguided effort to deprive patients of this medicine that while not curative of various medical conditions that plague Homo Sap definitely ameliorates these conditions and makes the process of medical treatments for those conditions a little easier to withstand, allows us to eat and even to sleep. Bravo to Judge Reichbach for his public coming out both as a cancer patient and a medical marijuana user.