Dr. Lester Grinspoon, a leading figure in cannabis legalization, has died

One day after celebrating his 92nd birthday, Dr. Lester Grinspoon passed away yesterday morning, June 25.

As a physician, researcher, author, educator and activist, Lester Grinspoon will remain a towering figure in the medical cannabis movement and in campaigns to legalize cannabis for adults.

His book Marihuana Reconsidered (1971) is considered a seminal work on the safety and efficacy of cannabis as a medicine. For fifty years, he continued to write on the subject, while speaking at conferences and in the media, offering expert testimony in numerous court cases and government hearings. He also sat on the advisory board of NORML, one of America's leading pro-legalization associations.

Lester Grinspoon's son Peter, also a doctor and cannabis legalization campaigner, announced his father's death yesterday morning.

My father, Dr. Lester Grinspoon, passed away this morning, peacefully & comfortably, with his wife Betsy (of 66 years) at his side, after celebrating his 92nd birthday with his family. Thank you for making the world a better place, in so many ways!https://t.co/W1KNZH8s1A

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- Peter Grinspoon, M.D. (@Peter_Grinspoon) June 25, 2020

Marihuana Reconsidered

Lester Grinspoon's interest in cannabis dates back to 1967, when he set out to do enough research on the subject to convince his best friend, astronomer Carl Sagan, to stop using so much cannabis. Determined to compile as many anti-cannabis arguments as possible, he went to the Harvard Medical School. But instead of encountering the reliable data he'd expected, Grinspoon had a revelation: he'd been «brainwashed about cannabis».

For the next 4 years, he continued his research on the subject, before publishing Marihuana Reconsidered in 1971, a best-selling book detailing the government's propaganda campaign to ban cannabis at all costs.

Arriving at a time when only 15% of Americans favored cannabis legalization, and nearly 25 before the first U.S. state passed a medical cannabis law, Grinspoon's book caused a sensation when it was published, while beginning a reassessment of cannabis by academics. governments and the general public.

As well as a scientific refutation of the many clichés associated with cannabis, Marihuana Reconsidered also included a essay by Carl Sagan under the pseudonym Mr X, who explained that her support for ending cannabis prohibition was not just political, but deeply personal. Sagan concluded:

«The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an obstacle to the full use of a substance that creates serenity and insight, sensitivity and camaraderie so desperately needed in this increasingly crazy and dangerous world.»

He testified for John Lennon

Alarmed by John Lennon's plea against the Vietnam War, the Nixon administration tried to deport the Beatle on the basis of an old drug offense in England.

Lester Grinspoon was called to testify at Lennon's extradition trial in 1973 as a cannabis expert. When asked if hashish and marijuana were the same thing, he replied that this was incorrect. «I wasn't going to do their job,» Grinspoon noted. «They were going to have to go fishing.» The government dropped the case, having been unable to prove that hashish was the same thing as marijuana.

One of the first patients treated with cannabis

Dr. Grinspoon and his wife Betsy had the tragic experience of losing their son Danny to leukemia when he was a young teenager.

During Danny's final year of treatment, they saw for themselves that cannabis was effective in helping him cope with the side effects of the high doses of chemotherapy he was receiving. This personal tragedy also shaped Lester Grinspoon's conviction that cannabis could be a valuable medicine.

In 1993, he wrote the book Marihuana: The Forbidden Medicine, which advocates the legalization of cannabis so that its full medicinal potential can be exploited. Syndicat du Chanvre's white paper on medical cannabis [editor's note: co-written by the author of this article]. used one of his quotes in the opening pages.

Barney's Farm has dedicated a cannabis variety in his honor, Dr. Grinspoon, typical for its unusually spaced popcorn flower structure.

Our thoughts are with his family and friends.