Pubdate: Tue, 27 Sep 2005
Source: Palm Beach Post, The (FL)
Copyright: 2005 The Palm Beach Post
Contact:  http://www.palmbeachpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/333
Author: Eliot Kleinberg, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Cited: North American Challenge Cup http://www.ussailing.org/swsn/
Cited: U.S. Sailing Association http://www.ussailing.org/
Cited: United States Anti-Doping Agency http://www.usantidoping.org/
Cited: World Anti-Doping Agency http://www.wada-ama.org/en/
Cited: Irvin Rosenfeld http://www.mapinc.org/people/Irvin+Rosenfeld
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

MEDICAL MARIJUANA USER BANNED FROM REGATTA

Irvin Rosenfeld, the South Florida stockbroker who gained national 
attention for his fight to freely use marijuana as medicine, has run 
into resistance from one of the nation's top sailing events for the 
disabled and expects to be barred from next year's event.

The reason: an independent group that monitors use of drugs by 
athletes won't exempt the pot Rosenfeld uses to treat tumors that 
would otherwise leave him bedridden and in pain.

Rosenfeld, who has sailed in three races of the North American 
Challenge Cup in 11 years, has asked the race's organizers and the 
U.S. Sailing Association to overrule the United States Anti-Doping 
Agency and let him sail in the 2006 regatta. He said an event that 
celebrates overcoming disabilities is in effect discriminating 
against a disabled person.

The USADA, the official anti-doping agency for Olympic, Pan American 
and Paralympic sports, gave no reason for its rejection, Rosenfeld 
said in a Friday e-mail to the sailing officials.

Travis T. Tygart, general counsel for Colorado Springs-based USADA, 
said Monday the agency is bound by the standards of the World Anti- 
Doping Agency, which bans marijuana. Banned drugs must meet at least 
two of three standards: they enhance performance, they have 
detrimental health effects, or they violate the spirit of sports. The 
WADA does not specify which standards apply to marijuana, Tygart 
said. He said athletes are free to appeal to WADA, and, if rejected 
there, to an independent arbitrator.

Representatives of Montreal-based WADA did not return calls on Monday.

Challenge Cup Chairwoman Jennifer French couldn't be reached 
Monday.U.S. Sailing spokeswoman Marlieke Eaton said from Portsmouth, 
R.I., that the group is bound by the USADA's rules. But, she said, 
"We do have intent to revisit this."

Seven people -- one has since died -- were given marijuana in a 
federal program started in 1978. Rosenfeld joined in 1982. The U.S. 
government grows marijuana on a farm in Mississippi and provides it 
in cans of 300 cigarettes to Rosenfeld in care of the Bascom Palmer 
Eye Institute in Miami.

Rosenfeld smokes 10 to 12 cigarettes a day of what he calls "my 
medicine." He said the federal government has ruled the marijuana 
does not give him an edge over other competitors. And he said that 
because he has never gotten high on the drug, he has special 
permission to drive and even operate machinery and would not be a 
danger to other sailors.

In the 2005 regatta in Chicago, organizers allowed him to race but 
said he must refrain from using his marijuana during the event. He 
said he took his medicine in secret, but believes competitors and 
organizers knew he was doing so, since he at times smoked it just a 
few hundred yards away.

"Why don't you just tell a diabetic to stop taking his insulin for 
five days?" Rosenfeld wrote.

"U.S. Sailing had some nerve to single me out for my 'BANNED 
SUBSTANCE' when a lot of the other competitors were on banned 
substances," Rosenfeld continued. He alleged competitors in the 
Challenge Cup have never been tested for drugs, even though virtually 
all of them take some sort of medicine, none of it designed to 
improve their performances.

"All of us are disabled, and that's the medicines that we use," 
Rosenfeld said Monday in an interview.
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