By Tom Angell

 

A Republican representative from California just became the first sitting member of Congress in recent history to admit to using marijuana while in office.

“I went to one of these hempfests or something like that they had in San Bernardino,” said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who then recounted meeting a vendor who gave him a medical cannabis preparation to treat arthritis.

“This guy was showing me the medical things and all that, and he says, ‘you should try this.’ And it’s a candle and you light the candle and the wax is in there and it melts down and then you rub it on whatever you’ve got problems with,” the lawmaker said.

“I tried it about two weeks ago, and it’s the first time in a year and a half that I had a decent night’s sleep, because the arthritis pain was gone.”

Rohrabacher has long been a vocal supporter of marijuana law reform, and is one of the chief sponsors of a measure that prevents the Department of Justice from spending money to interfere with the implementation of state medical marijuana laws. The amendment is voted on annually as Congress considers appropriations bills to fund federal agencies, and has been enacted into law for the past two fiscal years after receiving strong bipartisan votes on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Rohrabacher made the new admission, first reported by Russ Belville at Cannabis Radio, at a kick-off event for a lobby day being held by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).

“Now don’t tell anybody I broke the law,” added Rohrabacher, who previously served as a senior speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan. “They’ll bust down my door and, you know, and take whatever’s inside and use it for evidence against me, whatever it is. The bottom line is that there’s definitely cannabis in there, and it makes sure that I can sleep now.”