Rabbi Jeffrey Kahn, shown arriving in Israel in 2007
Rabbi Jeffrey Kahn spent his 30-year career educating others
and helping to ease human suffering, leading Jewish congregations in Australia,
Illinois, his hometown of Miami and New Jersey.
Now, he is practicing his faith in a different line of work:
Kahn runs a dispensary for medical marijuana.
Call it a mitzvah -- or one of
God's commandments.
"From the Jewish perspective, nothing is more important
than the concept of healing and bringing sufferers relief," said Kahn, 61.
"I was a congregational rabbi during the worst days of
the AIDS epidemic and saw up-close and personal what people living with AIDS
were dealing with and finding relief with medical marijuana," he said.
Just last month, Kahn and his wife, who works as a nurse at
a long-term acute care hospital, opened the Takoma Wellness Center on the
outskirts of Washington, D.C., where they are legally allowed to dispense
medical marijuana.
So far, they only have three customers, who must meet state
criteria and suffer from one of five diseases: HIV, AIDS, cancer, multiple
sclerosis or glaucoma.
"The cannabis plant was created by God on the second
day of creation when God created all the other plants, and touching this one
isn't forbidden," Kahn said in a June interview with New Voices, a
national magazine for Jewish college students.
Stephanie Reifkind Kahn, 59, has decorated the dispensary
with "hamsas," a Jewish and Arabic symbol to ward off evil.
"They are Middle Eastern for healing and
protection," she said. "It's something the Arab and Israeli
communities agree upon. It is our shared connection."
The Kahns are able to offer their for-profit services under
the district's Medical Marijuana Program that launched Aug. 1. All proceeds
will go to HIV/AIDS charities, according to the Kahns.
Rabbi Kahn comes from the liberal stream of the Jewish
faith, but he is not alone in his support of medical marijuana.
The Jewish Advocate just recently reported that the regional
co-director of the Chabad of Eastern Massachusetts, which is part of the orthodox
stream, had applied for a medical marijuana dispensary license, one of 181 in
that state.
The rabbi, Chaim Prus of the Beth Menachem Chabad of Newton,
told ABCNews.com that he would be unable to comment until the licensing process
is complete.
In 2003, the Union for Reform Judaism passed a resolution
supporting medical marijuana and called its congregations to support
legalization for medical purposes. But that nor any of the other Jewish
denominations support widespread legalization of recreational marijuana.
Twenty states and the District of Columbia allow its
regulated therapeutic use, according to the National Conference of State
Legislatures. California was the first, in 1996.
Congress had blocked legalization in the nation's capital
until 2010 with a "very well-regulated law," Kahn said.
"We knew this could be done well and we know how to do
this right," he said. "It's important to know the risks. But we are
bringing healing and relief to people."
Legal risks are still real, because any use of marijuana is
still banned under federal law, but Attorney General Eric Holder eased fears
recently saying he would respect local, regulated programs.
The psychological benefits include anxiety reduction,
sedation, and euphoria can influence their potential therapeutic value
But the institute also noted that smoking marijuana is a
"crude" method that delivers harmful substance.
After their children left home, the Kahns left the United
States to live in Israel, where their younger son was serving in the combat
military and where medical marijuana is used legally and "robustly,"
he said.
Stephanie Kahn's father had been ill with multiple sclerosis
for 50 years.
"In the 1970s he was going from doctor to doctor to try
to find relief and couldn't find anything until someone suggested he try
marijuana," said Kahn. "It gave him significant relief."
But the man never lived to get marijuana "safely and
legally," according to Kahn.
In 2009, the couple came home to the U.S. because of
transitions in their family --- they were to become grandparents and Stephanie
Kahn's mother fell ill with lung cancer.
They settled in Washington, D.C., where their older son
lived.
"She was going through very aggressive chemotherapy and
radiation and her doctor in New Jersey had recommended medical marijuana, but
she wasn't able to find it," he said. "She wasted away and lost 40
pounds in a few months."
Ending suffering trumps all other Jewish laws, according to
Kahn. A sick patient is not expected to fast on Yom Kippur; Jews have a
responsibility to help the sick even when they are supposed to be praying.
"God would never forbid the need to go to a
hospital," Kahn said. "We put people in the ambulance and treat them
with all the medical equipment -- even the orthodox do."
In addition to marijuana, which the Kahns obtain from 10
warehouses around the District of Columbia, the dispensary provides a large
selection of equipment, including a "magical butter machine" that
converts the drug to butter, oil or tinctures.
But Kahn also finds more traditional ways to bring comfort
to his patients.
"I find so much of my time is spent counseling people
and speaking to people on the phone," he said. "I can't say that
everybody facing illness likes to have someone to talk to. But lots of people
do and I am using my rabbinical skills -- and that's really great."
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