Bad Eyes, Good Medicine, and a Guy Named Bob

Halos have long adorned the heads of saints, but in the case of
the late Robert Randall — the compassionate angel anointed by bad
luck and good timing to launch the modern medical marijuana
movement — the halos hovered in his eyes. Due to a rare type of
glaucoma that began in his youth, Bob couldn’t see very well,
particularly at night, when streetlights would be surrounded by
halos. Halos are the common symptom of severe though painless
pressure on the optic nerve, which is what glaucoma — nicknamed the
“sneak thief of sight” — victims experience until blindness sets
in.

One particular evening in 1972, soon after a doctor informed him
that no medicine would stop him from going blind in less than five
years, Bob was looking out his Washington, D.C. window at the
familiar streetlight halos when he decided to alleviate his worries
by turning on some music and smoking a joint. An hour later, he
looked outside again, only to find that the halos were miraculously
gone.

It was, his widow and longtime partner
Alice O’Leary recalled, a “eureka moment for Bob. He knew in an
instant what had happened.” Of course, upon waking the next
morning, Bob thought he was probably just nuts. But being a
“bookish” fellow, Bob set about conducting his own tests, and sure
enough, he discovered that smoking pot (on top of taking his
regular pills) helped his eyes. Scientifically, the drug was
relieving pressure on his optic nerve, immediately eliminating the
halos and, in the long run, stopping the disease from blinding
him.