Washington D.C. Rabbi hopes to be D.C.'s first medical marijuana dispenser.
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/39579/the-rabbi-of-pot-rabbi-jeffrey-kahn-wants-to-beRabbi Jeffrey Kahn spent 27 years teaching the Torah in shuls from central New Jersey to southern Australia. Lately, he’s been talking a lot about a passage from Leviticus, the part about not standing idle while your neighbor bleeds.
“This really is an important religious issue,” says the silver-haired 58-year-old, his wide smile punctuated by crescent-shaped dimples. “Especially because of how people have been suffering and the ways that drug laws have been used against Americans and especially against minorities...I think scripture is very clear that when we have the opportunity to help people, we must do it.”
Not to mention that bit about seed-bearing plants that God declared good and gave to all humanity.
The rabbi and his wife, Stephanie Kahn , 55, are competing to establish the District’s first city-sanctioned medical-marijuana operation. Call it Kosher Kush. It’s the culmination of a sort of mid-life crisis for the couple: After packing up their prior lives and making a pilgrimage to Israel, the store represents their unlikely next step—a mom ‘n’ pop pot shop. “We wanted to do something different,” says Stephanie Kahn, a nurse who made her career in hospital administration, “but still within the framework of trying to help people.”mazel tov