Cannabis Advocate and Researcher 'Dr. Bob' Melamede Dies at 75 

Robert Melamede, the iconoclastic DNA researcher, entrepreneur and international advocate for the therapeutic use of cannabis, died on April 19 from kidney failure related to a stroke that he suffered last year. He was 75.

Melamede, known affectionately by his admirers worldwide as "Dr. Bob," was not a medical doctor but a genetic researcher and microbiologist whose career included teaching stints at the University of Vermont, New York Medical College and the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. A charismatic and often fiery figure who gained a following for his claims about the curative properties of cannabis, Melamede regularly appeared in the national cannabis press and was often a keynote speaker at international pot conventions.

Melamede was the subject of a Seven Days cover story in 2017, when friends and colleagues reflected on his impact.

"Dr. Bob is about as famous as you can get in the underground cannabis world," said Dylan Raap, the founder and CEO of Upstate Elevator Supply, a Burlington-based company that makes CBD- and THC-infused products. "He's universally respected and one of the top names in the industry."
A New York City native, Melamede was considered an expert on the endocannabinoid system, the complex biological network of neurotransmitters and cell receptors that regulate, like a thermostat, virtually every system in the human body. Because of the role that human-generated cannabinoids play in maintaining homeostasis in the body, Melamede contended that high doses of the plant's extracts had anti-aging properties.

He also claimed that cannabis could relieve not just the symptoms of many chronic ailments — including cancer, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, HIV/AIDS and Alzheimer's disease — but could also slow down and even reverse the underlying conditions themselves. In the 2017 Seven Days profile, Melamede admitted that he ingested at least 200 milligrams of cannabis daily, a dosage that would leave even heavy consumers incapacitated.

Melamede's views on the seemingly miraculous properties of weed put him at odds with mainstream academia, medicine and pharmacology. In particular, his frequent assertion that high doses of cannabis could "cure cancer" were dismissed by his critics as baseless, if not reckless and irresponsible. Yet Melamede remained undeterred, claiming that he knew of hundreds, if not thousands, of cancer patients whose tumors were shrunk due to cannabis.

Throughout his life, Melamede remained a vocal critic of the pharmaceutical industry and the medical establishment, both of which he accused of  keeping people sick in order to profit off their suffering.

After getting his doctorate in molecular genetics and biochemistry at the City University of New York, the Manhattan native came to UVM in the late 1980s as a research professor. However, as a self-described "stoned-out hippie," his views didn't earn him much support in Burlington's academic community. In the 1990s, he dabbled in politics as a member of the Vermont Grassroots Party, and in 1994, he challenged Jim Jeffords for his U.S. Senate seat. Two years later, Melamede ran against then-U.S. representative Bernie Sanders, and, in 1998, former senator Patrick Leahy.

Though Melamede never garnered more than about 2,500 votes per race, he was popular among college students, in large part because of his strident advocacy for smoking pot — and legalizing it.

After leaving UVM in 2001, Melamede got a job at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. For more than a decade, he taught a class called Endocannabinoids and Medical Marijuana, which he claimed was the first-ever college-level course on the human cannabinoid system.

"And then I became an outcast in the scientific community because I talked about cannabis curing cancer," Melamede said in a 2017 interview. "They didn't want to hear that."

After leaving academia, Melamede got involved with several cannabis-related businesses, including as former president and CEO of Cannabis Science, a publicly traded biotech firm based in Irvine, Calif. Until the last year of his life, he lived in a condo in South Burlington.

On March 7, 2022, Melamede suffered a stroke, which left him without the use of the left side of his body, according to his daughter, Vanessa Berman. Then, in July, he suffered a cardiac event and needed surgery for a pacemaker. Melamede underwent hip replacement surgery in November, after which his health continued to decline.

Melamede was living in the Arbors at Shelburne, a residential care home and nursing facility, when he developed a urinary tract infection, then sepsis, which quickly caused his kidneys to fail. "It was all very sudden," Berman said.

Despite his significant physical deficits due to the stroke, his daughter said, Melamede maintained much of his cognitive abilities until the end of his life. "He was the same person," Berman said. "He was still in there."

Though Melamede continued to use cannabis therapeutically until his death, the process was made more difficult because nursing facilities that receive federal funding aren't permitted to administer products that contain THC. Though his care providers could dispense CBD, it was left to his family members to give Melamede the THC he'd used for years to treat his pain and arthritis and as a sleep aid.

As word spread of Melamede's death, scores of friends and admirers from around the world posted messages and tributes on his Facebook page. Berman said it was only in the last year that she became fully aware of her father's impact on people around the world. For that reason, Melamede's family plans to hold a virtual celebration of his life "in the next month or two."

“There are too many people," Berman said, "and they’re all over the world.” Notably, they include Melamede's longtime partner, Danica Una Petrovic of Serbia, whom he hadn't seen since January 2020 due to the pandemic.

Melamede died the day before 4/20, the unofficial cannabis holiday. This year's was the first in which Vermont's adult-use market was open.

But, in a weird twist of fate, Berman said his time of death was 4:20 p.m. Though the doctors kept saying that he’d go sooner, she added, “He was just taking his time. That’s when he decided to go.”