A cancer-stricken judge in New York has become an unlikely voice in support of legalizing the use of medical marijuana with the admission that he smokes pot to ease the side-effects of his treatments.

Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Gustin Reichbach, who is being treated for pancreatic cancer, wrote in a New York Times article on Thursday that he had been using marijuana provided by friends at "great personal risk" to help him cope with the nausea, sleeplessness and loss of appetite from chemotherapy treatments.

"This is not a law-and-order issue; it is a medical and a human rights issue," wrote Reichbach, 65, who has spent 21 years on the bench in Kings County Supreme Court, and continues to hear cases even as he receives cancer treatment.

In the past, admitting to taking a few puffs of marijuana has been enough to derail some judges' careers. U.S. appeals court Judge Douglas Ginsburg saw his nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court go up in smoke in 1987 after admitting he had used marijuana several times in the 1960s and 1970s.

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