12/17/2025
We called him Dr. Bob. Not because he needed the title, but because he earned the respect. Robert Melamede was one of those rare minds who did not ask permission to speak the truth. He understood early that the ECS, our Master Regulator, was not a side note in biology, but the thermostat that keeps the whole system from burning out. Long before it was safe, popular, or profitable to say that out loud, Dr. Bob was already there, chalk in hand, fire in his voice, daring anyone to prove him wrong.
He was not a medical doctor, and that fact never slowed him down. He was a genetic researcher, a microbiologist, a teacher, and a lifelong agitator of bad science and worse policy. University of Vermont, New York Medical College, University of Colorado Colorado Springs. He taught where he could until the system decided he was too honest for its comfort. When he taught “Endocannabinoids and Medical Marijuana,” he wasn’t just teaching a class. He was opening a door that academia had deliberately locked.
Dr. Bob believed cannabis did more than treat symptoms. He believed it changed outcomes. That belief made him radioactive in polite scientific circles. He said cannabis could slow disease, reverse damage, even cure cancer in some cases, and he never softened those words to make others comfortable. Critics called him reckless. Supporters called him brave. Patients called him a lifeline. History will sort the rest out.
He took cannabis the way he lived life. Fully committed. Two hundred milligrams a day, sometimes more. Not to get away from reality, but to stay in it. He understood that endocannabinoids were not fringe molecules. They were survival chemistry. Anti-aging, neuroprotective, anti-inflammatory, homeostatic by design. He didn’t just study the ECS. He lived in balance with it.
Dr. Bob was also political, not for power, but for disruption. He ran against Jeffords, Sanders, and Leahy, not because he thought he would win, but because he thought silence was worse. He was a stoned-out hippie by his own admission, and he wore that like armor. College students loved him. Institutions did not. That usually tells you who was right.
When he left academia, he did not slow down. He moved into advocacy, business, biotech, and public speaking. He spoke across borders while governments pretended cannabis was still the problem. He called out pharmaceutical greed before it was fashionable. He said out loud what many whispered, that keeping patients sick was more profitable than helping them heal.
His final years were hard. A stroke in March 2022 affected the left side of his body. Cardiac issues followed. Hip replacement. Decline. Yet even then, his mind stayed sharp. His daughter Vanessa said it best. He was still in there. And even as his body failed him, the system failed him again. Nursing facilities could give CBD, but not THC. Federal funding rules overrode patient need. So the family stepped in. Love stepped in. Cannabis stayed with him to the end, even when policy tried to push it out of the room.
Dr. Bob passed on April 19, 2023. The day before 4 20. And because the universe has a sense of humor he would appreciate, he left at exactly 4 20 pm. Doctors said it would be sooner. He decided otherwise. That tracks.
His impact is global. Serbia. Vermont. Colorado. California. Everywhere, patients felt seen for the first time because someone in a lab coat finally said, You’re not crazy, your body knows what it needs.
Dr. Bob was not polished. He was not careful. He was not quiet. He was necessary.
Rest easy, my friend. You shook the system. You woke up minds. You stood in the fire so others could walk through it later.
The plant remembers you. So do we.
