cannabisnews.com: Patients Testify for Mikuriya 










  Patients Testify for Mikuriya 

Posted by CN Staff on September 19, 2003 at 12:23:15 PT
By Fred Gardner 
Source: Anderson Valley Advertiser  

To refute the state Medical Board's Accusation against Tod Mikuriya, MD, the defense has called to the witness stand nine of the patients who allegedly received substandard care from him. Each patient described Mikuriya as a thorough, empathetic, and helpful consultant who never passed himself off as a primary care provider.Each confirmed that s/he had been self-medicating with cannabis before seeking Mikuriya's approval to do so.
The prosecution's expert, Laura Duskin, MD, had claimed that reading Mikuriya's files enabled her to detect "extreme departures from the standard of care" in his treatment of 16 patients.She felt no need to get input from the patients themselves. "We're taught from day one in medical school that if you didn't write it down, it didn't happen," Duskin testified in all seriousness. But it became obvious, as the patients recalled their encounters with Mikuriya, that a great deal had happened between them that Duskin failed to discern.First to testify was D.K., a middle-aged woman from Humboldt County who walked and spoke slowly and with obvious effort.At 21 she'd suffered a stroke brought on by the combination of smoking cigarettes and taking birth-control pills. ("The pill" was originally approved by the FDA in a dosage many orders of magnitude greater than required for efficacy. A safer formulation was introduced quickly in the U.S., less quickly in South America.)D.K.'s enunciation may not have been crisp, but what she had to say was eloquent. "None of you have ever had a cerebral hemorrhage. I'm always the wrong one, the one who doesn't get the joke... I get feeling like I'm up against a wall. A couple of puffs and I can come back to myself, I can grip reality again." D.K. said she first consulted Mikuriya in June, 1998. "He had been recommended to me as a compassionate doctor... I was totally honest with him. I had discovered for myself that marijuana helped more than anything.And I don't need more and more -the same amount works!"In response to questions from attorney Susan Lea, D.K. testified that Mikuriya had written her a prescription for a neuropsychiatric evaluation, but it had been confiscated along with other papers in her husband's possession when he was busted for cultivation. Mikuriya had also urged her to quit or reduce her cigarette smoking, and had suggested that she substitute cannabis leaf for tobacco. "And it worked," D.K. reported.She mimed hand-rolling a joint and drawing on it as she explained "You get to do the same thing with your hands, and with your mouth..."Assistant A.G. Jane Zack Simon asked, on cross-examination, if D.K. had obtained from Mikuriya a second prescription for a neuropsych eval. D.K. replied as if Simon was the slow one and had missed the key point: "It got taken by the cops when they took our marijuana." D.K. also testified that she'd had four follow-up visits with Mikuriya over the years, and that he'd billed her on a sliding scale.Prior to the next swearing in, Administrative Law Judge Jonathan Lew commented that he'd never had a case in which patients's names had been kept from him. Simon said, "We often have cases where patients names aren't used -but of course they never testify." Which shows how far removed from reality the Medical Board's procedures have become.Why shouldn't patients be testifying about mistreatment by physicians? The Mikuriya case is highly unusual in that no patients contend they were victimized. Quite the contrary -the alleged victims are coming forward to say "Thank you, doctor."D.H., another middle-aged woman who didn't look as if life had been a bed of roses, testified that she'd found on her own that cannabis provided relief for severe itching and stress headaches "so bad I can't even function." Tests couldn't determine the causes of her problems.Other doctors had given her "medicines that didn't help. They put me out and deprived me of feeling in control." She'd brought Mikuriya records from her previous doctors and told him that when she smoked cannabis, "the itching is less and I don't go to sleep with headaches." Mikuriya gave her an approval for cannabis and taught her a method of rolling the shoulders to reduce headache-inducing tension. She said she couldn't see him again "money-wise."On cross, Simon asked D.H., "Did you ask Dr. Mikuriya if there was anything you should do about the itching?" -ignoring the woman's testimony that cannabis had been an effective treatment.The prosecution apparently hopes to show that Mikuriya provided substandard care by not pushing the available corporate products!It so happens that California doctors who are monitoring their patients's cannabis use are hearing reports of efficacy in the treatment of pruritis (itching)! Because the cannabis specialists are collecting data to which the medical establishment has been unreceptive, it is the establishment docs who are, in many instances, providing outdated, substandard care. As noted before, the Mikuriya case takes us through the looking glass.R.B. a man of about 30 with black hair and Buddy Holly specs, had been incapacitated by nausea, vomiting and dizziness.His Kaiser doctor conducted tests and diagnosed severe acid reflux, but couldn't come up with a cause or a cure. R.B. testified, "I lost my job because I was sick all the time, and then I lost my health insurance because I was unemployed... I spent a lot of time just rolled in a ball... I was ready to off myself." He first sensed the medical potential of marijuana after using it socially.He learned more via the Internet, he said, but was concerned about its addictive potential. Mikuriya spent more time with him than any doctor he'd seen. "When you call Kaiser, a nurse takes your info and they call you back and you pick up some medicines," said R.B., accurately describing the REAL standard of care provided by the medical establishment.E.K., a middle-aged Christian Scientist, listed his problems as insomnia, high blood pressure, hypertension, and back pain when he saw Mikuriya in February, 1997. Except for the Army doctors who'd declared him 4F, he hadn't visited a doctor since childhood.He had self-medicated with cannabis for years. He'd sought a letter of approval from Mikuriya so that he could ingest THC without violating the terms of probation.E.K. (who also has cognitive problems) said Mikuriya had spent an entire morning with him and wound up prescribing Marinol.Assistant A.G. Larry Mercer tried to make something of the fact that E.K. had no other doctor -as if that made Mikuriya his primary-care physician. E.K. patiently explained that it was his choice not to see doctors, and he only consulted Mikuriya to legalize his use of THC. Mercer asked if E.K. ever tested his blood sugar "by pricking your finger." E.K. looked confused. "Did you ever prick your finger to measure your blood sugar?" Mercer repeated.E.K. looked at the red-faced prosecutor carefully and asked, "Are you a doctor?"Next came R.H., your basic American alcoholic working man in his 60s, beat to shit physically but far-gone enough to stand up to the Inquisition. In 1997 he was on probation (for cultivating three plants) and couldn't sleep. "I must have slept 100 hours in those eight months," is how he put it. "Nothin' worked.Cannabis worked.It ain't no miracle but it sure helps.It just makes things a little better and I can sleep at night."One day in late October, 2001, I drove out to Georgetown, in El Dorado County, about 40 miles east of Sacramento, to attend the funeral of Ferris Fain, who had played first base for the Philadelphia A's in the post-WWII era. Fain, who died at 80, had been "an Oakland product," as the sportscasters used to say... He was the American League batting champ in '51 and '52 and part of a record-setting double-play combo (Joost to Suder to Fain).In 1988 the Chronicle had carried a small story about Fain being arrested for marijuana cultivation. He was subsequently tried and did 18 months in state prison (Vacaville). I figured Fain had been a medical user -most old jocks have aches and pains that the herb can soothe.But this hypothesis proved wrong.From the woman who'd been his caretaker (and who spoke of him with affection) I learned that Fain had settled in Georgetown in 1961, soon after retiring from baseball. He'd become a contractor and built his own house and eight others in a tract of 13. He had an Alaska mill and milled his own lumber.He had a garden with 12 raised beds, and he put up preserves. (Good hands off the diamond, too.)The funeral was held in Georgetown's Pioneer Cemetery at 2 in the afternoon. The VFW did the honors (Fain had played on an Armed Services team with Joe DiMaggio). Five silver-haired vets provided a three-gun salute and taps played on a boombox tape deck. An old friend named Ray Malgradi gave a short eulogy.He and Fain had grown up in the same Oakland neighborhood and they had played on the same local teams.Fain's family had been very poor, Malgradi recalled. "Nobody ever played the bunt better than Ferris Fain," he declared.A gent named Dan Maloney, who had come down from Weaverville, also spoke briefly. Fain had hired him as batboy when the Bob Feller All-Stars came through the Bay Area in 1949 (barnstorming against the Kansas City Royals of the still extant Negro League)... Fain's granddaughter Nicole sang "Peace in the Valley," then the family and friends headed for a reception at the VFW Hall.Somebody said that Ray Malgradi was trying to get Fain's marijuana conviction expunged, but he left before I could ask: on what grounds?John Fain, then 52, had flown in from Thailand, where he lives as an expatriate, for his father's funeral and to see daughter Nicole. "All anybody said about him was about baseball," was John's comment on the funeral. He revealed that his dad never smoked marijuana and didn't approve of its use; he'd been growing it to supplement his income.At one time, according to John, his father had kicked him out of the house - -"when I had a wife and a one-year-old baby, and it was really my house"- because John had been into marijuana!Ol'Ferris was also something of a racist.The woman who'd been his caretaker said he expressed contempt for the current players' skills. "He called it 'Z-league baseball,'" she said. "You know: Martinez, Rodriguez, Fernandez..."Good to be heading back to the cool, gray, overpriced city of tolerance. The foothills look like they'll never recover from the original over-logging... They catch the smog from the valley and hold it against Auburn. Source: Anderson Valley Advertiser (CA)Author: Fred GardnerPublished: September 17, 2003Copyright: 2003 Anderson Valley AdvertiserContact: ava pacific.netWebsite: http://www.theava.com/Related Articles & Web Site:Tod H. Mikuriya, M.D.http://www.mikuriya.com/Dr Mikuriya Defends His Practice http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17264.shtmlDoctor Litigates With State Medical Boardhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17224.shtmlHearing To Decide Fate of Pot-Prescribing Dochttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17218.shtmlMikuriya To Med Board: No Dealhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17183.shtml

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Comment #3 posted by BGreen on September 20, 2003 at 21:27:14 PT
Sometimes The Article Says It All
I read this to my wife but I didn't post.I've said before how easy it is to call a toll-free number without a prescription, talk to a doctor, and get a schedule III or IV drug such as phentermine sent to you, but Dr. Mikuriya is persecuted for spending hours with his patients.It's SO wrong.The Reverend Bud Green
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Comment #2 posted by FoM on September 20, 2003 at 20:33:59 PT
Thank You ekim
I appreciate your comment! I hope for the very best outcome for Dr. Mikuriya.
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Comment #1 posted by ekim on September 20, 2003 at 20:28:19 PT
Dr. Mikuriya helped thousands
one would think at least one of those would be commenting here in his defence. The Doctor is a compassionate and courageous warrior, thank you Tod. 
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