cannabisnews.com: Pot -- It's Just What The Doctor Ordered










  Pot -- It's Just What The Doctor Ordered

Posted by FoM on June 07, 2001 at 14:55:46 PT
By Dan Evans Of The Examiner Staff 
Source: San Francisco Examiner 

In his home in the Berkeley Hills, surrounded by books and drawings made by his 7-year-old daughter, Dr. Tod Mikuriya seems like a fairly normal guy. It's hard at first glance to tell that his life revolves around an illegal substance: marijuana.In his calm, easygoing demeanor, Mikuriya tells how he has written some 5,800 recommendations for marijuana. That's more than anyone else.
Though he sees most patients at his home, he also makes house calls, traveling throughout Northern California, dispensing recommendations to the bedridden. But he also gives pot recommendations for everything from post-traumatic stress disorder to alcoholism.That's why he is under investigation by the Medical Board of California. Proposition 215, passed in 1996, allows ill people to possess and grow pot with a doctor's blessing. But, according to the state, some blessings come a little too cheap.Prop. 215 passed on Nov. 6, 1996 -- 1,612 days ago. So on average Mikuriya has recommended marijuana to more than three-and-a-half patients per day, including weekends and holidays. He acknowledges that he does nothing else, but insists he examines each patient thoroughly.And there's the rub. Mikuriya says it's his vocal stance about the usefulness of pot that brought on the ire of the Medical Board. But the board contends -- presumably based on his astronomical number of patients -- that the Berkeley doctor does little more than a cursory exam before writing a weed recommendation. In an ongoing investigation for more than a year, the board has sought the medical records of about 45 patients.Mikuriya, 67, says turning over the documents would be a breach of patient-doctor confidentiality, and filed suit in San Francisco Superior Court on May 22 attempting to stop the board's efforts. The state says it needs the records to prove its allegations.Mikuriya claims there is a conspiracy afoot to keep him down. State officials are split on the medical marijuana controversy. While some local law enforcement agencies strongly oppose pot possession for any purpose, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed papers earlier this year with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative. Though the cooperative lost its fight at the high court, Lockyer's argument that the state should be allowed to make and enforce its own drug laws illustrates his stance with the drug.The Medical Board complains that Mikuriya gives his consent for pot too easily, not that consent shouldn't ever be given.But it's hard to tell exactly what the Medical Board's view really is. Karin Fetherston, the senior investigator for the board dealing with Mikuriya's case, did not return a request for comment. And Deputy Attorney General Larry Mercer also refused to talk about Mikuriya, saying the government's side is completely contained in its court filings.Some facts do emerge from the filings. The Medical Board complains that Mikuriya recommends marijuana to patients not under his care, who are not all that sick, and fails to conduct anything that would amount to a medical examination.The state claims Mikuriya recommended marijuana to a patient in Nevada County who suffered from alcoholism. Without identifying any specific cases, Mikuriya acknowledged he recommends marijuana for alcoholics. It's a useful treatment for the disease, he said. Marijuana has no real side effects, he said, while alcohol, besides its devastating social effects for alcoholics, is tremendously damaging to the body."In fact, it's possible to function adequately while driving and using machinery" after using marijuana, he said.Attorney Susan Lea, who is defending Mikuriya against the state, blames the state's prosecutorial zeal against her client on people and prejudices held over from the Dan Lungren era. Lungren, a strong opponent of medical marijuana, was the state attorney general under Gov. Pete Wilson.Lungren raided medical marijuana clubs, shutting down one run by Prop. 215 standard-bearer Dennis Peron. Many in the medical marijuana community regard Lungred as a villain. Lea said many attorneys from that era, including Mercer, still feel it is their goal to silence all doctors who recommend pot. "In these people's minds, if we can get rid of Mikuriya, no one will be around to recommend marijuana," she said.Usually, for a complaint to be filed against a doctor with the Medical Board, says Lea, the patient has to complain. But that hasn't happened in this case. Instead, the 45 subpoenaed medical records represent failed prosecutions, she said. Jury after jury acquitted Mikuriya's patients -- usually charged with possession or cultivation, said Lea -- which upset the district attorneys and sheriff's departments working on the cases."They've gone to the medical board because they're losing in the criminal courts," said Lea, a Stinson Beach attorney. "You're dealing with a group of very biased people, and they don't like to lose."Mikuriya said his interest in the medicinal use of cannabis started in 1959, his sophomore year of medical school at Temple University in Philadelphia. The useful properties of the drug, he said, simply didn't jibe with its illicit nature."It's just social mind poisoning," he said.That social poisoning is something the doctor knows a lot about, having been 7 years old when World War II broke out. He grew up in a tiny town in Eastern Pennsylvania. After seeing propaganda films about the nation's then-enemies, Mikuriya says his classmates would beat him up because his father was Japanese. (His mother was German, which didn't help). Sometimes, he said, they would shoot him with BB guns, playing "kill the Jap" and force his sister to watch.The disparity between the pharmacological use of marijuana and its legal status, he says, is a "collective delusional fiction" of the same ilk. Medical decisions should be left to doctors, he said. Law enforcement agencies are making ill-informed medical decisions because of their bias."Unfortunately, they have the tenacity to think they can make health care decisions," he said. E-mail Dan Evans at: devans sfexaminer.comSource: San Francisco Examiner (CA)Author: Dan Evans Of The Examiner StaffPublished: June 7, 2001Copyright: 2001 San Francisco ExaminerContact: letters examiner.comWebsite: http://www.examiner.com/Tod H. Mikuriya M.D. http://www.mikuriya.com/althealth/index.htmlCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml

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Comment #7 posted by Jeaneous on June 09, 2001 at 15:24:04 PT:
Dr. Tod
He is there for patients that know they get relief from marijuana but have dr's that fear touching the issue. His services have been very successful and I don't expect that to change. He is not fearful of the feds because he knows that he can validate his recommendations.Since when is it wrong to search for a doctor that has a compassionate approach to his patients? If you feel your dr is not giving you the treatment you need or if they are unwilling to listen to alternative methods, we as patients are obligated to seek out a physician that give the care we feel we deserve.As said earlier, I don't think they will have one complaint from a patient as to how they were treated by Dr. Tod.I would like to thank him for helping me submit my recommendation from him to the Sacramento Probation Dept. that was excepted and honored. He helped me to make a small stand and was what started me in my activism. Can't say enough thanks for that.My activism let me to my rheumatologist who is progressive thinking and also so very compassionate. She has written my recommendations not only because of my conditions but also for the stand of medicinal use. She believes it's a patient and dr issue, not one of government. She's great!Guess I'm saying thanks Dr. Tod and letting you all know just how much effect one person can have. A wonderful man and such a frontrunner of our cause. He deserves many thanks.
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Comment #6 posted by freedom fighter on June 09, 2001 at 06:56:06 PT
If anything, it is just a witch hunt
Leave the good doctor alone!5800 patients and not one complaint..Goood enough for me... He is doing his job..If only more doctors would listen to their patients more and not be so afraid of the Law..
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Comment #5 posted by dddd on June 09, 2001 at 03:25:12 PT
orders
Years ago,I was in a reggae band,and the saying ofmy Rasta brothers was;....."Just what JAH ordered".dddd
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Comment #4 posted by lookinside on June 07, 2001 at 20:15:27 PT:
a man to look up to...
my wife has been using marijuana medicinally for manyyears...she suffers from fibromyalgia, arthritis, migrainheadaches and depression...she has had cancer 3 times...when prop 215 passed, she asked her doctors for arecommendation...all were previously aware of her use ofpot...all were intimidated by the fed's threats...in 1999 weheard of dr. mikuriya...we made an appointment...after anexamination and review of her medical records, he gave herthat oh-so-important piece of paper...since that time, my wife began treatment by a very wellknown rheumatologist...this doctor also gave her arecommendation after trying various pharmaceuticalremedies(including marinol)...the doctor found uponexamination that my wife's condition was improved far moreby the use of cannabis than by any of the other drugs...the medical board is political, and should be ashamed ofthemselves...
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Comment #3 posted by Steven Tuck on June 07, 2001 at 19:57:59 PT:
Dr. Mikurya was THE head of the US gov't cannabis 
This man they are hounding to death is "The Worlds Foremost Authority On Cannabis" period, and we ALL should be marching in the streets. I had the privalige of working with Tod for 2 years as the head of R&D for the Humboldt Cannabis Center, I was in charge of the Dr. visits and screening patients and assisting him with visits so I should know a little about him and the situation. I have continued to watch Tod be harressed by petty little minded local officials who have no idea of this mans knowledge or the research he has published(the 1st of which before I was even born) or the fact that for many years he was the head of ALL the gov'ts research on cannabis with NIDA for the whole nation. Did he magically lose all his knowledge when he stopped agreeing with them after he saw the truth? I saw Tod work himself to the bone for patients, and everyone of them got way more time than I have EVER gotten with one of my spine sugeons out of the operating room and they gave me drugs a hell of a lot stronger than cannabis. He would start at 6:30am and we would work until the last patient who needed help was seen, sometimes that was very late at night. Tod then had to drive to airport and fly home only to start again the next day. I was always amazed by his energy and drive. And that drive was to help patients not himself like most of the rest of the Dr.'s I know who hide behind regulations to avoid RESPONSIBILITY that comes with standing up and getting involved in these sick peoples lives. I have also saw Tod Mikurya see more patients for FREE than ALL of the other Dr.'s I have known combined. I have seen him make some of my dying friends last days comfortable and sane. NONE of his patients are dying like the quacks who wrote those phen-phen clinics or pill Dr.'s that EVERY city in America have that makes life hard on chronic pain patients such as myself, so to attemt to ruin this mans life by some illiterate sheriff's is criminal. you have no idea how desperatly ill most people were by the time they finally went to the trouble to hunt us down, I could tell horror stories all week about the callous treatment many patients recieved from their local Dr.'s who were more worried about their country club membership than their Hippocratic Oath, which I happen to know Tod takes very seriously. If more physicians had courage(which many will admit) there would be no need for Tod to travel the state as he does dispensing hope to the hopeless. He doesn't ask to go to these places we BEGGED him to come up here to Humboldt County in the begining because the officials here have such a hold on the community(like many other places in the state) and I was tired of watching others suffer needlessly. One of those 40 record belongs to a friend of mine who is a disabled vet who has a arthritus condition so bad that all his joints have nodules as big as a quarter and this man is was in heartbreaking pain and Tod gave him a new life, is that so terrible? In case someone asks, no Tod is not my Dr. and my recommendation is from my family Dr. who risked his citizenship because he cares about me but cannot write for anyone else, so I am not saying this so he will do anything for me but because it is the truth before God. We must put a stop to this or these sheriff's are going to force us to live in fear forever. How many other Dr.'s reading this story are going to want to write for cannabis now? Big brother is playing with peoples lives to send messages and that is true injustice. 
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Comment #2 posted by observer on June 07, 2001 at 17:55:24 PT
Reefer for Boozers? Who has heard of such?
 The state claims Mikuriya recommended marijuana to a patient in Nevada County who suffered from alcoholism. Without identifying any specific cases, Mikuriya acknowledged he recommends marijuana for alcoholics. It's a useful treatment for the disease, he said. Marijuana has no real side effects, he said, while alcohol, besides its devastating social effects for alcoholics, is tremendously damaging to the body. Oh my! Can you imagine! Giving addictive drugs -- to someone already addicted to booze? Why it is preposterous! Unheard of! Never heard of such! Etc.Harry 'Reefer-Madness' Anslinger was of the same mind.HARRY: ''Finally, the [La Guardia] report suggested that the drug is so mild that it might well be used successfully as a substitute in the process of curing addiction to other drugs, or even in the treatment of chronic alcoholism.'' [!]Hemp Around Their Necks ("The Murderers"), 1961, HARRY J. ANSLINGER, U.S. Commissioner of Narcoticshttp://www.virus-bs.ch/dbc/vdamurd3.htmMateria Medica 2nd vol. . . . recommend[ed] use of cannabis for the relief of pains from chronic alcohol taking, and quoted several other physicians reporting efficacy in relieving delirium tremens. J. Russell Reynolds, Royal Physician, found treatment of alcoholic delirium with cannabis to be "very uncertain, but occasionally useful". Allentuck, author of the medical aspect of the 1944 La Guardia report on marijuana, reported that preliminary experiments on treatment of alcoholism in private patients were sufficiently encouraging to merit further investigation.House of Lords - Section 6 - Medicinal uses of Cannabishttp://www.idmu.co.uk/hol6.htm see alsohttp://www.google.com/search?q=La+Guardia+alcoholism+marijuana
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Comment #1 posted by Sudaca on June 07, 2001 at 16:01:16 PT

something here
how many recreational users actually get prescriptions from Drs? My experience is that the way things are it's easy enough to find a dealer without going to the medical MJ club for my recreational usage. For some reason the feeling is that it would be a disservice to take recreational usage to the compassion clubs where they are making efforts to help sick people. The antis have a stake in portraying Medical MJ as a 'stalking horse' for casual drug users seeking an easier way to buy. However, the dealer doesn't require medical papers, doesn't require a registration card; keeps (hopefully unless he/she's an idiot) no records of who has been served, when nor how much! It's HARDER for sound bodied stoners to get pot through a Dr. than it is on the streets . After all most rec. users know someone whose got some and so forth.Not so with sick people. In CA the doctors have been repeatedly intimidated since 1996 into not putting their jobs on the line for recommmending Cannabis. Dr. Mikuriya on the other hand is a well known defender of MJ as medicine; he's written books about it, has been in the news for Prop. 215 , and is generally easy to find his name related to medical marijuana. He's also refused to be cowed by the antis; has presented himself as "friend of the court" to provide witness in Medical MJ causes and so forth. For a sick person looking for a Dr. to help out with the prescription Dr. Mikuriya is one of the MDs that will show up quickly.So , what are the chances that the Dr. Is really a Pot Mogul trying for that 'everybody must get stoned' ? If you present the facts cynically you can sort of slide that in.I think the racial piece is totally unnecessary for this article.
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