Pubdate: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 Source: Anderson Valley Advertiser (CA) Copyright: 2003 Anderson Valley Advertiser Contact: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2667 Column: Cannabinotes Author: Fred Gardner MIKURIYA TO MED BOARD: NO DEAL "People being prosecuted for crimes they are innocent of seldom show remorse." -Frank Kortangian Tod Mikuriya, MD, has rejected a final settlement offer from the Medical Board of California. The deal would have meant four years probation; taking classes on ethics, record-keeping, and other areas in which the Berkeley psychiatrist is supposedly deficient; and a $10,000 fine. The Board claims that its investigation of Mikuriya has cost more than $100,000 -an amount for which he now could be found liable. So, starting on Sept. 3, the courtroom of Administrative Law Judge Jonathan Lew in Oakland's State Building (1515 Clay St.) will be the scene of a file-by-file review of Mikuriya's handling of 17 cases. Just as the federal government used unwilling jurors to convict Ed Rosenthal in his infamous cultivation case, the state of California is using unwilling patients to prosecute Mikuriya for "unprofessional conduct." Not one of the 17 patients who allegedly received sub-standard care has filed or expressed a complaint against Mikuriya. Not one has reported adverse effects from the treatment he approved. In fact, almost all the patients in whose name the Board is bringing this case express gratitude and describe Mikuriya as an attentive, empathetic interviewer. All had been self-medicating with cannabis before consulting him. Many report that Mikuriya was the first and only doctor with whom they could discuss the fact that they'd been using marijuana to cope with various problems. There is an Alice-in-Wonderland quality to the Mikuriya prosecution. A psychiatrist who elicits from his patients the most honest medical history they've ever given stands to lose his license for conducting inadequate exams! Although all the complaints come from law enforcers who resented Mikuriya's support for marijuana users, the Medical Board insists that their case has nothing to do with marijuana -as if Mikuriya would now stand accused if he were a well known proponent of, say, Ritalin! Mikuriya is charged with violating a "standard of care" that the Medical Board has never defined with respect to doctors who approve their patients' cannabis use. To add to the irony, for years Mikuriya has been urging the Board to adopt specific standards with respect to cannabis approvals, while the Board insists that such approvals are equivalent to prescriptions for "dangerous drugs." Key questions in the court of common sense -How safe is cannabis? Is it effective in treating the problems reported by Mikuriya's patients?- will be irrelevant at the upcoming hearing if the Board has its way. A physician named Tracy Duskin, employed by the Board as an expert witness, will testify, having read 17 patients' files (obtained by subpoena), that Mikuriya failed each of them in certain ways. The defense will call its own expert, Richard Hansen, MD, an East Bay psychiatrist, to explain why Mikuriya was able to make a valid medical judgment in each case. Some of the patients who have been asked to testify on Mikuriya's behalf will need rides to Oakland from farflung towns when the defense begins (possibly as soon as Friday, Sept. 5). If you're interested in transporting a friendly witness, please call Mikuriya's assistant, John Trapp, at 510-548-1188. This week Trapp released a list of the complainants, as gleaned from documents filed in the case: Sacramento County Deputy District Attorney Del Oros: Patient 1 Nevada County Sheriff's Sgt Steve Mason [listed as Commander of the Narcotics Task Force] Patients 2, 9, 14 Humboldt County Sheriff's Sgt Steve Knight patients 3, 6 El Dorado County Narcotics Det. Bob Ashworth, Patients 4, 7, 8 Sacramento County Sheriff's Det Jeff McCannon, Patient 5 District Attorney's Office Tehama Patients 11, 12 Tehama County Det. Sgt Dave Hencraft Patients 13, 15 Anonymous (newspaper clip sent to MBC Investigator Tom Campbell] 10 Napa County District Attorney's Office 16 Sonoma Narcotics Task Force 17 All documents relevant to the case (except patients' records, of course) can be found on Mikuriya.com, including the final settlement offer from the Medical Board that Mikuriya rejected. Frank Kortangian One of the patients who'll need a ride to Oakland to testify for Mikuriya is a 66-year-old Navy veteran named Frank Kortangian. He and his wife Lisa are caretakers of a ranch in Gray Eagle, a small town in Plumas County. Before Frank's back went out in the '90s, he used to do landscaping and raise vegetables for the farmers' market. Like many of the patients involved in the Mikuriya case, Frank Kortangian had previously crossed swords with local law enforcers. His letters to the editor of the local papers had earned him a rep as an environmentalist and a medical marijuana advocate. In the winter of '95-'96, Frank and Lisa gathered six pages' worth of signatures for Prop 215. They and others like them were the reason it passed. In September '96 Frank and Lisa were arrested for growing seven plants - -four on federal land in Sierra County, and three on the property of a local land baron. The bust involved "at least 15 officers" according to Lisa -Sierra County sheriffs, Forest Service, maybe DEA. "They're very bored up here," she commented. The plants were about four feet high, grown in the shade, and would have yielded less than half a pound of usable marijuana, according to knowledgeable witnesses. The Kortangians were charged with cultivation, cultivation for sale, and conspiracy. Frank had informed his doctor that he used marijuana for chronic back pain and arthritis, but the doc, described by Lisa as "a yuppie type who doesn't want to rock the boat," refused to testify for him. Nor would the Veterans Administration doctors he had consulted. Mikuriya interviewed Kortangian, reviewed his medical records, and offered to appear on his behalf at a preliminary hearing. District Attorney Sue Jackson objected that Mikuriya had not been Kortangian's doctor at the time of the bust, and Judge William Skillman agreed that Mikuriya should not be allowed to testify. Kortangian's lawyer, Dale Woods of Truckee, was struck by the level of support and direction the District Attorney received from the office of Attorney General Dan Lungren. "They would send her boilerplate motions to file," he told your correspondent. Jackson was quoted in a local paper, the Mountain Messenger, questioning Mikuriya's professional qualifications. "I believe there will be some question about the man's license," she said. Woods urged the Kortangians to accept a plea bargain. Lisa copped to misdemeanor possession and got 15 days in jail plus three years' probation, although the quantity of mj found at the house was too small to weigh. "They wouldn't even consider diversion," she says. Frank got 75 days plus three years probation. Frank Kortangian wrote the following letter back in March '98 to the judge who presided over his conviction. An Open Letter From Frank Kortangian to the Honorable Judge Skillman I know this letter is highly irregular but you brought up some issues in your courtroom which need to be addressed and as you must know it is almost impossible for a defendant to say much in your court. You mentioned several times your frustration with me and my co-defendant not accepting responsibility for our actions. You are wrong about that. I have from the very beginning taken full responsibility for the seven cannabis plants in question. I think what you really wanted to say was, I showed no remorse. On that point you would be correct. I don't think I have done anything immoral and if some crime was committed, please show me a victim besides Lisa and me. As for Lisa, she is not accepting responsibility because she is not guilty of anything. People being prosecuted for crimes they are innocent of seldom show remorse. You pontificated on your view of what the voters had in mind when they enacted Health and Safety Code 11362.5 (Prop 215) almost to the point of practicing medicine from your bench. Actually the new law is quite simple, perhaps too simple for great legal minds like yours to grasp. It was meant to protect people with serious illness and chronic pain from prosecution and not the medicine of last resort after all other drugs have failed, as is your expressed view. Cannabis is the most benign drug in a physician's Pharmacopaeia. If you would have taken time to read my medical records perhaps you would not have been so adamant about not allowing me to use a prop 215 medical defense. I would have welcomed a chance for a jury trial in which the jurors could have heard the whole truth, but apparently you were afraid to let me have a fighting chance to keep a felony conviction off my good record. By convicting Lisa and me you have accomplished one thing: all our many friends and acquaintances have been repulsed by the lack of justice in our legal system and when we explain how your court has refused to abide by the law of the land and would not allow a medical defense in spite of my doctor's written recommendation, they are flabbergasted. The Superior Court of Sierra County is a shining example of the ever-widening chasm between the people and their government. If your Honor knew Lisa Branda and what a wonderful, kind loving person she is, as many of us do, you would be the one showing shame and remorse for forcing her to spend even one minute of her exemplary life in your jail. A quick word about the D.A., a woman who looks at less than a pound of medical marijuana, convinces the judge not to allow it to be shown in court, and then testifies that it weighed seven pounds. Well all I can say about a person of that caliber is that the voters 0f Sierra County are indeed fortunate to have a chance to vote for a person with some sense of decency in the upcoming elections. I fully expect some form of government retaliation in response to this letter, but I think the people of Sierra County and elsewhere need to know how our justice system is being manipulated. Frank Kortangian Kortangian reports that the DA who prosecuted him, Sue Jackson, was voted out of office and that the current DA has dismissed a number of marijuana cases brought by the local police -in other words, there's been some progress in them thar hills. Upon hearing that Mikuriya had recently undergone heart surgery -a triple bypass- Kortangian proudly expostulated, "I beat him -mine was quadruple." That's why he could use a ride. A comment from attorney Gordon Brownell: "The Kortangian saga demonstrates, as if we need reminding, that the roots of the campaign against Tod were in the Lungren DOJ and the same soldiers in that effort have not given up the crusade... The genesis of this prosecution is found in the Lungren/McCaffrey cabal that has never let up in their vindictiveness against Tod. For them to maintain the charade that their accusations have nothing to do with recommending marijuana is ludicrous." This just in from Dale Schafer, husband of Dr. Marian Fry: "Mollie was served with a three-count accusation from the Attorney General 8/22. It is alleged that she did not do a thorough enough exam and did not have enough records before she recommended cannabis. She is the next target. We will do our best to fight this. I thought Bill Lockyer was on our side..." Simultaneously, the AG's office has decided not to pursue the Medical Board's flimsy case against Dr. Frank Lucido (another example of the patient thriving). The AG seems to be playing bad cop/good cop with the medical marijuana movement. Says Schafer: "What we want from Lockyer is a general amnesty for doctors who were recommending cannabis based on its safety profile and in the absence of explicit do's and don'ts from the Medical Board. If the Board establishes practice standards and doctors violate them, sanctions would be appropriate. But to do it ex post facto is extremely unfair." - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom