Recently, the medical marijuana movement suffered a one-two punch, beginning with a 6-to-3 decision of the United States Supreme Court that even personally grown marijuana consumed for medical purposes can subject a grower or user to federal criminal penalties. At the same time, local governments in California are calling for tighter regulations. The threat of federal prosecutions casts a long shadow over the efforts by states to develop new methods of marijuana control. Ham-handed federal intervention was the rule during Pres. George W. Bush's first term. At the justice department, former Attorney General John Ashcroft had the DEA target political activists and reformers who had organized the 1996 referendum that enacted the California medical marijuana program. These persons had literally spent decades persuading the public that patients should receive the benefits of marijuana. [continues 974 words]
In a six-to-three vote announced June 6, the U.S. Supreme Court has denied Angel Raich and Diane Monson the right -established by California voters in 1996- to obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes. Phony Tony awards go to Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy, two of the five justices who advocate limits on federal power but in this case made a War-on-Drugs exception to their "principles." John Paul Stevens, who wrote the majority opinion, was joined by Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Steven Breyer. Scalia wrote a concurring opinion trying to justify his switcheroo. Kennedy didn't feel he owed the public an explanation. [continues 4243 words]
The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Ashcroft v. Raich is due this month. The level of tension within the medical-cannabis industry can be inferred from the following, which was written by an attorney who knows what s/he's talking about: I recommend to anyone who is currently considering starting, investing money in, or renting to a medical marijuana dispensary or garden -- that they wait to see what happens in Ashcroft v. Raich before taking another step. I think municipalities and other public entities should be just as concerned as private citizens. The feds certainly didn't spare West Hollywood. [continues 1833 words]
SAN FRANCISCO -- The beginning of the second day of the 2005 National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws conference was dedicated to medical marijuana and the doctors who believe they put themselves on the line every time they recommend the drug. Dr. David Bearman called the Medical Board of California, the agency in charge of investigating claims against doctors, "a corrupt and incompetent organization." "it's a group of people in search of a mission and they sure as hell haven't found it," he said. [continues 687 words]
Bill Lueders hit another homer in the Jan. 7 Isthmus with his story about the mayor's vacillating stance on drug testing ("Dave caves on pot promise"). I was also moved by the article about returning Iraq War veterans and the health problems this misguided war has bestowed on them. During the Vietnam War, cannabis was rediscovered as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. California medical cannabis physician Dr. Tod Mikuriya has written how cannabis had been known for over a century in the medical profession as a PTSD treatment, but forgotten because of its legal status since marijuana prohibition began in 1937. Recently, the Israeli army disclosed that it is evaluating cannabis in the treatment of PTSD. [continues 52 words]
Uncertainties About One Local Dispensary Show the Need for Clear Regulatory Involvement, Activists Say TWENTY YEARS of experience as a physician's assistant didn't prepare Karen Berman (not her real name) for a short-lived stint writing medical marijuana recommendations. In the summer of 2004, she responded to a lively ad on the PA World website (www.paworld.net). "San Jose non-profit needs PA's immediately!" it said. "We have a huge demand and will be hiring an estimated 85 PA's by the end of the year." [continues 2953 words]
Sick Montanans will be able to light up a marijuana cigarette, inhale marijuana fumes or grow their own plants under an initiative passed by voters Nov. 2. A new Montana law took effect when the initiative passed, although the law's full protections will not be in place for weeks as the state works to put the program into effect. "I'm trying to do it as quickly as I possibly can," said Roy Kemp, chief of the state Health Facilities Licensing Bureau in the Department of Public Health and Human Services. [continues 1366 words]
You don't have to look any further than the extreme irony of Dr. Tod Mikuriya's case to see that the Medical Board of California really is on a witch hunt. It took action against him for violating accepted medical standards in recommending marijuana. The irony is that the board has never published such standards. The greater irony is that Mikuriya has been actively campaigning to get the board to adopt standards and has submitted suggested standards himself, even before the case was brought against him. In the end, it is persecuting him because of its own failure to act. This is an open and obvious vendetta against the law already approved by the voters of California. Clifford Schaffer Director, DRCNet Online Library of Drug Policy [end]
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- After nearly four decades in medicine, Dr. David Bearman seems the incarnation of a trusted old-school physician. His resume is long, his record unblemished. It's his choice of treatment that makes him conspicuous. For most patients, Bearman recommends the same remedy: marijuana. There is the young woman with epileptic seizures, the middle-age man with multiple sclerosis, the amputee bedeviled by phantom limb pain. Bearman's practice, based on a controversial curative not found on pharmacy shelves, has proved both lonely and professionally perilous. [continues 1252 words]
Since 1996, a Tiny Cadre of California Physicians Has Been Recommending Marijuana for Medicinal Use. They've Done So at Their Professional Peril. SANTA BARBARA -- After nearly four decades in medicine, Dr. David Bearman seems the incarnation of a trusted old-school physician. His resume is long, his record unblemished. It's his choice of treatment that makes him conspicuous. For nearly every patient, Bearman recommends the same remedy: marijuana. There is the young lady with epileptic seizures, the middle-aged man with multiple sclerosis, the amputee bedeviled by phantom limb pain. [continues 2385 words]
In November 1996, the voters of California passed Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act. That law permitted patients throughout the state to use, possess and grow cannabis and their caregivers to possess, grow and provide cannabis on the recommendation of a physician. One month later, in response to what the federal government saw as an erosion of cannabis prohibition in California, then-drug czar Barry McCaffrey held a press conference to discuss the new law. One of his props was a large flip-chart at the top of which was printed: "Dr. Mikuriya's Medicine." Below it was a long list of ailments for which Dr. Tod Mikuriya, a respected Berkeley, Calif. psychiatrist and co-author and medical advisor of Prop 215, was alleged to have claimed cannabis was beneficial. Along with glaucoma, cancer and AIDS were zingers like "Recovering Forgotten Memories," and "Writer's Cramp," that made the whole list suspicious. [continues 2594 words]
He Will Appeal Phil Leveque of Molalla is the first doctor in any of the states that have legalized marijuana for medical use to lose his license for approving it. The Board of Medical Examiners issued a formal revocation order Oct. 15. Leveque has 30 days to appeal, and will. The Board's action comes as Oregonians prepare to vote on an initiative to legalize cannabis dispensaries, increase the amount patients can grow and possess, and lower the cost of a state registration card. [continues 2750 words]
Dr. Tod Mikuriya believes the state is out to get him for prescribing medical pot. Critics say it's not that simple. (Berkeley, CA) Mikuriya has recommended pot more than ten thousand times. Dr. Tod Mikuriya is a true believer. He views his medical practice as a platform from which to help reestablish the medicinal status marijuana enjoyed before the reefer madness of the late 1930s. "It had been available to clinicians for one hundred years until it was taken off the market in 1938," the wide-eyed Mikuriya said in a recent interview. "I'm fighting to restore cannabis." [continues 1472 words]
A dozen ballot measures will be vying for the voters' approval in November, and politicos and community leaders are already lining up pro and con. The most controversial are the final three -- Measure Q, which would decriminalize prostitution; Measure R, which would loosen medical marijuana laws; and Measure S, which would create a Tree Board to protect trees on public property. All three were put on the ballot by initiative, over the opposition of the City Council. Measure Q would not invalidate state prostitution laws. But it would make their enforcement in Berkeley a low priority, similar to the status currently given accorded laws. [continues 1743 words]
It was injury added to insult when Tod Mikuriya, MD, fractured a shinbone last month and was unable to attend a fundraising party organized on his behalf by colleagues and friends. The funds are being raised to defray the costs of Mikuriya's prosecution by the Medical Board of California. After a lengthy hearing in September 2003, an administrative law judge found that the Berkeley-based psychiatrist had "violated the standard of care" in approving cannabis use by 16 patients. All the complaints against Mikuriya had come from law enforcement rather than patients or their loved ones. None of the complaints alleged that a patient had been harmed. [continues 1525 words]
The National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws holds its annual conference in Washington, DC April 22-24. Keith Stroup will announce his resignation as executive director and the NORML board of directors will commence a search for his successor. Stroup was a young lawyer with some experience working for Ralph Nader when he founded NORML in1970. "Keith decided to take the notion of consumerism seriously when it came to pot smoking," according to Dale Gieringer, who runs the California NORML chapter. Stroup is widely credited with promoting "decriminalization" bills that were enacted in about 20 states and cities in the '70s. He left NORML in 1979 after an infamous episode in which Dr. Peter Bourne, Jimmy Carter's allegedly liberal drug-policy advisor allegedly did cocaine at a Washington party and Stroup allegedly confirmed it to a reporter. Stroup returned as executive director in 1994. [continues 1227 words]
Physicians Say the Investigations Are Politically Motivated. California physician Philip Denney, MD, figures a complaint will be filed against him someday for recommending medical marijuana to patients. "They'll make something up sooner or later, and I'll have to deal with them," said Dr. Denney, who in February started a southern California practice dedicated to medical marijuana evaluations. Dr. Denney isn't alone in his belief. Other California physicians as well as at least one in Oregon who recommend medical marijuana say they are being persecuted by medical boards because of the practice. [continues 310 words]
As reported here last week, Dr. Phil Leveque -the pro-cannabis Oregon osteopath whose license was suspended March 4- has been invited to appear before the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources. Claudia Jensen, MD, got invited, too. No other doctors have, as far as we know. The "investigative hearing" is scheduled for the afternoon of April 1. The Subcommittee is chaired by Rep. Mark Souder, an Indiana Republican who wrote the grotesque bill that cuts off financial aid from students who have committed "drug crimes" (including marijuana possession in high school). Souder's proudest accomplishment of 2003 was legislation reauthorizing the Drug Czar's office and its operations for five more years. [continues 1156 words]
The Medical Board of California has received a "proposed decision" from Administrative Law Judge Jonathan Lew in the case of Tod Mikuriya, MD. Lew ruled that Mikuriya made "extreme departures from the standard of care" in his treatment of 17 patients (one a narcotics agent posing as a patient). All the patients had told Mikuriya they had been self-medicating successfully with cannabis; all received his written approval to continue doing so. Mikuriya's handling of the 17 cases was reviewed in detail at a six-day hearing conducted by Lew in September 2003. No harm was alleged to have been done to any of the patients; in fact, all have expressed thanks and praise for Mikuriya. [continues 1486 words]
Two doctors open an office focused on recommending marijuana. Being a target of law enforcement is a fear. Andy Kinnon recently walked into an Orange County doctor's office looking for relief. When he walked out an hour later, Kinnon said, he had just the thing he'd been seeking: a recommendation, on embossed white paper signed and dated by a physician, for all the marijuana he could smoke. "I suffer from migraine headaches," Kinnon, 41, explained. "They're wicked - -- you have to shut out light and sound." [continues 1668 words]
On Feb. 9, Philip A. Denney, MD, started seeing patients at a "cannabis evaluation practice" in Lake Forest, a city at the intersection of Freeways 5 and 405 in Orange County. If the demand is as great as Denney anticipates, he hopes to interest other physicians in the new specialty, which he defines as "determining whether a patient has a serious medical condition that could be treated safely and beneficially with cannabis." Denney has already recruited Robert E. Sullivan, MD, a former associate in a Sacramento practice, to join him in Orange County. [continues 1176 words]
The Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics is folding after a three-year run, but editor Ethan Russo, MD, hopes no one will conclude that the field isn't thriving. "Tough times for the journal," he says, "should not imply that there's any dearth of information to support clinical cannabis. Exactly the opposite is true." So why didn't JCANT make it? Russo, a neurologist at the University of Montana, credits Lester Grinspoon, MD, with advancing the journal idea in 1998. A 24-member editorial board was recruited -authorities with diverse expertise- that included Raphael Mechoulam, who had determined the structure of the THC molecule, and Geoffrey Guy, whose company is developing cannabis-plant extracts under license from the British government, and Tod Mikuriya, who has been monitoring cannabis use by thousands of Californians. [continues 1127 words]
For doctors who want to discuss using medical marijuana with their patients, the line between advice and advocacy remains almost as blurred as it was before a recent court decision guaranteed a physician's right to address the issue openly. Some doctors are relieved that the United States Supreme Court let stand a lower-court decision two weeks ago that barred the federal government from punishing doctors who advised patients that marijuana might ease some symptoms. But some doctors are also perplexed, and even inhibited, by part of the underlying court decision at the center of the case. That decision essentially affirms the federal government's right to hold physicians accountable if they actually take steps to help patients obtain marijuana. [continues 1360 words]
Berkeley Medical Marijuana Specialist Will Lose His License If The Drug Warriors Get Their Way The Medical Board of California receives complaints against about 11,000 doctors every year, most of them generated by unhappy patients. But no patients have yet suggested they were harmed by Dr. Tod Mikuriya, California's foremost medical-community proponent of medical marijuana. In the board's current investigation of Mikuriya, all the accusations against him have been generated by law enforcement. Mikuriya, 70, a Berkeley-based psychiatrist and author of widely read books and papers on therapeutic cannabis, has been accused by the Medical Board of "extreme departure from the standard of care" in 16 of his 7,500 medical cannabis recommendations permitted under the 1996 Compassionate Use Act (Proposition 215). Mikuriya is one of nine doctors being investigated by the Medical Board who together have written more than half the estimated 50,000 medical marijuana recommendations in California. [continues 1310 words]
Within a few blocks of Broadway and 18th Street in Oakland, at least six cannabis clubs are thriving -plus a plant store that sells supplies for growers. The anchor tenant in the 'hood now known as Oaksterdam is Jeff Jones's original Oakland Cannabis Buyers Co-op, transformed by federal injunction into a hemp store and registration service that issues cards to doctor-approved patients on behalf of the city. Two doors down is the Bulldog, a sidewalk cafe named and modeled after a famous club in Amsterdam. Around the corner on Telegraph is the high-volume Third Floor, and the Lemon Drop, which carries a fine line of pastries and serves the best coffee, and the newly opened 420 Cafe, which has a brick wall worthy of the Village Gate. [continues 1723 words]
Tod Mikuriya, MD, spent six hours on the witness stand Sept. 24 getting cross-examined on his treatment of 17 patients by Assistant Attorney General Larry Mercer. The exchanges took on a pattern. Had Mikuriya taken Patient A's blood pressure? No. Had he checked Patient B's right-shoulder range of motion? No... Occasionally the Berkeley psychiatrist would throw in "My role is to establish whether he had a condition that would qualify him to use cannabis under Health & Safety Code 11362.5." [continues 1264 words]
For the health-conscious pothead who can't afford or can't get motivated to use a vaporizer, the mother of all questions has to be: does smoking cannabis lower life expectancy? A recent editorial in the British Medical Journal generated ominous headlines, attributing some 30,000 deaths annually in the UK to cannabis smoking. But you can relax a little, dear reader: the authors simply extrapolated from the number of deaths caused by cigarette smoking (120,000) and assumed that pot smoking was 1/4 as common and equally dangerous. [continues 1465 words]
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. [continues 1797 words]
The Medical Board of California's prosecution of Tod Mikuriya, MD, began Sept. 3 with the testimony of an expert witness, Kaiser psychiatrist Laura Duskin. The scene was a fluorescent hearing room at the state office building in Oakland, presided over by Administrative Law Judge Jonathan Lew, a trim, soft-spoken man with a businesslike air. About 20 of the 30 seats were taken by Mikuriya's friends and well-wishers on opening day. Duskin said she had read 17 of Mikuriya's patients' records (which had been subpoenaed by the MBC after the doctor wouldn't hand them over) and determined that he had failed each patient, not by approving their use of cannabis but by stating on their letters of approval that they were under his "supervision and care" for their various conditions. In the Court of Common Sense such phrasing would be considered, at worst, a semantic error, not "an extreme departure from the standard of care." [continues 1106 words]
A hearing began Wednesday over whether a Berkeley physician who has approved the use of medicinal marijuana for 7,500 patients should have his license revoked on the grounds that he failed to properly examine them. The controversy pits Dr. Tod Mikuriya, 69, a well-known medical marijuana advocate and psychiatrist who says he is protected under state law, against the Medical Board of California, which insists that marijuana has nothing to do with the case. "The accusation in no way seeks to punish or otherwise sanction Dr. Mikuriya for having recommended marijuana," according to a brief filed in July by the state attorney general. "The fact that marijuana happened to be the drug in question is quite irrelevant to the charges." [continues 465 words]
The hearing that will determine the fate of a Berkeley psychiatrist who has prescribed medical marijuana for 7,000 in the last seven years commences in an Oakland hearing room Wednesday. Tod Mikuriya, M.D., who began writing prescriptions for the drug after passage of Prop 215 in 1996, has rejected an offer to settle the Medical Board of California's unprofessional conduct case against him, leading to the hearings before Administrative Law Judge Jonathan Lew in Oakland's State Building, 1515 Clay St. [continues 328 words]
"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. [continues 1958 words]
When U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft asked the Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court decision blocking federal agents from punishing - or even investigating - doctors who recommend marijuana to patients, he was not doing anything unique. For California Attorney General Bill Lockyer was already moving against the most prominent medipot doctor in the nation, helping the Medical Board of California in its attempt to get the doctor's medical license lifted. The question: Is Lockyer, who says he favors medical use of marijuana to help alleviate severe pain and other conditions including nausea caused by AIDS and cancer drugs, trying to clamp down on free speech or simply trying to restrict trade in an illegal drug? [continues 589 words]
By an amazing coincidence, just as their patents are running out, the "blockbuster" antidepressants introduced by Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and other pharmaceutical corporations in the late 1980s and early 1990s are being exposed as dangerous -potentially fatal, in fact. The New York Times ran a front-page story Aug. 7 stating "Doctors are just beginning to react to the finding - -reported first by British drug authorities in June and then endorsed the next week by the Food and Drug Administration -that unpublished studies about Paxil show that it carries a substantial risk of prompting teenagers and children to consider suicide." [continues 2114 words]
Administrative Law Judge Jonathan Lew has rejected a motion to dismiss the state Medical Board's case against Tod Mikuriya. The Berkeley psychiatrist, who has approved cannabis use by some 7,500 patients in recent years, will have to defend his handling of 17 cases at a hearing that's scheduled to start Sept. 3 in Oakland. According to Mikuriya, all the patients involved have benefited from cannabis use, and none have reported adverse effects. In case you've just joined us, the Medical Board of California is the state agency that issues licenses to physicians -and can revoke or suspend them. Mikuriya, who will turn 70 next month, not only approves cannabis use by patients, he has devoted his whole career to studying its applications. In 1995-96 he was medical advisor to the organizers of the Prop 215 campaign. When it passed into law and Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey warned California doctors not to recommend marijuana, he specifically ridiculed Mikuriya's claims as to its versatility and usefulness in a wide range of conditions. [continues 1102 words]
Every day people call me asking how to get legal. They suffer from many different ailments -- cancer, AIDS, arthritis, glaucoma, MS, chronic pain and others -- but the commonality is that they have all talked to their doctors about using marijuana to treat either their condition or its symptoms. And while their physicians have agreed that using marijuana might help, each of the doctors has declined to sign the recommendation necessary to getting access to a medical marijuana dispensary. So I refer them to one of the doctors courageous enough to stand behind patients. Unfortunately, there are only a few. [continues 678 words]
OAKLAND - A doctor who recommended that thousands of his patients use marijuana is facing charges that could cost him his medical license, but the physician and his supporters say the case is merely an attempt to hush a vocal advocate for medicinal use of the drug. Tod H. Mikuriya, 69, wrote marijuana recommendations for 7,500 of his patients without conducting sufficient medical examinations, according to officials with the Medical Board of California, which has moved to revoke or suspend the doctor's license. [continues 575 words]
OAKLAND, Calif. - A doctor who recommended that thousands of his patients use marijuana is facing charges that could cost him his medical license, but the physician and his supporters say the case is merely an attempt to hush a vocal advocate for medicinal use of the drug. Tod H. Mikuriya, 69, wrote marijuana recommendations for 7,500 of his patients without conducting sufficient medical examinations, according to officials with the Medical Board of California, which has moved to revoke or suspend the doctor's license. [continues 575 words]
OAKLAND -- A doctor who recommended that thousands of his patients use marijuana is facing charges that could cost him his medical license, but the physician and his supporters say the case is merely an attempt to hush a vocal advocate for medicinal use of the drug. Tod H. Mikuriya, 69, wrote marijuana recommendations for 7,500 of his patients without conducting sufficient medical examinations, according to officials with the Medical Board of California, which has moved to revoke or suspend the doctor's license. [continues 575 words]
7/11/ was not a lucky day for California cannabis consumers. The morning papers described a Bush Administration challenge to the ruling (in Conant v. McCaffrey) that confirmed the right of doctors to discuss marijuana with their patients. San Francisco AIDS specialist Marcus Conant, MD, and co-plaintiffs had sought such confirmation in January, 1997, after the Drug Czar, on behalf of the Clinton Administration, threatened to revoke the prescription-writing licenses of any California doctors who approved cannabis use. Federal Judge Fern Smith (a Reagan appointee!) temporarily enjoined the feds (on First Amendment grounds!) from carrying out or repeating this threat. Then Judge William Alsup made the injunction permanent and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his ruling. Now Bush's lawyers are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn it. [continues 1797 words]
OAKLAND -- A doctor who recommended that thousands of his patients use marijuana is facing charges that could cost him his medical license, but the physician and his supporters say the case is merely an attempt to hush a vocal advocate for medicinal use of the drug. Tod H. Mikuriya, 69, wrote marijuana recommendations for 7,500 of his patients without conducting sufficient medical examinations, according to officials with the Medical Board of California, which has moved to revoke or suspend the doctor's license. [continues 505 words]
Lawyers For Berkeley Psychiatrist Say Client Target OAKLAND -- Lawyers argued Friday over whether the state should be allowed to continue its attempt to revoke the medical license of a Berkeley psychiatrist who has recommended marijuana to thousands of patients. Administrative Law Judge Jonathan Lew said he'll issue a written proposed ruling within about three weeks, which will then be submitted for the Medical Board of California's consideration. Lawyers for Dr. Tod Mikuriya, 70, say the state is on an anti-marijuana [continues 596 words]
Judge to Submit Ruling on Medical Pot Issue Within Three Weeks OAKLAND -- Lawyers argued Friday over whether the state should be allowed to continue its attempt to revoke the medical license of a Berkeley psychiatrist who has recommended marijuana to thousands of patients. Administrative Law Judge Jonathan Lew said he'll issue a written proposed ruling within about three weeks, which will then be submitted for the Medical Board of California's consideration. Lawyers for Dr. Tod Mikuriya, 70, say the state is on an anti-marijuana witchhunt against him, but he's protected by broad immunity granted to physicians by the state's medical marijuana law. They want Lew to dismiss the case before it goes to a full hearing in September. [continues 561 words]
Berkeley psychiatrist's defense cries witch hunt; AG's office says drug OAKLAND -- Lawyers argued Friday over whether the state should be allowed to continue its attempt to revoke the medical license of a Berkeley psychiatrist who has recommended marijuana to thousands of patients. Administrative Law Judge Jonathan Lew said he'll issue a written proposed ruling within about three weeks, which will then be submitted for the Medical Board of California's consideration. Lawyers for Dr. Tod Mikuriya, 70, say the state is on an anti-marijuana witch hunt against him, but he's protected by broad immunity granted to physicians by the state's medical mari-juana law. They want Lew to dismiss the case before it goes to a full hearing in September. [continues 561 words]
W.B. O'Shaughnessy, a British physician stationed in India, was 30 years old in 1839 when he wrote the article that introduced cannabis to Western medicine. Tod Mikuriya has written about him with admiration: "After studying the literature on cannabis and conferring with contemporary Hindu and Mohammedan scholars, O'Shaughnessy tested the effects of various hemp preparations on animals, before attempting to use them to treat humans. Satisfied that the drug was reasonably safe, he administered preparations of cannabis extract to patients, and discovered that it had analgesic and sedative properties. [continues 1717 words]
Rosenthal Is Set Free, but Doctors Are the Next Target While medical marijuana grower Ed Rosenthal won his fight with the feds last week, California doctors who recommend cannabis under Proposition 215 (the California Compassionate Use Act) say they have become the next target of the crackdown on those who support the right to use the drug. Unlike Rosenthal, who was prosecuted by U.S. government attorneys, doctors say they are being harassed by state and county officials who conspire with federal authorities to undermine California's medical marijuana law. [continues 955 words]
C-Notes GW Pharmaceuticals, the British company that has conducted successful clinical trials of cannabis-based medicines, has signed a deal allowing Bayer AG to market one of its tinctures in the UK under the Sativex(r) brand. Bayer also gets a limited-time option to negotiate marketing rights in Europe and "selected other countries." GW gets a cash infusion from Bayer to push forward with research, production, and clinical trials -plus a cut of future sales proceeds. Its stock on the London Exchange has risen from about 190 to about 250 in recent weeks. GW stock rose sharply earlier this spring when the company applied to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (the British equivalent of the USFDA) for approval of Sativex as a treatment for severe neuropathic pain and multiple-sclerosis symptoms. Bayer is betting that in the months to come, the MHRA will approve Sativex or kick the application dossier back to GW with requirements that can be fulfilled readily. [continues 1416 words]
Three physicians and about a dozen cannabis-using patients attended the May 8 meeting of the state Medical Board's Enforcement Committee to decry investigations of doctors who have made a subspeciality of monitoring cannabis use. The Board's chief Investigator, David Thornton, sought to reassure the Committee (and the concerned citizens) that his agents were not out to persecute doctors who approve marijuana use. Thronton described one "egregious example" of a physician whose "medical office contained a computer, a printer and a cash register. [continues 2629 words]
