Despite His Support For Medical Marijuana, Bill Lockyer Is Taking Action Against A Berkeley Doctor Known For His Pot Prescriptions SACRAMENTO - Since he became the state's top prosecutor in 1999, Attorney General Bill Lockyer has portrayed himself as standing fast in support of California's medicinal marijuana law. He's filed amicus briefs defending the law in federal court. He founded a task force to create statewide standards for how much pot people can possess. He's even personalized the controversy over marijuana's ability to relieve suffering by invoking the deaths from leukemia of his mother and sister. [continues 955 words]
Lawyers for Tod Mikuriya, M.D. - a psychiatrist who has lived and practiced in Berkeley since 1970 - have filed a motion to dismiss the case against him brought by the Medical Board of California (MBC). If the motion fails, Mikuriya will spend the week of May 19 in an Oakland courtroom defending his handling of 17 cases in which medical board investigators claim he "departed from the standard of care." Mikuriya, 69, is a leading authority on the medicinal use of cannabis. He has edited an anthology of pre-prohibition scientific papers and reported extensively on his own clinical observations. Since Proposition 215 passed in 1996, legalizing marijuana for medical use in California, he has approved and monitored its use by more than 7,000 patients, most of them seen at ad hoc clinics arranged by cannabis clubs in rural counties. [continues 1052 words]
Tod Mikuriya [end]
So many doctors who recommend cannabis have found themselves under investigation by the Medical Board of California --which can revoke or suspend their licenses-- that Frank Lucido, MD, has called a conference to compare notes and discuss a coordinated response. The docs will meet in Berkeley on March 8. One of their chief concerns is that the Medical Board has never issued guidelines according to which they can discuss cannabis with their patients. (Tod Mikuriya, MD, has been requesting and suggesting guidelines since 1996.) Another concern is that almost all the complaints that have triggered Medical Board investigations have come not from patients or their loved ones, but from law enforcement or other third parties. [continues 1373 words]
1. The Shelley Mandel Principle In the early 1970s a young clerical worker named Shelley Mandel sued to make Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, a paid holiday for California state and municipal employees. Her lawyers argued that Catholics got paid when they took off Good Friday, and Jewish employees deserved equal treatment. Superior Court Judge Robert Bostic said he agreed with their premise and ruled that henceforth Good Friday would not be a paid holidayS The Shelley Mandel principle seemed relevant last week as lawyers for Ed Rosenthal argued that he was a victim of selective prosecution. They complained that plenty of other people were growing at least as much marijuana as Ed allegedly did (more than 100 plants), but only Ed, an outspoken advocate of legalization, had been charged by the feds. Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan eagerly set pen to pad and you could almost see a thought-balloon above his prosecutorial brow: 'We could lay this argument to rest by rounding up a few more growers.' [continues 1962 words]
In 1968 Charles Breyer, then a 26-year-old assistant district attorney in San Francisco, wrote in a Harvard College alumni publication, "I am fearlessly prosecuting flower children and other insidious threats to our way of life." As if his self-deprecating irony could mitigate the cruelty of his actions, as if he were just following orders as a young DA Today Breyer, 61, is a bow-tie-wearing U.S. District Judge, and he's still in the business of sending flower children to prison, and he still employs ironic smiles, gestures, and intonations to imply that he's just following orders, i.e., federal law, although now he's in a position to interpret the law and breathe humanity and rationality into it, as we, the people of California, tried to when we passed the medical marijuana initiative. [continues 2100 words]
The good news in the life of Marian "Mollie" Fry, MD, is that December '02 marked the five-year anniversary of her breast-cancer surgery. Also, her three kids (ages 15, 12 and 10) and the two she helped raise (husband Dale Schafer's from a previous marriage, now 26 and 25) are healthy, intelligent and generally "together." The bad news follows. On December [?], Doctor Fry received a letter from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration revoking her prescription-writing privileges. And last week a message on Shafer's answering machine said the California Medical Board had forwarded several of Fry's cases to Attorney General Bill Lockyer for possible criminal prosecution. [continues 1730 words]
They ran out of beer early at the jammed, raucous, spit-and-baling-wire emergency party that closed this April's National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws annual conference in San Francisco. Thirsty guests found thirstful ways to compensate for the suds, and if you ignored the computers and filing cabinets, it was easy to forget you were violating fire codes at an ad hoc shindig at a hotshot law office. The wife and I decamped around midnight, not content with the five cases of water trucked in to replenish the sweat the crowd had been shaking on each other jitterbugging to a 40-piece (stationary) marching band. We landed in a little North Beach boite. At one point, my New Yorker was aghast to see a purse all by its lonesome on the floor by the jukebox. Voicing her alarm, she was told don't be silly, woman - this is San Francisco. [continues 8168 words]
The History Of An Internet Activist Prototype DrugSense http://www.drugsense.org/ and its largest endeavor, the Media Awareness Project (MAP) http://www.mapinc.org/ could be considered a prototypical Internet activist IT (Information Technology) organization it was planned, created, and put into operation at a time (late 1996) when that acronym would have drawn blank stares from most. It was formed by principals in widely scattered geographical locations who, with but a single exception, were known to each other only through email. [continues 2628 words]
Brain Power, Cutting-Edge Science And Political Conflict At The 10th Annual Cannabinoid Research Convention. I walked into a cavernous meeting room at a hotel in Baltimore and encountered the biggest collection of brainy brain researchers that I had ever witnessed. Cerebral cortexes were literally throbbing with talk of endocannabinoid systems, custom-built experimental mice, receptor sequestration, hippocampuses, amygdalas, and whether there would be enough potent coffee to keep everybody awake during three days of formal and informal presentations, symposiums and panel discussions. [continues 2075 words]
Facility Dispenses Medical Pot Recommendations COOL -- A clinic that has dispensed more than 6,000 medical marijuana recommendations remained open Wednesday, despite a Drug Enforcement Administration raid that removed files and computer records. Federal and West El Dorado Narcotics Enforcement Team agents searched the offices of the California Medical Research Center on Friday. At the same time, another team used a federal search warrant to seize files and 32 pot plants from the rural El Dorado County home of center directors Dale Schafer and Mollie Fry. [continues 668 words]
Couple's Use Of Marijuana Defended Carrying handwritten signs and posters, about 20 people gathered on the sidewalk in front of the Yuba County Courthouse Wednesday afternoon, protesting the recent arrest of a Linda couple who say they were growing marijuana in their back yard for medical use. Armed with placards reading "Are you sick?" "Do not pass go - go directly to jail," "When did the D.A. become a Dr.?" and "Real police officers don't arrest the sick and (dying)," the protesters marched back and forth along Fifth Street between C and B streets, stopping occasionally to answer the questions of passers-by. [continues 993 words]
On Tuesday, July 31, the NYTimes Drug Policy forum hosted G. Alan Robison, Ph.D., founder and Executive Director of the Drug Policy Forum of Texas and Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Texas Health Science Center. This discussion was part of the speaker series organized by forum participants. galan14 - Hi Dean I got here early so as to skim over all the posts since Tod Mikuriya's ten point post you told me about on the phone. I've been a fan of Tod's ever since I read the great collection he edited back in the 70's entitled "Marijuana: Medical Papers." Thanks for the nice comments about me and the DPFT. Let me just say for the others that I'm delighted to be here. I originally agreed to do this a long time ago sort of as a favor to Dean, although now that I've seen who the other guests have been, and who some of the future ones are going to be, I now regard it as a significant honor. [continues 7407 words]
Chevron To Turks: Bay Is Pristine! (snipped) Tenants To Landlords: You're Illegal! (snipped) GOP To Pot Doctor: Good Job! Potheads To Supervisors: Like, Wow -- A Sanctuary! Dr. Tod Mikuriya Of Berkeley Shows Us Man-Screwing Of Professional Proportions. Mikuriya has done such a delicious (if insignificant) job of thumbing his nose at The Man that I've found myself in the lamentable position of admiring someone I might otherwise disparage. You see, the doctor's Berkeley office has churned out more then 5,000 prescriptions for medical marijuana since 1996, a pace that suggests he has, at the very least, an overly broad sense of weed's curative properties. [continues 818 words]
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. [continues 914 words]
A Berkeley psychiatrist who has recommended marijuana use to more than 5,000 patients sued the Medical Board of California yesterday for damages and to prevent it from prying into his records. Dr. Tod Mikuriya, whose peripatetic practice has made him the physician of last resort for patients throughout California who say marijuana eases their suffering, accused the board of invading his privacy and that of his patients. The Medical Board has filed an accusation against Mikuriya that could result in the suspension or revocation of his license to practice medicine. [continues 81 words]
Western medicine has relied upon plants as the basis for much of its work, taking extracts and making synthetic versions of what is found in nature, Dr. John Morgan, a pharmacologist at the CUNY medical school, explained to those attending the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws annual convention in Washington, D.C., on April 20. The main active ingredient in marijuana appears to be the cannabinoid known by the chemical shorthand of THC, though many argue that some of the other cannabinoid molecules found in the plant may also play a medicinal role. Marinol is the trade name of the synthetic version of THC approved for sale in this country under strict regulation. [continues 421 words]
An Oakland attorney representing a Red Bluff woman with a medical marijuana certificate who was arrested last year and charged with unlawful cultivation thinks it's "good news" Tehama County Supervisors have rejected his client's police harassment claim. "This is good news because now I can go ahead and file" a lawsuit, said attorney William Simpich. Simpich represents Dannette Hooker, 24, who was arrested last September at her Red Bluff home and charged with cultivating marijuana. Hooker spent the night in jail but was released the next day on her own recognizance. [continues 376 words]
The City Council will have to hash out one final problem in the Medical Marijuana Ordinance it will consider Tuesday night - what amounts individuals and collectives will be allowed to grow and possess. Medical marijuana advocates want the ordinance to match Oakland's, which allows individuals to grow 144 plants indoors or 60 outdoors. Collective growers have no limits. City staff is recommending that Berkeley's ordinance stay more in line with counties such as Marin and allow individuals to grow no more than 10 plants and limit collectives to 50 plants. [continues 631 words]
Claiming they maliciously abused the law in searching his house and taking his marijuana plants, a Montgomery Creek man is suing Shasta County Sheriff Jim Pope, District Attorney McGregor Scott and two of Pope's deputies. And in a separate action earlier this week, a San Francisco Bay area doctor who writes medical marijuana recommendations filed a $400,000 claim against Shasta County, charging Scott, Pope and other officials retaliated against his medicinal marijuana work by having him hauled before the state medical board last year. [continues 706 words]
Psychiatrist: 'Some reported using up to 25 (joints) a day' Two of California's modern-day pot pioneers took the stand Thursday in defense of Steve and Michele Kubby. The Kubbys are being tried in Placer County Superior Court on 16-drug related charges the most serious of which is marijuana possession for sale. A total of 265 pot plants were confiscated after a January 1999 search of their Olympic Valley house. They contend the indoor garden was for personal medical use. [continues 560 words]
Iowa University Hosts Potent Med-Pot Conference The state of Iowa, in America's Midwest, seems an unlikely place for progressive marijuana politics. But in early April, I was on a plane bound for Iowa City to attend the "First National Conference on Cannabis Therapeutics," looking down at patchworks of industrial agriculture where there used to be tallgrass prairie, ditchhemp, and Indians. It snowed the day I arrived; somebody drew a cannabis leaf in the white powder. Medical marijuana is fast becoming an accepted industrial fact. This three-day event, televised to universities in American and Canada, and held with the blessing of the University of Iowa at the institution's conference center, emphatically emphasized that scientists and government officials around the world, even in prohibitionist America, recognize the plant's amazingly diverse healing potentials. [continues 1569 words]
(03-01) 03:36 PST REDDING, Calif. (AP) -- More than two months after he was acquitted of criminal charges of possession, cultivation and possession of marijuana for sale, Richard Levin continues to take a long drag off a joint every few hours. He does not hide his smoking habit. At his house, a sign bearing a red cross and marijuana leaf hangs in the kitchen window. Dr. Tod Mikuriya of Berkeley, the physician who wrote Levin's marijuana prescription, is also not hiding. In the past four years, Mikuriya claims, he has written 3,000 recommendations for marijuana under the 1996 Compassionate Use Act approved by California voters to allow medical marijuana under state law. [continues 239 words]
RED BLUFF -- A leader of a fraternal organization has been evicted from his quarters for breaking up a medical marijuana clinic Friday at the club's hall here. ''Richard (Atchison) knew what was going on. I regret it turned out the way it did.'' John Ennis, Independent Order of Odd Fellows member Richard Atchison, noble grand for the Independent Order of Odd Fellows' (IOOF) Red Bluff chapter, was removed Sunday as live-in caretaker of the club's Oak Street hall, IOOF member John Ennis said Monday. [continues 360 words]
RED BLUFF -- Dr. Tod Mikuriya never thought he'd write medical marijuana recommendations in a room full of stuffed animals. But the Berkeley psychiatrist, who treats patients from San Diego to the Oregon border, was in the bedroom of an east Red Bluff home Saturday after being evicted from the Independent Order of Odd Fellows hall the day before. Mikuriya, who testified in the marijuana trial of Redding mother and son Jim and Lydia Hall, saw about 20 patients inside the home Saturday. Many of them were members of the Humboldt Cannabis Club in Arcata, between 20 and 50 years old and suffering from chronic pain. They brought medical records to back up their claims. [continues 465 words]
Conflicting state and federal laws about marijuana, a lack of clinical research on the drug and threats to their livelihoods make most doctors unwilling to recommend its medical use. Dr. Tod Mikuriya of Berkeley, who signed the doctor's note approving marijuana use for Redding's Richard Levin, is one exception. He said he has been investigated by the California Medical Board for years; and although he's never been criminally charged, he fears prosecution. "It's kind of like being put on the enemy's hit list, and targeting yourself for the roving band of persecutors," he said. [continues 466 words]
Marijuana Eases Pain, Causes Legal Headaches Every few hours, usually in the privacy of his garage, Richard Levin takes a long drag off a joint. He has his doctor's approval to smoke marijuana, and says the drug relaxes muscles in his injury-torn back and eases the pain of Hepatitis C, a virus that attacks the liver. Levin, 49, of Redding and other medicinal marijuana patients who say daily smoking has freed them from senseless days spent strung out on prescription medication. Or living their lives confined to a bed, their bodies too warped with pain and muscle spasms to move. Life is better, they say, with marijuana. [continues 1983 words]
HAYWARD - The battle over medicinal marijuana reignited in Hayward on Tuesday when police raided an outspoken advocate's downtown pot club. There was no word if Robert Wilson, owner of the Hayward Hempery, was arrested during the 3 p.m. search of his business, 22580 Foothill Blvd. Narcotics investigators were inside the building into the evening. As of 8 p.m., Wilson had not been booked into the city jail. Officially, the Hempery sells used records and hemp-fiber clothing. But Wilson has made it no secret that he will provide anyone with a doctor's note with marijuana. [continues 501 words]
Psychiatrist Backs Use Of Marijuana Superior Court Judge Bradley Boeckman will rule today on whether the ex-wife of medicinal marijuana defendant Jim Hall will be allowed to offer last-minute testimony that could discredit Hall's case. That testimony includes allegations that Jim Hall used marijuana heavily for many years before his severe back injury and that he sold the drug, Deputy District Attorney Tim Kam told Boeckman on Wednesday. The testimony would force the defense to present many more witnesses to attempt to discredit Linda Hall, which could add weeks to the trial, argued Jim Hall's attorney, Eric Berg of Redding. [continues 762 words]
Case Shows Disparity In U.S. And State Laws PASO ROBLES - At one time, the pain in Steve Bryan's back was so bad, he decided to kill himself. "I had the shotgun like this," Bryan said, holding an imaginary gun to his head. "I was gonna pull the trigger." But before he could do it, his brother stepped in and saved his life. After that day, more than five years ago, the 55-year-old Paso Robles man had learned to cope with his chronic back pain by smoking a couple of marijuana joints a day. [continues 977 words]
Arcata Serves As Role Model For State WHEN CALIFORNIA VOTERS APPROVED THE MEDICINAL USE of marijuana in 1996, the issue of how to implement the new law became a challenge for law enforcement: How do you set up a state distribution system for a drug that the federal government still says is illegal? The fog surrounding the medical marijuana issue is finally beginning to clear. On Monday a special task force unveiled a plan to implement Proposition 215, passed by 56 percent of the voters three years ago. The plan calls for a statewide voluntary registry system patterned after a system already in place one designed and established by Arcata Police Chief Mel Brown more than two years ago. [continues 2418 words]
Paul Mocko really doesn't like to smoke. But for 25 days, beginning in October, Mocko voluntarily puffed and coughed his way through three marijuana cigarettes every 24 hours as researchers watched for interactions between the cannabis and all the medications the 54-year-old takes to fight AIDS. The data they are gleaning from that ongoing study is valuable, researchers say. Legions of AIDS patients in the Bay Area have been using cannabis for years to whet their appetites, not knowing how it mixes with the 30-odd pills they take every day. [continues 1009 words]
Perhaps the most telling question in the Marvin Chavez marijuana sales trial, which marked its second day yesterday in Division 16 of the court building in Westminster, came from defense attorney David Nick as he was cross-examining undercover officer Joseph Moreno. Mr.Nick, after laying a foundation, asked the officer whether, in all his years as an undercover narcotics officer, he had ever had a suspected drug dealer tell him that he would not provide drugs unless he (the officer posing as a buyer) had a letter from a doctor. [continues 745 words]
At 5 a.m. on a Friday morning in late September, Tod Mikuriya, MD, leaves his house in the Berkeley hills to drive to Sonora to testify in what he sarcastically calls "a wrong metabolite syndrome case." The defendant, Robert Hemstalk (his people must have grown hemp once upon a time), is a man in his 50s who tested positive for cannabinoids back in March, one day after Mikuriya had recommended that he use marijuana for relief of chronic pain and as an alternative to alcohol. "He suffers encephalopathy, including cerebellar degeneration with obvious ataxia when he walks," says Mikuriya, who interviewed Hemstalk at the Oakland cannabis Co-op last spring. (You may have heard the condition described as "wet brain.") [continues 2466 words]
NOTES: The authors would like to thank the Drug Policy Foundation for its funding, which made this research possible. We would also like to thank Elena Bridges for her help in arranging interviews with the Flower Therapy patients. Please address correspondence and reprint requests to Harvey W. Feldman, Ph.D., The National Association of Ethnography and Social Policy, 24 Randwick Avenue, Oakland, California 94611. Abstract - In 1996, shortly after the San Francisco Cannabis Club was raided and (temporarily) closed by state authorities, the authors conducted an ethnographic study by interviewing selected former members to ascertain how they had benefited from the use of medical marijuana and how they had utilized the clubs. Interviews were augmented by participant observation techniques. Respondents reported highly positive health benefits from marijuana itself, and underscored even greater benefits from the social aspects of the clubs, which they described as providing important emotional supports. As such, cannabis clubs serve as crucial support mechanisms/groups for people with a wide variety of serious illnesses and conditions. The authors concluded that of the various methods so far proposed, the cannabis clubs afford the best therapeutic setting for providing medical cannabis and for offering a healing environment composed of like-minded, sympathetic friends. [continues 2622 words]
While Spouting Rhetoric Supporting The Compassionate Use Act, Local Officials Launch An Attack Against The Man They Once Called A Hero 'LUCY VALENZUELA" does not want to reveal her real name because she is afraid of being seen as a criminal. To control her almost constant pain, the 56-year-old San Jose woman, whose hands are disfigured from diabetic nerve damage and who walks with crutches, likes to smoke a bit of marijuana. "The pills my doctor gives me make me confused, like I'm stumbling around," she says. "The marijuana just relieved my spasms. I could feel OK. It also took some of the stress off my life, of having to live this way." [continues 4220 words]
While spouting rhetoric supporting the Compassionate Use Act, local officials launch an attack against the man they once called a hero "LUCY VALENZUELA" does not want to reveal her real name because she is afraid of being seen as a criminal. To control her almost constant pain, the 56-year-old San Jose woman, whose hands are disfigured from diabetic nerve damage and who walks with crutches, likes to smoke a bit of marijuana. "The pills my doctor gives me make me confused, like I'm stumbling around," she says. "The marijuana just relieved my spasms. I could feel OK. It also took some of the stress off my life, of having to live this way." [continues 4222 words]
While spouting rhetoric supporting the Compassionate Use Act, local officials launch an attack against the man they once called a hero 'LUCY VALENZUELA" does not want to reveal her real name because she is afraid of being seen as a criminal. To control her almost constant pain, the 56-year-old San Jose woman, whose hands are disfigured from diabetic nerve damage and who walks with crutches, likes to smoke a bit of marijuana. "The pills my doctor gives me make me confused, like I'm stumbling around," she says. "The marijuana just relieved my spasms. I could feel OK. It also took some of the stress off my life, of having to live this way." [continues 4218 words]
Calilornia's Proposition 215which legalizes marijuana for medical usecleared the way for longawaited laboratory testing of the benefits and drawbacks of pot in treating a variety of illnesses. While several legal challenges to the proposition are pending, even state Attorney General Dan Lungren the law's most vocal critic is calling for a three year study of the effectiveness and safety of medical marijuana use. There is little common ground for opponents and proponents of the initiative, passed into law by a 5644 percent margin in November 1996. But one concern they generally agree on is the need for a more precise definition of the "medical" in medical marijuana. Achieving that. they say. will help set clear standards for carrying out the law. [continues 445 words]
All Americans are indebted to the voters of Arizona and California. Their state initiatives last year began, in essence, with the simple request that medical marijuana be made available under the same terms as morphine and cocaine. Other, less publicized actions expressed the voters' desire to focus on violent crime and end the rash of incarceration for mere possession. The large margins of victory and the remarkable response of the federal government, replete with lies, character assassination, contempt for voters' intelligence, and threats against states and doctors, are allowing the nation to see the rotten core of the federal monopoly on drug policy and a glimpse of a better way to fight drug abuse. [continues 727 words]
