From O’Shaughnessy’s Autumn 2004
At its Spring meeting the Medical Board of California voted unanimously to issue a “Statement” entitled “California Physicians & Medical Marijuana.” It was duly posted on the MBC website and mailed out to the approximately 100,000 physicians licensed by the board in the July 2004 Action Report.
It opens with good news for doctors who do cannabis consultations:
“The Medical Board of California (MBC) developed this statement because medical marijuana is an emerging treatment modality.”
“That in itself is a gratifying acknowledgment that marijuana is a safe and effective medicine,” says Frank Lucido, MD, a Berkeley family practitioner who has been urging the Board to confirm the rights of California doctors to recommend or approve cannabis use by their patients.
The Statement goes on: “The Medical Board wants to assure physicians who choose to recommend medical marijuana to their patients, as part of their regular practice of medicine, they WILL NOT [all caps in original] be subject to investigation or disciplinary action by the MBC if they arrive at the decision to make this recommendation in accordance with accepted standards of medical practice. The mere receipt of a complaint that the physician is recommending medical marijuana will not generate an investigation absent additional information indicating that the physician is not adhering to accepted medical standards.”
In the years since Prop 215 legalized marijuana for medical use in California, almost all the complaints against doctors who recommend it have come from law enforcement sources and have been “absent additional information.” Lucido and other doctors and concerned citizens have pointed out this pattern to the Board and demanded that investigations be triggered only by substantial, unbiased complaints.
Two Board members and two staff members have told O’Shaughnessy’s that the July Action Report was meant to reassure doctors who do cannabis consultations. And yet the very same Action Report contains this listing under “Administrative Actions,” i.e., among the incompetents, perverts and quacks: “Mikuriya, Tod, H., M.D. (G9124) Berkeley, CA.”
What did Mikuriya allegedly do?
“Committed acts of gross negliigence, repeated negligence, recommended and approved the use of a controlled substance without conducting a prior good faith examination, and failed to maintain adequate and accurate medical records in the care and treatment of 16 patients.
Read “The Case Against Tod Mikuriya, Continued.”
