Pubdate: Thu, 24 Feb 2011
Source: Billings Gazette, The (MT)
Copyright: 2011 The Billings Gazette
Contact: http://billingsgazette.com/app/contact/?contact=letter
Website: http://www.billingsgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/515
Author: Ed Kemmick
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

DOCTOR'S OPPOSITION TO MARIJUANA ROOTED IN TRAINING, LIFE EXPERIENCES

Dr. Donald Kurth thinks the medicinal benefits of marijuana have been 
exaggerated while the dangers of the drug have been downplayed.

He speaks on the subject from a unique perspective: He is a doctor 
with multiple degrees who will assume the presidency of the American 
Society of Addiction Medicine in April.

He is also a former heroin addict who spent 27 months in 
rehabilitation and a recovering alcoholic who has been sober for 17 
years. On top of that, he is familiar with the public-policy aspects 
of medical marijuana, having served for four years as the mayor of a 
city of 180,000 in California.

Kurth, whose family has deep roots in Montana, laid out his views 
Wednesday afternoon during a speech at the annual meeting of the 
Rimrock Foundation in the Mansfield Health Education Center and in an 
interview with The Gazette earlier Wednesday.

Kurth acknowledged that there is a "sharp division" over marijuana 
even within the medical profession, but he said Americans need to 
have a serious debate about the issue and "we need to have the facts."

During his presentation Wednesday, he assured his listeners that 
"every piece of information here is scientifically documented." He 
said science shows that marijuana is an addictive drug that over time 
"has a profound impact on the brain and the body."

Among adults, 9 percent of those who use marijuana will develop an 
addiction to it, a number that rises to nearly 30 percent for people 
who start using marijuana before the age of 18, he said. Among 
youths, marijuana use is tied to poor school performance and in 
adults to lower occupational status and higher rates of unemployment, he said.

Kurth said marijuana does have some benefits, particularly in dealing 
with chronic pain, but the side effects are so damaging that it 
should not be used until its beneficial properties can be distilled 
into medications that don't have those side effects.

Kurth's firsthand knowledge of addictive substances was hard-earned.

His great-grandfather settled in Fort Benton in the early 1900s, he 
said, but Kurth's father ended up in New Jersey as a Navy man. Kurth 
had lots of relatives in Montana, including his cousins in Billings, 
among them the actor Wally Kurth and his three brothers and a sister. 
Donald Kurth spent so many summers in Montana as a youth that he 
became known in the family as the fifth brother, he said.

Kurth, who is 61, said he was already using heroin in high school, 
kicked his addiction during a trip to Montana and then started using 
again when he was 18 and enrolled at Rocky Mountain College in 
Billings. He said he tried LSD for the first time as a Rocky student 
and quickly flunked out. After some travels and another stab at 
college, he found himself, at the age of 20, facing jail time for 
petty larceny and drug possession.

He was tempted to take a jail sentence, which would have meant 
serving only a couple of months, but the judge also held out the 
option of court-ordered treatment for his heroin addiction. Kurth 
chose treatment and ended up in a 27-month program in New York.

"I tell you, I needed to be there for every single minute of it," he said.

After that life-changing experience, Kurth set about remaking his life.

He went on to study medicine at Columbia University and then 
completed a fellowship in orthopedic surgery at Oxford.

He did an internship at Johns Hopkins University and trained at the 
UCLA Hospital Medical Center, and later became board-certified in 
emergency medicine. He also earned a couple of master's degrees, one 
in business and another in public administration.

He owns the Urgent Care Center and Alta Loma Medical Group in Rancho 
Cucamonga, Calif., about 40 miles east of Los Angeles. In 1994, a 
year after he became totally abstinent after quitting drinking, he 
ran for city council there. A political opponent made an issue of 
Kurth's addictions, he said, and as a result, people started coming 
to him for advice on dealing with family members who were substance abusers.

That pushed him into one more area of medicine, and he became 
board-certified in addiction medicine. He served as president of the 
California Society of Addiction Medicine and has written extensively 
on public policy and health care, with an emphasis on substance abuse.

He was elected mayor of Rancho Cucamonga in 2006 and just completed 
his four-year term. As mayor, he said, he dealt with numerous 
complaints about medical marijuana, which was approved by voter 
initiative, as in Montana, in 1996.

The initiative was well-intended, Kurth said, but the consequences 
have been negative and far-reaching. He said the atmosphere of 
permissiveness regarding marijuana has caused usage rates to climb, 
particularly among young people.

Echoing the complaints of opponents of medical marijuana in Montana, 
Kurth said, "It wasn't what we expected, and many people who 
supported it in an abstract sense have seen the problems with it." 
One result of that new awareness, he said, was the defeat last fall 
of Proposition 19, which would have legalized the recreational use of 
marijuana in California.

Mona Sumner, Rimrock Foundation's chief operations officer, said the 
foundation's research backs up Kurth's observations. She said surveys 
of students at West and Senior high schools in Billings showed that 
during the 2009-10 school year, marijuana was the No. 1 drug of 
choice, surpassing alcohol for the first time ever.

"I was pretty shocked," she said, and she believes the trend is a 
direct result of the pervasiveness of marijuana since its medicinal 
use was approved by Montana voters in 2004.

Kurth said there are some merits to the idea of legalizing and taxing 
marijuana and using the proceeds for treatment, but he said he would 
never favor legalizing the drug. That doesn't mean people don't have 
the right to pass citizen initiatives, he said.

"In a democracy, we can make stupid decisions all we want," he said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom