The Spring 2004 O'Shaughnessy's -the journal of the California Cannabis Research Medical Group-is out. It's aimed at doctors who are open-minded about the clinical applications of cannabis and want to stay abreast of the relevant studies and legal developments. The editor (your correspondent) hopes the material will be of interest to patients, caregivers and concerned citizens, too. The 16 doctors associated with the CCRMG are studying the safety, efficacy and applicability of using cannabis to treat a wide range of conditions. Collectively they have written almost half the letters of approval authorizing Californians to medicate with cannabis. (O'Shaughnessy's estimates that about 100,000 Californians have obtained physician approval to do so since Prop 215 passed in 1996. The figure is based on an extrapolation from the number of physician approvals issued in Oregon, which maintains a registry of medical cannabis users.) The lead article in the Spring '04 issue is a detailed and insightful description of Dr. Frank Lucido's practice, written by Lucido with Mariavittoria Mangini, PhD, FNP. There's also: [continues 1454 words]
David Bearman, MD, a Santa Barbara doctor who refused to turn over a patient's file subpoenaed by the state Medical Board, has been vindicated. On April 1 a state appellate court ruled that the subpoena should never have been issued because the Board "failed to demonstrate sufficient facts to support a finding of good cause to invade the patient's right of privacy." Says Bearman, "This is a message to the Medical Board staff that they cannot go on fishing expeditions. It's more than a victory for Prop 215, it's a victory for civil liberties." [continues 1152 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]
Dale Gieringer of California NORML, a co-author of Prop 215, was among the organizers who filed papers in Oakland Feb. 19 to get a "tax-and-regulate-cannabis" initiative on the city's November ballot. C-Notes: What are you trying to achieve? Gieringer: The Oakland Cannabis Revenue and Regulation Ordinance directs the city to establish a system of regulated and taxed cannabis distribution for adults as soon as possible under California law. It will call on the police to make arrests for private adult use their lowest priority. "Private adult use" is the key. [continues 1130 words]
USC Med School Takes The Lead "Any pain-management training that does not have information about cannabis is committing malpractice." -Claudia Jensen, MD On Feb. 13 students and faculty from the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine put on a half-day program devoted to the clinical uses of cannabis and the relevant pharmacology. Some 30 first- and second-year med students attended the history-making event in McKibben Hall, which was organized by Rolando Tringale, a second-year med student, and Claudia Jensen, MD, a Ventura pediatrician who is an Instructor in the Department of Family Medicine. [continues 1045 words]
Although the modern medical marijuana movement began in San Francisco in response to the AIDS epidemic, it could have taken off in the early '70s when wounded Vietnam vets began smoking the herb openly in the VA hospitals. When I got wind of this phenomenon (you could smell mj on the spinal-injury wards) I did not understand its implications. I knew that marijuana would help ward off despair, but not that it eased pain and spasticity. I didn't really get it. I thought the way to help and protect the vets was to not publicize their use of marijuana. [continues 1596 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]
Contains Bureaucratic Language. Linda Lucks was appointed in 2001 by Gray Davis to one of the member-of-the-public seats on the Medical Board of California. A year ago Lucks agreed to serve on an MBC task force that, with input from representatives of the California Medical Association, would draft "practice guidelines" for doctors who approve cannabis use by their patients. In mid-January of this year Lucks was asked by a reporter about the status of the guidelines. She replied that a draft had just been agreed upon and would be presented to the Board's Division of Medical Quality at its January 30 meeting. In a terse, businesslike way, without revealing any specifics, Lucks said that a lot of thought and discussion had gone into the wording, that the task force had achieved a consensus, that she, personally, considered the proposed guidelines "quite fair," and that she thought both the MD members of the Board and the pro-cannabis doctors would accept them without major changes. [continues 1457 words]
On Thursday, Jan. 22 the San Francisco Advertiser (no relation) ran a front-page ad announcing the grand opening of "Mendocino Healing Alternatives," a dispensary offering "farm direct" cannabis at the lowest price in town -$40 for an eighth-ounce of high-grade flowers. This undercuts by $10-$20 an eighth the price that SF consumers have been paying at other clubs. It's a significant mark-down -the difference between $320/ounce and $400 or $440/ounce. The new club's proprietor, David Moore (a Fort Bragg resident), says the $1,500 ad was well worth it. His phone (415-864-4600) started ringing immediately and patients began arriving. Almost all expressed disbelief and gratitude, according to Moore. [continues 975 words]
On July 29, 2003, Tehama County sheriff's deputies raided the Red Bluff residence of a 54-year-old woman named Cynthia Blake, who was cultivating 29 outdoor cannabis plants. Blake, a graphic artist with no criminal record, has been employed for 16 years by the Federal Reserve in San Francisco. She is on disability leave, with a well-documented medical condition. According to Blake's lawyer, Shari Greenberger, Blake and her "significant other," David Davidson -a retired businessman with a residence of his own in Oakland-had trimmed the plants in her Red Bluff garden only a few days before the raid and decided to conduct a novice growers' experiment, putting all the cuttings in the ground to see how many would root. [continues 1756 words]
The editors of the New York Times used to produce a weekly internal newsletter called "Winners and Sinners" commenting on their scoops and gaffes. It even noted typos, which nowadays are too numerous to list. There was a misleading headline on a Times story Jan. 7: "Principal Who Invited Police to School for Drug Raid Quits." George McCrackin, the high school principal who sicced the dogs of the Goose Creek, South Carolina, police department on his students did not "quit" the school system. According to the story by Tamar Lewin, "he will be reassigned within the district." McCrackin will remain an administrator and will make the same salary. [continues 1652 words]
A dubious accomplishment of the medical marijuana "movement" in 2003 was the passage of Senate Bill 420, which was championed by State Sen. John Vasconcellos, signed by Gray Davis, and due to take effect Jan. 1 2004. It would allow qualified medical marijuana users to obtain registration cards from the Department of Health Services. It would also entitle patients and caregivers to possess eight ounces of dried marijuana and to grow six flowering and 12 vegetative plants. The allowable quantities could be increased in liberal counties, according to Vasco. [continues 1656 words]
Terence Hallinan has lost his bid for re-election to Kamala Harris, who says she will maintain his approach to law enforcement while running a more efficient district attorney's office. Hallinan's humane charging policies have had direct, beneficial impacts on the lives of countless thousands of citizens. Here's one small example, hardly ever publicized... "Welfare fraud" is a crime that usually involves poor people failing to notify the Dept. of Human Services that they got a low-level jobs (so their checks don't get cut off and maybe they'll have enough to buy their kid a bike...) In such cases, Hallinan allowed people to avoid prosecution by making restitution to the state. Which meant they could hold onto their jobs and their public housing. To his critics, such cases represented "failure to prosecute" and the stats were used against him in the media. But in the real world, many of those failures to prosecute translated into lives not ruined, homelessness averted. [continues 1393 words]
"Marijuana: the Blazers' Toughest Foe" screamed the five-column banner headline on the front page of the Portland Tribune Dec. 5. The Tribune is a twice-weekly free paper, slightly more substantial than its San Francisco counterpart, the Independent. The hook was that Zach Randolph, a 22-year-old power forward who left Michigan State in '01 after his freshman year and has blossomed into an NBA star, got arrested last week for driving under the influence. Randolph was driving home after a game in his Cadillac Escalade when a cop pulled him over, ostensibly for speeding. The cop claimed he smelled marijuana. Randolph was made to pee in a bottle. The contents of his bodily fluids will be revealed to the world later this week. Meanwhile he has been humiliated in the local and national media. [continues 1524 words]
Last week we reported on a very costly phone campaign arranged by Americans for Safe Access through an outfit called Left Bank Solutions. Some 600,000 voters in California and Oregon -constituents of four Congressmen who'd voted against de-funding federal raids on medical marijuana providers-got pre-recorded messages from either Marney Craig (a member of the Ed Rosenthal jury who'd felt "hoodwinked" by the Court) or Angel McClary Raich (who attributes her survival to cannabis). Marney's message said, "Your Congressman had a chance to end this federal deception but he voted to let it continue..." Angel's said, "Your Congressman is threatening my life..." [continues 999 words]
Starting on the morning of Nov. 20, pre-recorded phone calls were placed to every voter in the Congressional districts of Wally Herger (R, Chico/Marysville), Elton Gallegly (R, Simi Valley), Joe Baca (D, San Bernardino), and David Wu (D, Portland, Oregon). The targeted representatives had all voted against a bill -HR 2799, known as the Hinchey-Rohrabacher Amendment-that would have cut funding for DEA raids in states that have medical marijuana laws. The four Congressmen also represent districts where patients and caregivers have been victimized by the feds. [continues 572 words]
Management at a successful Oakland cannabis club (91 employees, days when the gross exceeds six figures) has developed a handy one-page checklist for use by buyers as they evaluate the pounds of dried herb brought in by growers. The so-called medical marijuana movement is really a business, dear reader, and only the efficient maximize their profits. The checklist contains nine categories in a vertical column. The buyer samples the grower's cannabis and awards points based on his assessment in five of the categories. [continues 1030 words]
There was a tense, unpleasant scene at the Nov. 7 meeting of the Medical Board's Division of Medical Quality, which was held in downtown San Diego at a chintzy Sheraton located on the 12th floor of a parking garage. Three cannabis-approving physicians had come to monitor the proceedings: Frank Lucido from Berkeley, R. Stephen Ellis from San Francisco, and David Bearman from Santa Barbara. The agenda item of special interest was a report from Enforcement Division Chief Joan Jerzak on how many of the Board's marijuana-related investigations had been triggered by complaints from law enforcement. An assertion had been made by Lucido and others at the Board's May meeting that none of the complaints had come from patients or their loved ones or from other caregivers -implying that the docs had been targeted by vindictive cops and DAs. Jerzak's predecessor, Dave Thornton, responded at the time that there were only nine such investigations and that not all the complaints had come from law enforcement. The Board asked him to confirm the facts. [continues 2190 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]
