Drs. Kay Judge and Maxine Barish-Wreden are medical directors of Sutter Downtown Integrative Medicine program. Their column on the science of medical marijuana appears in the Sacramento Bee. ====================================== This month, the California Medical Association made news when it became the first state medical association to recommend the legalization and regulation of cannabis, better known as marijuana. The CMA’s Council on Scientific and Clinical Affairs noted in its recommendations that there is an increasing body of evidence that marijuana may be useful in the treatment of a number of medical conditions, but research to determine [...]
The state’s largest doctor group is calling for legalization of marijuana, even as it pronounces cannabis to be of questionable medical value. Trustees of the California Medical Association, which represents more than 35,000 physicians statewide, adopted the position at their annual meeting in Anaheim late Friday, Anthony York reports in the Los Angeles Times. It is the first major medical association in the nation to urge legalization of the drug, according to a group spokeswoman, who said the larger membership was notified Saturday. Dr. Donald Lyman, the Sacramento physician who wrote the group’s new policy, [...]
An El Dorado County medicinal marijuana physician and her attorney husband surrendered to U.S. authorities on Monday as medical marijuana advocates blasted the government for sending the couple to federal prison for five years. Dozens of medical marijuana advocates rallied on the steps of the U.S. Courthouse in Sacramento for Dr. Marion P. “Mollie” Fry, a breast cancer survivor who ran a medical clinic in the rural town of Cool, and attorney husband Dale Schafer. The couple were convicted in 2008 for conspiring to produce and distribute marijuana, the Sacramento Bee reports. Related: ASA head [...]
Dr. Scott Haig is an assistant clinical professor of orthopedic surgery at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. His Doctor’s View column on cannabis appears in Time magazine: =============== We don’t really know how many people smoke it. Some sources say 10 million Americans, others say 35 million. But a lot of people smoke pot and they don’t seem very sick. Marijuana just won’t go away. Everybody talks about it—many quite fondly. About everyone I know under 55 has smoked it. And they’re all right. A few have that pothead “oh wow” personality, but [...]
Here’s how Pacific Referral advertised yesterday’s grand opening of its medical-marijuana clinic in central Fresno: with a bounce house and free refreshments. Here’s what the new business didn’t advertise, Barbara Anderson reports in the Fresno Bee: Its two out-of-town doctors are on probation with the California Medical Board — and both are prohibited from practicing on their own. That fact underscores what some experts say is an emerging problem as more clinics open in California to offer medical-marijuana evaluations: They can attract doctors who have troubled histories. While many doctors who recommend medical marijuana fervently [...]
Evan Wood, a physician and professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia, is the founder of the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy. His Prop. 19 commentary appears in the Los Angeles Times. ========== People on both sides of the marijuana legalization debate have strong feelings about Proposition 19, the California ballot initiative that promises to regulate, control and tax cannabis. But science and empirical research have been given short shrift in the discussion. That’s unfortunate, because the U.S. government has actually funded excellent research on the subject, and it suggests that [...]
Oct 092010
Confidential witnesses told investigators that Dr. Deane Crow and his wife were involved in their son’s illegal marijuana-growing operation, which led to the slaying of Ryann Bunnell Crow. “Witness 1,” an Aptos man, whose cooperation cracked the murder case against Jesse Crow, said he helped trim 45 pounds of marijuana harvested from the couple’s Prunedale estate in 2009. Deane and Diana Crow helped in the harvest and were paid for allowing the grow in their home, Witness 1 said. Deane Crow, the former director of the emergency room at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital, is affiliated [...]
A new marijuana clinic in Redding is raising questions among local police about whether it’s legal for a physician assistant to evaluate a patient for medical pot use. But the Los Angeles doctor who owns 420 Med Consultations says his operation is 100 percent above board, Ryan Sabalow reports in the Redding Record Searchlight, even though the patients who go in for a doctor’s recommendation most likely will never meet the physician who signs the form that authorizes their legal marijuana use. “Some police have different opinions,” said the clinic’s owner, Dr. Xueren Zhao, by [...]
Doctors, patients, and industry are bashing the organizers of HempCon, which took place August 6-8 in San Jose, for running a de facto medical marijuana prescription mill out of the trade show. Eyewitnesses noted long lines of young adults without medical records quickly processed by seven or eight doctors for $40 per person. “I would consider one doctor a prescription mill. This was seven or eight. My best way to describe it was a price war,” said attendee Bob Katzman, who runs the International Cannabis & Hemp Expo. HempCon organizers Mega Productions — noted for [...]
Aug 232010
Dr. Timmen Cermak, president of the California Society of Addiction Medicine, wrote this guest opinion column for the San Francisco Chronicle. For more information on the scientific evidence behind cannabis, visit the California Society of Addiction Medicine’s website. ========== Like so many political debates in our society, the argument over Proposition 19, the initiative to legalize marijuana in California, is portrayed as good vs. evil, black vs. white, us vs. them — while nobody is looking objectively at the medical science of marijuana. If research does enter the debate, each side touts the scientific bits [...]
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