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Tod Mikuriya, 1933-2007 The Doctor of Last Resort By Fred Gardner…
Tags: cannabis prohibition, chauvinism, craver, dennis peron, eastern penn, fred gardner, japanese samurai, medical marijuana patients, mendocino county sheriff, opiates, pirin, proactive, prop 215, quaker schools, research opportunity, schwenk, structuralism, synthetics, tod mikuriya, unique research,Pages: 2
Language: english
Created: Sat Jul 7 10:06:28 2007
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Tod Mikuriya, 1933-2007
The Doctor of Last Resort
By Fred Gardner for the modern he called "temporal chauvinism." century "not because it was deemed toxic or dan-
When the Medical Marijuana Patients Union Cannabis clubs, he said, showed the efficacy of gerous but because alternatives came on the mar-
held a symposium in Fort Bragg in August, 2004, "proactive structuralism;" by which he meant, ket -injectable opiates and synthetics such as as-
Sheriff Tony Craver asked an organizer to please "People can create something and, by doing so, pirin and barbiturates- that were quicker-acting and
introduce him to Dr. Tod Mikuriya. It turned out set a precedent." offered more consistency in dosage and patient
that Mikuriya had left after participating in a morn- Tod Hiro Mikuriya was born in Eastern Penn- response."
ing panel. "That's one man I've always wanted to sylvania in 1933 to Anna (Schwenk) and Tadafumi When Dennis Peron launched the San Francisco
meet," said Craver, looking down in disappoint- Mikuriya. His father was a Japanese Samurai who Cannabis Buyers Club at the start of the '90s,
ment. converted to Christianity, his mother a German Mikuriya saw "a unique research opportunity." He
The Mendocino County sheriff knew there was immigrant and practicing Baha'i. Tod and his two began interviewing club members seeking to con-
something extraordinary about Tod Mikuriya, and younger sisters went to Quaker schools. "The firm or add to descriptions in the pre-prohibition
so did half the cops and prosecutors in California, Quakers were proprietors of the underground rail- literature. When Prop 215 was being drafted,
who, unlike Tony Craver, fiercely resented him for way," Tod noted. "The cannabis prohibition has Mikuriya contributed the all-important phrase in
conferring legitimacy on people previously defined the same dynamics as the bigotry and racism my the first sentence that allows doctors to approve
as criminals. family and I experienced starting on December 7, marijuana use in treating "any...condition for which
Mikuriya died May 20 at his home in the Ber- 1941, when we were transformed from normal- marijuana provides relief." (Eleven other states
keley Hills. He was 73. The cause was complica- but-different people into war-criminal surrogates." have since passed laws allowing marijuana use to
tions of cancer. In the final days he had been in He graduated from Reed College in 1956, treat specific conditions. Mikuriya considered
the care of his sisters, Beverly, an MD from Bucks served as a medic in the U.S. Army, and then at- them all intellectually dishonest compromises.)
County, Pennsylvania, and Mary Jane of San Fran- tended Temple University School of Medicine. It Mikuriya's contention that marijuana alleviates
cisco, and his longtime assistant, John Trapp. was at Temple that a reference in a pharmacology an extremely wide range of symptoms was ridi-
Cancer had been diagnosed originally in his text to the medical utility of marijuana triggered culed by Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey and other
lungs, and as of March 2006 it had been detected the interest that would define his career. federal officials at a press conference in Decem-
in his liver, too. Dennis Peron and Dale Gieringer ber, 1996. Reform advocates promptly sued the
threw farewell parties for him. Tod canceled a trip drug czar's office and obtained a federal injunc-
to Hungary where he was to present a paper at the tion confirming the Constitutional right of doc-
International Cannabinoid Research Society meet- tors and patients to discuss marijuana as a treat-
ing. His office began steering patients to other doc- ment option.
tors. Nevertheless, for several years following the
And then his condition improved. In late May passage of Prop 215, almost no California MDs
2006 Mikuriya attended his 50th reunion at Reed were willing to risk the wrath of the government
College and sang rounds with his old madrigal by putting in writing a recommendation for can-
group. His office geared up again. He was the lead nabis in the treatment of say, depression, or lower
author of an article reviewing what California doc- back pain. People all over the state were calling
tors had learned in the 10 years since the passage cannabis clubs to report that their doctors --many
of Prop 215 ("Medical Marijuana in California, of whom had expressed their approval of mari-
1996-2006," O'Shaughnessy's, Winter/Spring juana previously-- would not give them a written
2007). He held discussions with his son Tada "letter of diagnosis" entitling them to join a club.
(Sean) Mikuriya about reissuing "Marijuana Medi- Many of these people were given the name and
cal Papers," his 1973 anthology of pre-prohibition Dr. Tod at the ICRS Meeting, 1999. The "lab wonks" phone number of Tod Mikuriya.
medical literature --the new edition to include a would explain why cannabis moderates the symp- Thus Mikuriya became the doctor of last resort
toms of so many conditions.
CD containing eight more articles that had come for thousands of California patients. He flew or
to light over the years. He enjoyed many visits After getting his medical degree, Mikuriya drove with John Trapp to cities and towns around
with his 12-year-old daughter, Hero, the apple of served an internship at Southern Pacific General the state to preside at ad hoc clinics. "It's one of
his eye; they even went cross-country skiing one Hospital in San Francisco, specialized in psychia- the most satisfying experiences for me as a psy-
weekend. try at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem, and com- chiatrist to be able to remove the stigma of crimi-
As recently as this March Mikuriya played a pleted his training at Mendocino State Hospital. nality from an individual," he said after testifying
key role organizing a symposium at which retired In 1967 he became director of non-classified mari- for an alcoholic Vietnam vet in Sonora in 1998.
colonel James Ketchum, MD, discussed the juana research for the National Institute of Mental "Not just the self-perceived stigma, but removing
Army's secret search for a cannabinoid-based in- Health Center for Narcotics and Drug Abuse. He the real danger of civil forfeiture and other kinds
capacitating agent. left the position after several months, he said, of state viciousness."
Mikuriya had begun assembling the contents "When it became clear they only wanted research Mikuriya was investigated by the California
for a new anthology, "Cannabis Clinical Papers," into damaging effects, not helpful ones." medical board on the basis of complaints from law
that would include studies by colleagues and three Mikuriya moved to Berkeley in 1970 and en- enforcement officers (none from patients, and no
major papers of his own: "Cannabis as a Substi- tered private practice. He was active in Amorphia, allegations of harm to a patient). At a disciplinary
tute for Alcohol;" "Cannabis as a First-Line Treat- a West Coast reform group that eventually folded hearing in 2003 all the patients named in the accu-
ment for Mental Disorders;" and "Cannabis Eases into NORML. He helped organize a 1972 mari- sation praised and thanked Mikuriya. He was
Post-Traumatic Stress." (The titles alone reflect juana legalization initiative, working alongside placed on probation by the board, but continued
the relevance of Mikuriya's concerns.) Michael and Michelle Aldrich, Pebbles Trippet, to practice until early May. Then his decline was
"Back to the Future!" and others who would stay with the struggle rapid. He had issued some 9,000 approvals.
Mikuriya liked to use the slogans "Grandfather through decades of cultural and political rollback.
it in!" and "Back to the future!" in discussing the "Western medicine has forgotten almost all it "Tod was the mentor of every doctor
legalization of cannabis for medical use. The gen- once knew about the therapeutic properties of working in the field," says SCC president
erations of Americans who discovered cannabis marijuana," Mikuriya lamented to a UCSF medi- Philip A. Denney, MD.
in social settings in the 1960s and the decades that cal student interviewing him in 1996. "Hemp-
followed had no idea that it had been widely used based tinctures and preparations were prescribed
in this country between the Civil War and the Great Mikuriya founded the Society of Cannabis Cli-
for myriad purposes -analgesic and hypnotic; ap- nicians, a specialty group whose members have
Depression, with tinctures manufactured by Eli petite stimulant; anti-epileptic and antispasmodic; issued more than 160,000 approvals. "Tod was
Lilly, Parke, Davis and other major pharmaceuti- for the prevention and treatment of the neuralgias, the mentor of every doctor working in the field,"
cal companies available by prescription. For de- including migraine and tic doloreux; antidepres- says SCC president Philip A. Denney, MD. "His
cades Mikuriya was the only MD among the small sant and tranquilizer; oxytocic (to induce uterine observation that cannabis alleviates so many seem-
group of activists and scholars who collected the contractions); topical anesthetic; withdrawal agent ingly disparate symptoms has been explained by
bottles and labels and sought to unearth and pub- for opiate, chloral and alcohol addiction; intraocu- recent research showing that its active ingredients
licize the history that our educational system had lar hypotensive; childbirth analgesic; modulate virtually every neurotransmission sys-
erased so systematically. hypothermogenic." Cannabis is also an anti-asth- tem in the body." In other words, the finding the
Mikuriya was given to creating polysyllabic matic and antitussive (cough suppressant), Drug Czar mocked as "a fraud" turned out to be a
phrases that forced one to puzzle over their mean- Mikuriya told the med student. It went out of fa- function of our physiology --reality itself.
ing. For example, America's cultural preference vor with doctors in the early decades of the 20th
Analyzing Dr. Mikuriya's Obituaries:
Prohibition Requires Ignorance
By Fred Gardner
When Tod Mikuriya's obituaries appeared in the tions and findings. He considered it unfortunate that
papers in the days following his death, I kept expect- the SCC, which met quarterly, had to devote so much
ing him to call and comment on them. He was not self- time and attention to legal problems stemming from
aggrandizing and I doubt he would have been grateful harassment by the medical board. At one point nine of
for the prominent placement. Not one of the major dai- 15 SCC members had been investigated by the board
lies described his achievement accurately. --a costly, frightening process in itself whether or not
The individual reporters are not to blame; it's the it results in prosecution.
top editors, operating in what they take to be the inter- Nelson wrote that Tod "kept a list of conditions that
ests of the corporate owners, who never made the medi- had been eased by cannabis" --which is true but makes
cal marijuana movement a beat, i.e., never assigned it sound like a personal rather than a collective project.
anyone to make a thorough study of the subject. Ever The list of conditions was originally culled by Tod from
since California's Prop 215 campaign in 1996, the oc- journal articles in the pre-prohibition medical litera-
casional medical mj story has been given to whoever ture. In the early 1990s it was expanded based on re-
was available in the newsroom. Thus in 2007, writing ports from patients at Dennis Peron's San Francisco
the prohibitionists said that." Mikuriya's observation
Tod's obits fell to journalists who were, at best, only Cannabis Buyers' Club. After Prop 215 passed in '96,
has been substantiated! Science is all about proving
superficially conversant with the subject. other doctors gradually began monitoring cannabis use
and disproving theories and findings. It is the respon-
The point the obits all failed to convey was that by their patients and adding to the list, which Tod kept
sibility of the editors of the major metropolitan dailies
Tod's observation that cannabis is helpful to people according to the numbering system used by insurance
to understand the state of the science and to incorpo-
suffering a wide range of ailments-- the very thing companies. He was a by-the-book doctor in many ways
rate it into their coverage of events when relevant.
Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey mocked him for in and delighted in employing these ICD-9 numbers and
It's true that political and legal controversies still
1996 --has been confirmed and explained in recent other trappings of establishment medicine. He used
surround the medical use of cannabis, but there is no
years by scientists studying the body's own cannab- Latin words where English words would do. He be-
scientific controversy regarding the existence of the
inoid messenger system. longed to the International Cannabinoid Research So-
endocannabinoid system. It is an established FACT that
The endocannabinoid system is now known to func- ciety and reported his findings at their annual meet-
the active ingredients in cannabis modulate many sys-
tion as a master modulator, setting the tone and tempo ings. He referred to the ICRS as "the lab wonks," al-
tems within the body and therefore alleviate seemingly
at which other neurotransmitters fire. It inhibits neu- though he liked and respected many individual mem-
disparate kinds of symptoms. It has been PROVEN.
rons firing too intensely and disinhibits neurons firing bers. He called himself "a townie, not a gownie," but
More will be learned about the mechanism of action,
too sluggishly. Cannabinoids promote homeostasis (an once when a professor invited us to lunch at the UC
of course, and our present understanding will be re-
even keel) in systems that regulate appetite, movement, Berkeley faculty club he seemed especially pleased.
fined and revised; but there is such a thing as "what
learning and forgetting, perception of pain, immune Tod had his contradictions; he was a a perfect example
scientists now know," and responsible journalists
response and inflammation, neuroprotection and other of a human being.
should refer to it when applicable.
vital processes. That's why smoking or otherwise in- Getting back to the LA Times: "When then-White
Time's Six Gaffes in One `Graf
gesting cannabis affects such a wide range of symp- House drug czar Barry McCaffrey saw a version of the
Time's terse Mikuriya obit, which reads like a self-
toms. Tod had deduced this much by listening to and list at a 1996 press conference, it included `recovering
parody, was lifted, crudely, from Margalit Fox's piece
trusting his patients. He proposed classifying cannabis forgotten memories' and `writer's cramp.' It moved him
in the New York Times. Its sole paragraph contains six
as an "easement," because it's a relaxant both physi- to assail Mikuriya's brand of medicine as a `Cheech
errors of varying maginitude--four in one sentence.
cally and psychologically. The discovery in the past and Chong show.'" This implies that McCaffrey was
"MILESTONES. DIED. Like a lot of people who
decade that the endocannabinoid system works as the thinking on his feet at the press conference in '96. In
support marijuana use, psychiatrist Tod Mikuriya had
body's master modulator corroborates Tod's insight. fact, it was McCaffrey who brought the blow-up of the
detractors. (His work was called "the Cheech and
But, as his obits attest, the discovery of the endo-can- list to the event (it had been found on the internet and
Chong show" by Bill Clinton's drug czar, General Barry
nabinoid system remains a suppressed story. edited by one of his aides) and proceeded to ridicule it
McCaffrey.) The longtime Republican (1) believed in
The San Francisco Chronicle obit by Henry Lee with carefully rehearsed sound bites.
(2) the therapeutic effects of the drug on more than
didn't even make reference to McCaffrey's infamous Tod, who watched the mockery from his house in
200 ailments (3) and in 1996 saw a bill he crafted (4),
mockery of Mikuriya's findings. Lee focused on Tod's the Berkeley Hills, said that cannabis as a treatment
Proposition 215, pass in California, legalizing the use
prosecution by the Medical Board of California, which for "writer's cramp"-- a common problem when clerks
of pot for the seriously ill. The "grandfather" (5) of the
he had reported on for the Chronicle after briefly look- had to wield fountain pens 10 hours a day-- had been
medicinal-marijuana movement said his fight to "re-
ing in on the hearing in Oakland. "In 2003," Lee wrote described in a 19th century journal article. And it was
store cannabis" stemmed from a backlash against its
in his obit, "Dr. Mikuriya was investigated by the Medi- one of his personal heroes, William Woodward, MD,
medical use following the late-'30s film Reefer Mad-
cal Board of California on allegations of unprofessional of the American Medical Association, testifying be-
ness. (6) He was 73 and had cancer."
conduct and negligence in his handling of 16 cases since fore Congress in 1937 against the prohibition of mari-
1. Fox's NYT obit had mentioned Tod's Republican
1998. Supporters said the case was politically moti- juana, who said "Indian hemp has remarkable proper-
affiliation, but it was only nominal after Wallace
vated and payback for his vocal support of medical ties in revealing the subconscious... that use was rec-
Johnson's tenure as mayor of Berkeley ended in 1971.
marijuana." ognized by John Stuart Mill in his work on psychol-
Mikuriya despised Ronald Reagan and the George
The investigation really began in 1999 and hung ogy."
Bushes.
like a sword of Damocles over Mikuriya's head for Nelson of the LA Times also included some input
2. "Believed in" applies to matters of faith. "Ob-
many years before the board decided to plunge it into from Tod's family. "`He was eclectic and had an
served and recorded" would have been accurate.
his practice. Tod's allies had provided the Chronicle adventurer's spirit and was very, very curious,' said
3. Drugs don't exert effects on ailments, they exert
with specific, meaningful facts: that all the allegations his sister Mary Jane Mikuriya. That spirit could ex-
effects on people.
of unprofessional conduct and negligence had come tend to traveling, piloting his own plane, racing cars or
4. THM didn't "craft" Prop 215 and any implica-
from law enforcement, none from patients. Nor had experimenting with cooking.
tion that he was the prime mover is wrong. Tod sup-
there ever been an allegation of harm to a patient by "Dr. Tod, as his patients called him, had a gentle
ported the primary author, Dennis Peron, who wanted
Mikuriya. Reporting those verifiable FACTS would manner and wore a white lab coat with an embroidered
a law that would protect people who were using can-
have conveyed a lot more than "said the case was po- logo that revealed his specialty. It showed the snake
nabis to treat any condition for which it provided re-
litically motivated," which is vague and whiney-sound- and staff of Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, atop
lief and not just a finite list of fatal or extremely grave
ing. a marijuana leaf."
illnesses.
Lee redeemed himself by including interesting info Margalit Fox of the New York Times wrote that Tod
5. By putting "grandfather" in quotes, Time presents
from Tod's sisters. "His interests were varied, said his was "widely regarded as the grandfather of the medi-
it as Tod's well known nickname, which it certainly
family, who called him a `modern man for all seasons.' cal marijuana movement in the United States" --a term
wasn't. Expect Tod's biography (if the book publish-
He enjoyed racing cars, flying airplanes, singing and I'd never heard applied to him. Tod once wrote an ar-
ing industry ever overcomes its ignor-ance) to be sub-
playing traditional folk music, and singing choral mu- ticle for the SCC journal entitled "Grandfather It In,"
titled "Grandfather of America's Medical Marijuana
sic and Elizabethan materials. He collected tools, elec- arguing that the Food and Drug Administration
Movement."
tronic gadgets, political newspaper cartoons and mari- shouldn't require clinical trials of cannabis because its
6. Fox of the NYT had written, "Dr. Mikuriya saw
juana T-shirts and posters. safety and efficacy had been established prior to pro-
his work, he often said, as a means of righting a his-
Valerie Nelson of the LA Times correctly reported hibition in 1937. Maybe that's where Fox, doing fast
torical wrong, namely the backlash against medical
that Tod "helped draft Proposition 215," and had ap- research, picked up the "grandfather" bit.
marijuana that began in the `Reefer Madness' era of
proved marijuana use by some 9,000 patients. Nelson "Elsewhere, however," Fox's piece goes on, "Dr.
the late 1930s." Time's inept copycat makes it seem as
credited Tod with founding the Society of Cannabis Mikuriya's work found little favor. In 1996, for in-
if the film established marijuana prohibition when in
Clinicians, but misleadingly added "to educate col- stance, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, director of the Of-
fact the prohibition was established in 1937 by an act
leagues about the plant's medical uses." Although Tod fice of National Drug Control Policy under President
of Congress orchestrated by the U.S. Treasury Depart-
had been monitoring its use for longer than his SCC Bill Clinton, publicly derided the doctor's medical
ment. The film "Reefer Madness" was just one ele-
colleagues, and he had many original insights to share philosophy as `the Cheech and Chong show.'"
ment in a long p.r. campaign that included numerous
about how cannabis worked, he never acted as if his Give Fox credit for reminding readers that the
articles in the print media. It didn't have much of an
understanding was superior to the other doctors's. He Clinton Administration began the rollback of Prop 215
impact or attract an audience until the early 1970s when
was an educator indeed, but his goal in organizing the immediately after it passed; but like the other obit writ-
pot-smokers decided to laugh at its lurid, false depic-
SCC was not to enlighten disciples but to have a fo- ers, she omitted the salient fact that Mikuriya has been
tions.
rum wherein medical specialists could share observa- proven right. It's not a matter of "Mikuriya said this,