POT -- IT'S JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED

In his home in the Berkeley Hills, surrounded by books and drawings
made by his 7-year-old daughter, Dr. Tod Mikuriya seems like a fairly
normal guy. It's hard at first glance to tell that his life revolves
around an illegal substance: marijuana.

In his calm, easygoing demeanor, Mikuriya tells how he has written
some 5,800 recommendations for marijuana. That's more than anyone
else.

Though he sees most patients at his home, he also makes house calls,
traveling throughout Northern California, dispensing recommendations
to the bedridden. But he also gives pot recommendations for
everything from post-traumatic stress disorder to alcoholism.

That's why he is under investigation by the Medical Board of
California. Proposition 215, passed in 1996, allows ill people to
possess and grow pot with a doctor's blessing. But, according to the
state, some blessings come a little too cheap.

Prop. 215 passed on Nov. 6, 1996 -- 1,612 days ago. So on average
Mikuriya has recommended marijuana to more than three-and-a-half
patients per day, including weekends and holidays. He acknowledges
that he does nothing else, but insists he examines each patient
thoroughly.

And there's the rub. Mikuriya says it's his vocal stance about the
usefulness of pot that brought on the ire of the Medical Board. But
the board contends -- presumably based on his astronomical number of
patients -- that the Berkeley doctor does little more than a cursory
exam before writing a weed recommendation. In an ongoing
investigation for more than a year, the board has sought the medical
records of about 45 patients.

Mikuriya, 67, says turning over the documents would be a breach of
patient-doctor confidentiality, and filed suit in San Francisco
Superior Court on May 22 attempting to stop the board's efforts. The
state says it needs the records to prove its allegations.

Mikuriya claims there is a conspiracy afoot to keep him down. State
officials are split on the medical marijuana controversy. While some
local law enforcement agencies strongly oppose pot possession for any
purpose, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed papers earlier
this year with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the Oakland
Cannabis Buyers Cooperative. Though the cooperative lost its fight at
the high court, Lockyer's argument that the state should be allowed
to make and enforce its own drug laws illustrates his stance with the
drug.

The Medical Board complains that Mikuriya gives his consent for pot
too easily, not that consent shouldn't ever be given.

But it's hard to tell exactly what the Medical Board's view really
is. Karin Fetherston, the senior investigator for the board dealing
with Mikuriya's case, did not return a request for comment. And
Deputy Attorney General Larry Mercer also refused to talk about
Mikuriya, saying the government's side is completely contained in its
court filings.

Some facts do emerge from the filings. The Medical Board complains
that Mikuriya recommends marijuana to patients not under his care,
who are not all that sick, and fails to conduct anything that would
amount to a medical examination.

The state claims Mikuriya recommended marijuana to a patient in
Nevada County who suffered from alcoholism. Without identifying any
specific cases, Mikuriya acknowledged he recommends marijuana for
alcoholics. It's a useful treatment for the disease, he said.
Marijuana has no real side effects, he said, while alcohol, besides
its devastating social effects for alcoholics, is tremendously
damaging to the body.

"In fact, it's possible to function adequately while driving and
using machinery" after using marijuana, he said.

Attorney Susan Lea, who is defending Mikuriya against the state,
blames the state's prosecutorial zeal against her client on people
and prejudices held over from the Dan Lungren era. Lungren, a strong
opponent of medical marijuana, was the state attorney general under
Gov. Pete Wilson.

Lungren raided medical marijuana clubs, shutting down one run by
Prop. 215 standard-bearer Dennis Peron. Many in the medical marijuana
community regard Lungred as a villain. Lea said many attorneys from
that era, including Mercer, still feel it is their goal to silence
all doctors who recommend pot.

"In these people's minds, if we can get rid of Mikuriya, no one will
be around to recommend marijuana," she said.

Usually, for a complaint to be filed against a doctor with the
Medical Board, says Lea, the patient has to complain. But that hasn't
happened in this case. Instead, the 45 subpoenaed medical records
represent failed prosecutions, she said. Jury after jury acquitted
Mikuriya's patients -- usually charged with possession or
cultivation, said Lea -- which upset the district attorneys and
sheriff's departments working on the cases.

"They've gone to the medical board because they're losing in the
criminal courts," said Lea, a Stinson Beach attorney. "You're dealing
with a group of very biased people, and they don't like to lose."

Mikuriya said his interest in the medicinal use of cannabis started
in 1959, his sophomore year of medical school at Temple University in
Philadelphia. The useful properties of the drug, he said, simply
didn't jibe with its illicit nature.

"It's just social mind poisoning," he said.

That social poisoning is something the doctor knows a lot about,
having been 7 years old when World War II broke out. He grew up in a
tiny town in Eastern Pennsylvania. After seeing propaganda films
about the nation's then-enemies, Mikuriya says his classmates would
beat him up because his father was Japanese. (His mother was German,
which didn't help). Sometimes, he said, they would shoot him with BB
guns, playing "kill the Jap" and force his sister to watch.

The disparity between the pharmacological use of marijuana and its
legal status, he says, is a "collective delusional fiction" of the
same ilk. Medical decisions should be left to doctors, he said. Law
enforcement agencies are making ill-informed medical decisions
because of their bias.

"Unfortunately, they have the tenacity to think they can make health
care decisions," he said.