KAISER DOCTORS MAY OK MARIJUANA

Preliminary Policy: Let Physician Decide

Friday, July 06, 2001 - If Kaiser Permanente doctors want to endorse
medical marijuana for a patient, they can, the HMO has decided.

And if they don't want to, they don't have to.

"It is our preliminary decision that physicians should be afforded the
responsibility as to whether to endorse medical marijuana," said Dr. Kim
Adcock, assistant medical director for Kaiser in Colorado.

That came as good news to Earl Thomas, a Denver AIDS activist who has had
the disease for 15 years.

"I'm thoroughly relieved," Thomas said.

Thomas said he hopes that smoking marijuana will revive his appetite and
help him gain the 15 or 20 pounds he's lost to the disease.

His doctor, Miguel Mogyoros, has told Thomas he would sign the form that
would get Thomas on the state's registry of patients allowed to have small
amounts of marijuana to relieve symptoms of certain diseases.

But, Mogyoros said, he couldn't do that unless Kaiser's legal department
OK'd it first.

The state's medical marijuana program, approved by voters in November,
debuted June 1 - with a caveat from the state's attorney general.

Ken Salazar decided that a U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing cannabis
buyers clubs for California patients didn't invalidate Colorado's law.

But Salazar included in his statement a warning that doctors who recommend
the drug could face federal prosecution.

Acting U.S. Attorney Richard Spriggs shot back a strongly worded statement
that if Salazar and Gov. Bill Owens don't like the state law, they should
not not look to federal authorities to solve the problem.

Adcock said Kaiser Permanente will "do our best to provide physicians
information about any jeopardy that decision (to endorse marijuana use) may
put them in."

"But it's still their decision."

Adcock stressed that the decision is a preliminary one and won't become
company policy until the person within the Kaiser administration who has
the authority to make it official returns from vacation.

He said the company hopes to notify doctors of the policy next week.