BRING INTEGRITY TO MEDICAL POT

We hope the crackdown against a Denver doctor is just the beginning of
an effort to clean up an easily abused system.

The actions that Colorado regulators have initiated against a doctor
who recommended medical marijuana for a pregnant woman should serve as
a warning.

Though Colorado was late off the mark in creating a robust medical
marijuana regulatory structure, one exists now.

We hope the crackdown against Dr. Manuel Aquino is just the first in
an effort to clean up a system that, if anecdotal accounts are to be
believed, has been widely abused by doctors and users alike.

If bogus patients and doctors giving bad referrals are weeded out of
the system, it will only help the cause of those who are truly ill and
need relief.

A complaint filed last week against Aquino contains allegations of
particularly egregious misconduct.

Last January, Aquino saw a 20-year-old woman at Back to the Garden
Health and Welfare Center on Gaylord Street in Denver.

At the time, she was about 28 weeks pregnant, but she didn't mention
it. Yet Aquino is said not to have asked whether she was pregnant.

In addition, according to the complaint filed by Colorado Attorney
General John Suthers, Aquino did not listen to the woman's heart or
lungs, and didn't take her blood pressure.

The doctor failed to ask about prior medical treatment, offer
alternative treatment options or instruct the woman to return for
follow-up visits, the complaint said.

The woman got a medical marijuana referral, and delivered her baby
three months later. She tested positive for marijuana at the time of
the birth, meaning the child was "drug exposed," the complaint said.
And the infant had what are described as "initial feeding
difficulties."

"Pregnancy is a contraindication for the use of medical marijuana,"
the complaint says, a fact that is surely understood by any competent
doctor. Aquino stands accused of unprofessional conduct, substandard
care and not having a "bona fide physician-patient relationship" with
the woman.

In another matter, Aquino was arrested earlier this year in an
undercover bust in Arapahoe County. He is accused of writing marijuana
recommendations for two undercover officers without giving them
physical exams.

Both cases are pending.

The outlook for identifying and prosecuting similar abuses improved
tremendously with the passage during the last legislative session of a
bill that more clearly defines the necessary doctor-patient
relationship.

A constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2000 says that a
physician "in the context of a bona fide physician-patient
relationship" can recommend medical marijuana for a patient.

However, a "bona fide" relationship was never spelled out. That
occurred only this year with Senate Bill 109, which said a doctor must
assess a patient's condition and medical history, and conduct a
physical exam.

It is our hope that regulators use these new laws to weed out those
who abuse the medical marijuana system and threaten to make it a joke.