MARIJUANA DOC ARRESTED IN JULY FACING NEW ALLEGATIONS

A state official confirmed this morning that a Colorado doctor accused
of recommending medical marijuana to a woman who was 6 months pregnant
is the same doctor who was arrested over the summer in an undercover
police sting.

Dr. Manuel De Jesus Aquino could become the first doctor in Colorado
to lose his medical license for providing sub-standard care in making
a medical-marijuana recommendation. The Colorado Medical Board
suspended his licence in November, after he was accused of
recommending medical marijuana to a 20-year-old pregnant woman without
giving her a physical examination, doing a thorough review of her
medical history or asking whether she was pregnant.

Chris Lines, a spokesman for the Colorado Department of Regulatory
Agencies, which includes the medical board, said this morning that
Aquino is the same doctor Aurora police arrested in July on suspicion
of writing shoddy medical-marijuana recommendations to two undercover
police officers.

In that case, the two officers told Aquino they had been in accidents,
which was true, and asked for medical-marijuana recommendations. But
the officers said they never told Aquino they were in pain, and they
said Aquino didn't perform physical exams on them.

Aquino faces felony charges in the case and is scheduled to be
arraigned in February. In August, his attorney, Rob Corry, said Aquino
didn't do anything wrong.

"Dr. Aquino believed the statements (the officers) were making and
gave them, based on his professionalism and his subjective medical
opinion, his advice," Corry said after Aquino was charged.

"Dr. Aquino is not a rubber stamp doctor."

It had been unclear whether Aquino was the same doctor who was
arrested in July because police named the arrested doctor as Manuel
Aquino-Villaman.

Lines said the medical board was aware of Aquino's arrest but couldn't
take action because Aquino hadn't been convicted of anything and
because he invoked his rights against self-incrimination.

The medical board's complaint stems from a 3-minute examination Aquino
allegedly gave to a pregnant woman, who was 28 weeks along, in
January. When the woman gave birth in April, her child tested positive
for marijuana and had "initial feeding difficulties," the complaint
says.

"Pregnancy is a contraindication for the use of medical marijuana,"
the complaint states, later stating that Aquino "failed to meet the
generally accepted standard of medical practice."

The complaint against Aquino was first reported by Solutions, a
health-policy news website produced by professional journalists at the
University of Colorado Denver's School of Public Affairs and funded by
private foundations. Solutions' reporting on the complaint can be
found at www.healthpolicysolutions.org.

The patient is identified in documents only by her initials, C.A.
Lines said he couldn't comment how the case came to the medical
board's attention.

Colorado law requires doctors to have a "bona-fide" relationship with
patients to whom they recommend marijuana. A law passed earlier this
year in the legislature and new rules soon to be adopted by the
Colorado Board of Health specify how doctors should comply with that
requirement.

"The board is looking at a standard of care," Lines said of the
complaint against Aquino. "It's not looking at a medical-marijuana
case per se."

Aquino has been a doctor since 1974 and licensed in Colorado since
2007, according to a profile of him posted on the Colorado Division of
Registrations' website. Aquino specializes in medical-marijuana
recommendations, according to the online profile.

Aquino's attorney in the board action, Sheila Meer, could not be
reached for comment. She told Solutions that Aquino would respond to
the complaint within the 30 days allowed.

"It would be premature to talk about it until then," Meer told the
website.