Tod Mikuriya culture/people/tod-mikuriya.md
Tod Mikuriya was a psychiatrist in Berkeley, California, psychiatrist who spent his career arguing that cannabis was a medicine American doctors had forgotten. He collected therecovered nineteenth- and early twentieth-century medical literature on itclinical papers, interviewed patients at San Francisco’s Cannabis Buyers’ Club, and helped write [draft California'’s 1996 medical-cannabis law](/history/us-california-medical-1996/), and recommended cannabis to thousands of patients. He is often called the grandfather of the medical-cannabis movement in the [United States](/country/us/).[@1,2,48]
The law he helped write rests on a phrase he fought forHis work joined three roles: after a list of illnesseshistorian, "or any other illness for which marijuana provides relief"physician and reformer. It leftalso showed the judgement to doctorslimits of his evidence. His 1995 study recorded what patients said cannabis did for them, and it drew the state's medical board tonot what controlled trials proved. And his doorwillingness to recommend cannabis brought him before the Medical Board of California.[@31,4,9]
## A referenceThe forgotten papers
Born in a pharmacology book
Mikuriya was born in Pennsylvania in 1933. He, Mikuriya studied psychology at Reed College, served two years as a neuropsychiatric medic in the US Army, and qualified in medicine at Temple University in 1962. His interest inHe found cannabis began in medical school, in 1959, when he found it mentioned in a pharmacology book in 1959.[@19,11]
In 1967 he joined the National Institute of Mental Health'’s Center for Narcotics and Drug Abuse Studies as the psychiatrist, in charge of its non-classified marijuana research. He stayedleft after about two months. By, by his own account he left because therethe agency was no support for studyingnot interested in the drug'’s possible uses, and he opened a private practice in Berkeley instead.[@1,2,411]
## The forgotten papers
His answer to the lack of research was to recover what had been done before prohibition. He compiledcollected clinical papers and bibliographies from the National Library of Medicine and from archives and libraries abroad. In 1973 he published them himself through Medi-comp Press as *Marijuana: Medical Papers, 1839–1972*.[@1, a collection and bibliography3] The 1972 in the title marks the last year of the historical medical literature from before prohibitionhe collected, not the year of publication. He first published it himself in[@3] His papers at the early 1970s; it was reissued in 1994[National Library of Medicine](https://findingaids.nlm.nih.gov/repositories/4/resources/957) fill 137 boxes.[@1,2]
His research took him## Listening to Britainpatients
The book made him a resource for doctors and Europeactivists. At the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers’ Club, North Africarun by [Dennis Peron](/culture/people/dennis-peron/) with [Brownie Mary](/culture/people/brownie-mary/) a familiar presence, IndiaMikuriya set up a table and interviewed members about their use.[@1, Nepal4]
In 1995 he wrote up 57 interviews, 51 with men and Mexico41 with people who had HIV. Using a structured questionnaire, he recorded the symptoms patients said cannabis relieved: insomnia, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, arthritis and other pain, alcoholism.[@4] The manuscript was never published in his lifetime; it survives in his papers.[@4]
The study treated patients as witnesses to their own experience when mainstream medicine offered little guidance. It was not a controlled trial. It did not compare cannabis with placebo or standard treatment, now held byand could not show that cannabis caused the National Library of Medicinerelief. It mapped what people used and why, fill 137 boxesthe evidence the medical-cannabis campaign needed.[@14]
![A black-and-white photograph inside the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers’ Club,2 with Brownie Mary standing in the foreground and other members seated nearby]
##(../../src/assets/culture/tod-mikuriya-sfcbc-1994.jpg "Any other illnessTod Mikuriya interviewing patients at the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers’ Club, January 1994. Dennis Peron and Brownie Mary are in the foreground. | Rich Gerharter / O’Shaughnessy’s | https://beyondthc.com/mikuriyas-1995-study-of-sfcbc-members-never-before-published/")
## Proposition 215
In 1996 Mikuriya campaigned for and helped draft Proposition 215, the [Compassionate Use Act, with [Dennis Peron](/culturehistory/people/dennisus-peroncalifornia-medical-1996/), with Peron and others.[@21,46,8] The text protectsIt protected patients whose doctor has found that cannabis would help them in treating, including through a catch-all clause.[@5]
*Modern typeset reproduction of the original statutory text:*
> “... the use of marijuana in the treatment of cancer, anorexia, AIDS, chronic pain, spasticity, glaucoma, arthritis, migraine, or any other illness for which marijuana provides relief.”[@35]
Mikuriya later said his claim to fame was getting thatlong credited with the catch-all included.[@8] Dale Gieringer, another principal author of the initiative, has cautioned that Mikuriya may not have written that sentence himself, though his study of Buyers’ Club members supplied the evidence for it.[@4] The attribution is disputed; the clause’s open-endedness is not.[@4,5,6]
The same measure promised that "“no physician in this state shall be punished"” for recommending cannabis.[@35] Washington answered within weeks, [threatening doctors who did so](/history/us-federal-w … t](/history/us-conant-physician-recommendations-2002/).
## The medical board
After 1996 Mikuriyahe saw patients from his home and approvedestimated that he recommended cannabis to about 9,000 people.[@8] In 2000 the [Medical Board of California](https://www.mbc.ca.gov/) accused him of gross negligence, unprofessional conduct and incompetence for more than nine thousandrecommending cannabis without properly examining patients.[@9] O’Shaughnessy’s reported that the accusation covered 46 cases.[@6]
In 2004 the board imposed five years’ probation and a $75,000 fine. Mikuriya appealed and continued to practise under a state-appointed supervisor.[@9] The board’s stated case was about the standard of themcare: his assessments were inadequate. His supporters said none of the cases began with a patient complaint; the complaints came from police, including peoplesheriffs and prosecutors who were not terminally illresented his approvals.[@26,47] Both belong in the record: the board disciplined him, and the case unfolded in a political conflict over whether doctors could recommend cannabis at all.[@1,6,9]
## Legacy
In 1999 he founded the California Cannabis Research Medical Group to help doctors share what they learned; it later becameand the [Society of Cannabis Clinicians](https://www.cannabisclinicians.org/tod-mikuriya-founder/).[@1,42,10,11]
In 2000 He also urged the Medical Boardcreation of California accused him of recommending cannabis without proper examinations[O’Shaughnessy’s](https://www. In 2004 it placed him on probationcannabisclinicians.org/resources/oshaughnessys/), the clinical journal launched in 2003 and he went on practising under supervisionnamed for [William O’Shaughnessy](/culture/people/william-oshaughnessy/).[@1,2,47] According to an account cited by
In 2006 NORML gave him its [Lester Grinspoon](/culture/people/lester-grinspoon/) Award for his biographers, no complaint had come from a patient, a patient's family or another doctorwork on marijuana law reform.[@48]
Mikuriya He died at his home in Berkeley inon 20 May 2007, aged 73, of lung cancer.[@9,11]
His papers are held at the ageNational Library of 73Medicine, where the interviews, correspondence and drafts behind that work survive.[@1,2,4]
A Berkeley psychiatrist who gatheredrecovered the forgotten medical literature on cannabis, and documented what patients at San Francisco’s Cannabis Buyers’ Club said helped writethem. His research supported California'’s 1996 medical-cannabis law and its open-ended list, though the authorship of conditionsits broadest clause is disputed, and recommended cannabis to thousands of patients until the statehis practice later drew medical-board disciplined himdiscipline.
Tod Hiro Mikuriya, Tod H. Mikuriya, Marijuana: Medical Papers, 1839–1972, Society of Cannabis Clinicians, O'Shaughnessy's
opusdeepseek-5v4.51-flash
US National Library of Medicine — Circulating Now, Tod Mikuriya Papers Now Available for Research (25 February 2020)
Google Books — Tod H. Mikuriya (ed.), Marijuana: Medical Papers, 1839–1972 (Medi-comp Press, 1973)
O’Shaughnessy’s — Cannabis Medicinal Uses at a ‘Buyers’ Club’ by Tod Mikuriya, MD (with Dale Gieringer and Rich Gerharter photograph)
O’Shaughnessy’s — Fred Gardner, Dr. Tod and His Legacy (2013 PDF)
O’Shaughnessy’s — O’Shaughnessy’s FAQs (launched 2003 at Mikuriya’s urging)
NORML — NORML Remembers Dr. Tod Mikuriya (24 May 2007)
HerbalGram — Tod H. Mikuriya, 1933–2007
Society of Cannabis Clinicians — Tod Mikuriya, Founder
Wikipedia — Tod H. Mikuriya
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src ../../src/assets/culture/tod-mikuriya-medical-papers-nlm.jpg · position top · alt Tod Mikuriya, an older man with white hair and glasses, stands outdoors in a suit holding up a thick book · caption Dr. Tod Mikuriya holding Marijuana: Medical Papers, 1839–1972, his collection of historical research on the therapeutic uses of cannabis. · credit National Library of Medicine, Tod Mikuriya Papers, MS C 633 · credit url https://circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/2020/02/25/tod-mikuriya-papers-now-available-for-research/