Calif. 'pot docs' put selves at risk

Dr. Mollie Fry never thought telling her patients where to get the medicine she recommended for pain, depression and nausea would be a problem.

Medical marijuana advocates estimate that 1,500 doctors, mostly oncologists and
AIDS specialists, have authorized pot for at least one patient. But most recommendations have come from about 15 self-appointed specialists, the so-called "pot docs," who charge $150 and up to walk what the California Medical Association calls "a gray area between the clearly permissible and clearly impermissible categories of action."

Following complaints by local law enforcement, nearly all have been investigated by the state board that licenses and disciplines physicians. Four had devoted their practices to acting as medical marijuana consultants and ultimately were sanctioned, ranging from the public rebuke that Fry got to having their licenses suspended.

California's medical marijuana law, also known as Proposition 215, named a host of ailments for which marijuana might prove helpful in easing symptoms: cancer, anorexia, AIDS, glaucoma, arthritis, migraine. [my emph]

The last three afflictions are what I use cannabis for....along with sleep disorder, neuropathy and degenerative disk disease...it also helps with my ADD, my attitude, appetite, and less toxic than anti- inflammatories and opiate based painkillers for chronic pain.

So, thank you doctors...for recognizing that medical marijuana relieves pain and suffering to many people and recommending it with discretion.