Frank Lucido, MD, of Berkeley was invited on Friday 3/25 to discuss
medical
marijuana on Bill O'Reilly's TV show Monday 3/28. He accepted, and
spent the
next few days thinking about the questions he might be asked, planning
his
responses, and looking forward to the opportunity to educate millions
of Fox
News viewers.
Unfortunately, during the course of the interview,
O'Reilly's OCSR (Obsessive-Compulsive Self-Righteousness) reached clinical
proportions,
and Lucido had to calm him down and restore a semblance of normalcy to
the
conversation.
O'Reilly is a self-proclaimed "family-values guy," married with two
young
children. Last Fall a female producer named Macris got tired of
O'Reilly's
come-ons and taped one of his amorous phone calls to prove her point.
She
filed only one court document before Fox News paid her $6 million to not
pursue a civil suit. Their ace demagogue had been caught on tape
proposing
to come up behind Miss Macris in the shower and do something to her
with a
loofah (a vegetable-fiber sponge).
At some point in the conversation O'Reilly referred to the prop he would
use in the shower as a "falafel." Keith Olbermann on CNBC and Alex
Cockburn
on CounterPunch.org made rich sport of the Macris affair, but the rest
of
the media cut O'Reilly ample slack. While the episode was unfolding and
for
about three weeks thereafter, Big Bill's OCSR symptoms (uncontrollable
sneering and bullying) were muted. But now it's as if his hypocrisy
never
had been exposed; he gets worked up and the OCSR kicks in and the
"guest" is
lucky to get a word in edgewise.
O'Reilly: ...California's marijuana law allows people with legitimate
pain
to purchase pot, but I think the whole thing is a DODGE, and I've said
that.
Anyone can buy marijuana legally in California. So we sent Fox news
producer
Chris Spinder to check...
Spinder: We went into three different cannabis clubs and I attempted to
be
able to buy the cannabis without the doctors' recommendation. And all
three
of these clubs turned me away without this recommendation. I couldn't
buy
the cannabis. However, two of the clubs gave me the business card of a
doctor who they said would be able to give this recommendation. And I
went
to make an appointment. It turned out to be a kind of walk-in clinic. I
waited in line for about an hour and a half. At which point [I got] 15
minutes with the doctor in his office. Asked me a few general questions.
Name and address. And then he printed out a form letter. And on that
form
letter it said that I was now under his care and that he recommends
that I-
O'Reilly: What illness- were you sick, were you like in pain, was, what
was
going on?
Spinder: We just had a general discussion about my medical condition.
O'Reilly: Did you have cancer or glaucoma or any of that? Do you have
any
of that?
Spinder: I do not.
O'Reilly: WOW! (shaking his head, smirking with disapproval) So,
basically,
he didn't even give you an exam.
Spinder: He did not examine me at all. No, as a matter of fact-
O'Reilly: No blood test or anything like that.
Spinder: He
sat on the other side of his desk, behind his laptop computer I sat on the
other side...
O'Reilly: All right, so he just looks at you and he gave you the uh
recommendation as they call it. How much did that cost?
Spinder: Two
hundred and fifty dollars in cash.
O'Reilly: Wow! Two hundred and fifty bucks! You walk out, you walk
back to the little pot clinics with this and then they sell you up to eight
pounds you can buy in there, right?
Spinder: Actually, up to eight ounces according to California law. And
most
people usually buy between an eighth and a quarter of an ounce.
O'Reilly: Now what did that cost?
Spinder: Sixty-five dollars for an eighth of an ounce.
O'Reilly: So you're in now for 315 bucks for an eighth of an ounce.
That's a lot of money. But, you did it legally, and you can do it as many
times as you want, they didn't take the recommendation away from you, right?
Spinder: No, there's no expiration date on this particular
recommendation
O'Reilly: So you can buy up to eight ounces of pot as many times as you
want
for ad infinitum. Correct?
Spinder: Correct.
O'Reilly: All right, thank you, Chris. (His voice crescendoing) Doctor,
come on. DOCTORRRR! COME ONNNNN. This is legalized DRUG DEALING.
Go.
Lucido: (after a beat, realizing that "Go" was his instruction to talk):
I
don't like to see poor quality medicine. What this sounds to me is like
the
worst stories I've heard about HMOs. You wouldn't believe how many
patients
come to me when I require documentation. I say, "You need to talk to
your
doctor about your pain," they say, "why should I? They're just going to
give
me pills —as many Vicodin as I want." I'm not saying this is good. I'm
saying-
O'Reilly: But I'm saying that THIS IS WHAT IT IS. It's a ROOOZE. It's a
DODGE. Even Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco, says IT IS A
FRAAWWWWD. It's legalized marijuana in California. I mean doctor, if you
write somebody one, you examine them, right?
Lucido: I do. I spend 45 minutes with patients, I require documentation
of
diagnosis, I require they have a primary care doctor that they're
discussing their serious illness with every year. My standards are
actually
onerous to people who don't have enough money to have a primary care
doctor,
or if they don't have faith in the medical system.
O'Reilly: Two-hundred and fifty BUCKS for this recommendation, that's
outrageous.
Lucido: (soothingly) That sounds excessive.
O'Reilly: You know the guy didn't do an exam it's two hundred and fifty
bucks, he types your name in, he gives you the thing. This is a SCAM.
It's a
CON. Every doctor in California should be outraged. Are you?
Lucido: I don't like this. It's really bad business practice as well as
bad
medicine.
O'Reilly: What are you going to do about it, doc?
Lucido: I'm going to talk to the Medical Board, as I always have. And
I'm
going to challenge the Medical Board to start looking at the HMOs with
the
scrutiny that they're looking at the medical cannabis doctors. They've
investigated 12 of the 20 most outspoken doctors -I was one of those
doctors- and the doctors I know have high standards. What you're
telling me
doesn't sound very good, but this is a minority.
O'Reilly: (bottom line) This is huge scam. I've got to run doc, but
we're
going to follow up on this. It's off the charts a scam.
If O'Reilly was being honest, and if the reporter/patient was being
honest,
they would have mentioned that the stated complaint was migraine, a
serious illness for which cannabis is obviously indicated.
Funny whose transgressions get forgiven and forgotten in America. AARP,
The
Magazine, recently spiked a story about medical marijuana after it was
revealed that the editor who assigned the story had worked for High
Times in
the 1970s! But Bill O'Reilly, who rode to fame flogging Clinton over the
Monica Lewinsky affair, is exposed as a sexual harasser and manages to
ride
on... Closer to home, several top UCSF administrators who helped plan
and
direct the disastrous, short-lived merger with Stanford have been named
to
run California's multibillion dollar stem-cell research program.
Leadership
roles in a multimillion dollar boondoggle were not held against them one
little bit!
