Howdy folks,

I am attaching the transcription of the 1/30/04 MBC DMQ (Division of Medical Quality) quarterly meeting.

This was an EXTREMELY important meeting, as will be the next one May
May 6 & 7
Radisson Hotel Newport Beach
4545 MacArthur Blvd
Newport Beach, CA 92660
(949) 833-0570
Division of Medical Quality (DMQ) usually meets on the Friday morning so I plan to be there for May 7 am meeting, but will verify beforehand.
See: http://www.medbd.ca.gov/meetings.htm  for meeting schedule for the year.
July 29 & 30, Sacramento
November 4 & 5, San Diego

Even though I was actually there, and spoke for my allotted 5 minutes, (as did Dr. Tod Mikuriya, Fred Gardner, and Nathan Sands of ASA), it wasn't until I saw the videotape, and saw the interaction between the Board Members and their legal staff, as it became more apparent how the legal staff has been running their own agenda, and bypassing the Board, that I was able to grasp how important this meeting was, and how important the next one or 2 will be (see schedule below).


Thank you to Dr. Tod Mikuriya for videotaping the most important 50 minutes of this meeting, and for putting it up on the internet.
The video stream is available at:
http://www.drugsense.org/CCUA/cares.html
Listed as (note date is listed incorrectly as 1/4/04):
1/4/04 California Medical Board meeting. Three video segments.
    REAL MEDIA FORMAT (4MB/segment) part 1 part 2 part 3.

I just last week had them transcribed by a professional transcriptionist, and have since reviewed it twice, to correct the transcriptions as much as possible.  There are still several short unintelligible parts, but you'll get the picture.


I think the video is a must see, but it does take about 50 minutes.
Transcripts are a quicker read.

Highlights:

Dr. Tod Mikuriya, Nathan Sands of ASA, Fred Gardner editor of O'Shaughnessy, and  I spoke during the public comment period.  We, the public get to speak for about 5 minutes.

But just as important, if not more, is the interaction between the the Boardmembers and the legal staff (cops and the AG's office)
So pay attention to Board members Linda Lucks and Steve Alexander, as it becomes clear that:
1. "medical marijuana"  is NOT on the 1/30/04 agenda, contrary to what was promised at the 11/7/03 meeting,
2. several members of the public, us, had expected it to be, and had traveled some distance to comment and witness.
3. Boardmember, Linda Lucks, was totally surprised that the medical cannabis guidelines that she and others had worked so hard on, had, instead of being presented at this meeting for comment, had been diverted to the AG's office for "vetting" or something...?

(Linda Lucks represented the MBC on the "CMA/MBC working group on medical marijuana", along with Sandra Bressler of CMA, and Alice Mead who wrote CMA's position statement on medical cannabis.
They had worked hard on this, and were proud of the product.)
Notable quote from Lucks: "We're not happy campers."
Also Steve Alexander lays into the obvious stalling tactics that are unfolding:
page 3-5 of transcripts. (excerpted below)
Alexander also lays into the legal staff for "smirking" during my talk! (page 16-17)  Get 'em, Steve!

Besides smirking, the MBC/AG attorneys do some serious verbal squirming.
Like I said, it's a fun read or watch.

Watch AG Carlos Ramirez squirm on page 18 after I pointed out that not only was Deputy AG Mary Agnes Matyszewski misinterpreting Conant v McCaffrey and Conant v. Walters at the 11/7/03 meeting, but that NONE of the other attorneys had corrected her obvious misinterpretation:
RAMIREZ:  When I offered the services of the Attorney General's Office to explain what the decision meant, it was never my attempt to filter any information that this board wants to hear. 
Now, I've sat in the audience and heard the advice, the explanation that Mary Agnes gave to this board in the last meeting.  What I recall, [...unintelligible...], what I recall was that Mary Agnes was actually reading verbatim from the Conant decision.  That was my just recollection.  I don't think, and, again, I could be wrong, that she was interpreting anything besides reading from that decision.

MY COMMENTS: obvious b.s.
FRED: do you still have the tapes of the 11/7/03 meeting?  She was SO clearly misstating the law that a doctor had to correct her.

The transcripts are about 26 pages (big letters)
You could easily omit pages 9-12, since Boardmember Dr. Breall brings up another issue (the electronic practice of medicine), but I do love his last sentence:
BREALL:  Éwhether it's x-rays, electrocardiograms, prescribing of medicine, ah, prescriptions, and so forth.  With all due respect, Mr. President, what we do in this group should be done in concert with our legislators to make it a law.  I'm not aware that anything that is done now has any major legal challenges.  But I think that it's important to, to stand up and be proactive in this case.  And I don't care what the Feds want to do or what the AMA wants to do, we are here to protect the public.
WENDER:  Thank you.  I'm glad you don't express your opinions. 


This was an extremely important meeting, as will be the next one in May
May 6 & 7
Radisson Hotel Newport Beach
4545 MacArthur Blvd
Newport Beach, CA 92660
(949) 833-0570
Division of Medical Quality (DMQ) usually meets on the Friday morning so I plan to be there for May 7 am meeting, but will verify beforehand.
See: http://www.medbd.ca.gov/meetings.htm  for meeting schedule for the year.
July 29 & 30, Sacramento
November 4 & 5, San Diego
peace and health,
Frank Lucido

ps: ENJOY THE FULL TRANSCRIPTS ATTACHED.
I have now watched the video 3 times, and read it twice (besides being there)
I see more in it each time... Again, the full video stream is at: http://www.drugsense.org/CCUA/cares.html
Incorrectly dated as:
"1/4/04 California Medical Board meeting. Three video segments.
    REAL MEDIA FORMAT (4MB/segment) part 1 part 2 part 3."  (50 minutes total)


TEASER EXCERPTS BELOW:

page 3-5 of transcripts of attached transcripts:
ALEXANDER:  Well, yeah, IÉ I just want to comment briefly on this, because our next meeting is probably going to be mine and Linda's last meeting, because our terms expire.  And I was a little disturbed by this as well.  I think Ron does an incredibly efficient jobÉ Ron Joseph does an incredibly efficient job of picking up in the minutes, and making certain that this committee or board, division, or panel, whatever we are, reflects what we said.  And I even noticed on page 9 and 11 when I read the minutes that Ron Wender specifically asked for this to be on the agenda on page 9.  And on page 11, it says 'Agenda items for January 2004,' and this is specifically listed there. 

Now, I can't help but think that the people who have been very vigorous, and I don't have a position on this one way or another, but the people who have been very vigorous in attending our meetings also saw that, because I assume they see our minutes and such, and came here with that intention.  When I see it as sort of not even a part of your report, in terms of listing out what you're reporting on, and comes at the very, very end, it can't help but create that sense that, you know, things are not all copasetic and things are not being dealt with in a fair and honest and straightforward manner.  SoÉ

(TOD MIKURIYA, MD, videographer: [sotto voce] One might sayÉ)

ALEXANDER:  Éthat may not be the case, but as Ron Wender said earlier, it's perceptions that we deal with that matter the most.  It's not on the agenda.  It is not listed as a separate item.  It was called out by our chair in the separate items.  It's listed in our minutes that it's going to be reflected on our agenda as a separate item.  Linda has worked hard on this, you know, she's got one more meeting to go.  And what I just heard is, 'I'll make every effort to sort of try to, maybe if I can, get to you something in advance of perhaps a May meeting if it's time to do that.'  And something being diverted from being part of a conversation that one of our board members is a taskforce on.

So it leaves me with a real bad taste in my mouth, not from an after-effect of marijuana, that, you know, something isn't right here.  This is an issue we've battered around.  It's a political football.  We know it is a drug of the 60's that has a very big political sort of baggage caught on with it.  And we've taken a very, in my opinion, heavy-handed enforcement approach to this.  There are doctors on this board who have medical experience-I don't-that have a very strong medical opinion about this one way or another.  I don't think we're ever getting to that debate because we're never getting the issue before us in a manner that we could hear from our Medical Board member colleagues, their medical background and medical perspective on this.  All we're hearing all the time is the enforcement, enforcement, enforcement.  I saw the article in this morning's paper, and I e-mailed it, like I do to you guys every morning.  This issue is a popular public issue, and county-by-county, counties are taking positions, cities are taking positions.  I feel bad that the Medical Board isn't taking a medical position on this that helps lead those counties, so this isn't led by enforcement.  This is not an enforcement issue, in my opinion, this is a medical issue.  And I want to hear the benefit of our Medical Board members commenting on it.  It's been a year since this issue first came up.

page 16-17:
ALEXANDER:  I just want to comment real quick, even though I know this is public comment section, and just make an observation.  It just seems like for some reason or another, I can't put my fingers on it, I do a lot of public facilitation and meeting management, that we're creating a polarization here.  I'm watching the looks on people out in the audience.  Eighty percent of communication is non-verbal, so it doesn't matter what people say oftentimes, it's how they say it and how they deliver it.  I don't know you at all, and I don't know your background, so I can't have any opinion on that.  I'll state for the record, I've never smoked marijuana.  I was a product of the 60's.  I went to Woodstock.  I just was raised by a family and in a culture that I didn't do drugs.  You know, I'm anomaly, I guess, for my era.  But, nonetheless, my dad died of cancer and went through that process, and I saw the benefits of what he derived from this process.

It just strikes me as odd, Barbara asked if we could have someone from the courts talk to us, Carlos (Ramirez) got up and said, 'We'll tell you.'  Well, they're cops, they're the Attorney General, they are not the courts.  We are not hearing from the courts, we're hearing opinions about the courts, and I'm watching Nancy (Vedera) here, sort of looking and, you know, the bottom line is what you communicate by your body language to us is really disrespectful for the public that are coming up and testifying to us.  I don't have an opinion on this, but I'm watching the polarization that we're creating between our staff and I don't mean Ron, and the public that are trying to educate us.

Now, you could be 100% wrong on this issue, I don't know.  But I'll never know that, because all we're doing is hearing the filtered side of things.  And I don't appreciate that.  That's not helpful to me as a board member.  It shows a bias coming in.  So now the paranoia or suspicion that you raise says to me, 'Pay attention, Steve.'  Several people have come and testified to us, I think over a year, and they continue to testify with thisÉ that sense of animosity toward this board, toward our staff, toward the AG's Office.  I, for one, as a board member would like to end that.  And, again, get to the medical basis for these issues, the medical issues that we're dealing with, and get out of the enforcement versus the public phenomena that I think we've fallen into somehow. 

And if nobody else senses it than me, then I'll take full responsibility for it being my issue and no one else's.  But I'm watching it happen at every single meeting.  These guys get up and testify, and the AG's guys get up, or our attorneys get up, and they either smirk at them, or they dish them, or something happens that creates a tension.  And it's not an either/or or a right/wrong.  I just think that this board's authority and ability to investigate this issue, just like with electronic medicine, find out the facts, find out the trends, find out what's emerging here, and then for us to take some position on that relative to that.  And in the meantime, I think we're basically the tail is wagging the dog.  That's just my perspective, for what it's worth.

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