10 Years of Legalized Medical Marijuana in California

The broad range of applications confirmed what Mikuriya had learned from his study of the pre-prohibition medical literature on cannabis, and so when Prop 215 was being drafted, he urged that it apply not only to people with a list of named conditions, but to those treating " ... any other illness for which marijuana provides relief."

No sooner had Prop 215 passed than top California law enforcement agents colluded with Clinton Administration officials and Prohibitionist strategists from the private sector to plan its disimplementation. On Dec. 30, 1996, Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, Attorney General Janet Reno, Health & Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, and the director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse, Alan Leshner, held a press conference to threaten California doctors with loss of their licenses, i.e., their livelihoods, if they approved marijuana use by their patients. McCaffrey stood alongside a large chart headed "Dr. Tod Mikuriya's, (215 Medical Advisor) Medical Uses of Marijuana." Twenty-six conditions were listed in two columns. ("Migranes" was misspelled.) "This isn't medicine, this is a Cheech and Chong show," he said. Reno said prosecutors would focus on doctors who were "egregious" in approving marijuana use by patients.

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