O’Shaughnessy’s: Dr. Tod And His Legacy

Submitted by thcf on Wed, 02/04/2009 - 23:31

Tod Mikuriya, MD —the doctor who documented the astonishing range of conditions for which marijuana provides relief— died May 20 at his home in the Berkeley Hills. He was 73. The cause was cancer, diagnosed originally in his lungs. (Tod had been a cigarette smoker for more than two decades. He quit in the 1970s.)

“Tod was the mentor of every doctor working in the field,” says Philip A. Denney, MD."

Among his many accomplishments was the launching of this journal. The first issue (Summer 2003) reflected the many levels on which he was involved in the medical marijuana movement: as a physician treating patients, a historian recovering the pre-prohibition literature, a researcher documenting the astonishing range of conditions that people were treating with cannabis, an organizer (founder of the Society of Cannabis Clinicians), an engaged citizen intent on implementing the law (Prop 215, which he had helped draft), and an educator sharing his singular knowledge with patients, colleagues, and the community at large.