A Los Alamitos doctor, who was punished last year after a plastic
surgery patient died, is facing more California Medical Board
discipline stemming from his work at a beach-front medical marijuana
clinic in Venice.

In the latest medical board case, Dr. Lawrence H. Hansen is accused of
dishonest or corrupt acts for practicing medicine in a clinic owned by
non-doctors, a violation of state law.

While California allows seriously ill patients to obtain medical
marijuana recommendations from their doctors, solicitors for Kush
Doctor in Venice stood outside with fliers inviting passersby to come
in for a recommendation, according to accounts from undercover medical
board officers.

In April of 2011, the medical board and law enforcement agencies
raided the Kush clinics, seizing large bags of marijuana. Last year,
the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office filed felony
criminal charges against two clinic operators for allegedly possessing
and distributing marijuana for sale and for practicing medicine
without a license, according to Superior Court records.

Hansen was reached Monday at a different Kush clinic in West Los
Angeles and said he was unaware of the latest medical board accusation
against him.

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Hansen said. “I’ll have to check into
it.”

Legal documents recently made public by the medical board give this
account:

In January 2010, the board was alerted that non-doctors were operating
Kush Doctor, a collection of medical marijuana clinics along Ocean
Front Walk in Venice. State law says only licensed physicians can own
and operate medical clinics.

In June 2010, an undercover medical board officer visited two Kush
clinics. The officer met Hansen, who said he had worked there for the
past 18 months. The officer told Hansen it was unethical to provide a
medical marijuana recommendation without a proper physical exam.

In August 2010, the board sent two undercover officers to pose as
patients. An officer was asked if he wanted to get “legalized” to use
marijuana for $150. The officer said the price was too much and agreed
to pay $70. The officer said he was seeking marijuana for relief from
headaches resulting from heavy drinking and inability to sleep.

He saw an unidentified doctor who briefly examined him before he was
given a medical marijuana recommendation card. Hansen is not mentioned
in the description of the August visit.

At another Kush clinic, the officer asked another unidentified doctor
where he could buy marijuana after receiving the recommendation. The
doctor told him it was illegal to give information and then whispered
“next door, upstairs.” The officer then went to the upstairs
dispensary and bought $20 worth of marijuana.

In February 2011, Hansen was put on 35 months of medical board
probation and barred from performing surgeries after the death of a
patient he operated on. (http://www.ocregister.com/articles/surgery-288471-board-documents.html
)

Hansen had retired from active practice in 2003 but in 2008 performed
a vaginal reconstruction at an unaccredited outpatient surgery center
in Anaheim Hills.

The medical board documents say Hansen met the patient, Maria Garcia,
for the first time shortly before the surgery and failed to take a
thorough medical history or perform a comprehensive exam. During the
surgery, Garcia, 39, began to bleed. Afterward, she underwent
liposuction, which was performed by a different doctor.

Garcia suffered a heart attack and died an hour later at a hospital.
Hansen was accused of incompetency for failing to verify that the
surgery center was accredited or check on his patient at the hospital
after he learned of her complications.

To check a doctor’s disciplinary record visit mbc.ca.gov/

Contact the writer: Twitter: @cperkes 714-796-3686 or cperkes@ocregister.com

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/medical-348615-board-marijuana.html

Here are some common questions I get from patients?

1. How can I legally grow 99 plants?

The answer is that you can’t in the state in California unless you can prove that you medically need that much cannabis to treat your condition.   Many patients argue that because they make edibles they need this number of plants to produce enough medicine.   What will happen is that the prosecutor will place the burden of proof on the patient to prove they use this much medicine.   They will argue to the court that 99 plants will produce over 100 pounds of medication every 90 days which is virtually impossible for any one patient to use.

2 What if my doctor gives me a plant exemption to grow more than 12 plants?

I have seen doctors sell “Growers Certificates” for $250 which authorizes the patient to grow up to 99 plants.  The problem is that a “Growers Certificate” from a doctor will NEVER hold up in court for a few reasons.

a. There is no FDA recommended dose established therefore there is no way for a doctor to determine how much medicine a patient will need.

b. There is no training that doctors receive which gives them the credentials to know how much medicine a patient will need.

I have testified in court on more than one occasion for patients who were arrested for plant numbers.  In both cases it was clear they were going to lose and both had to take a plea bargain.   They could have one but it was costing them in the $75,000 range to find out.

3. Can I grow 12 plants and sell my cannabis to a local dispensary?

If you are a member of that collective and also have a growers agreement with them (ask Mr Curiale about this) you are legally allowed to do this.   The members of a collective are supposed to get their medicine from within the collective.

4. Can I travel out of state with my cannabis?

The short answer is that prop 215 only applies to California and you are not able to legally transport cannabis to other states.

5. Can I fly with medicine if I am traveling within California?

The answer is that the airlines have their own rules and you have to check with your airline prior to flying.

6. Can I legally use cannabis if I am under 21?

The answer is that a doctor can recommend cannabis to a patient of ANY age.   However, most doctors, including myself, are not recommending cannabis to patients under 21 because of federal guidelines that treat cannabis as a schedule 1 drug.   You may have to call around to find a doctor willing to recommend it to you.    For the record, the percentage of patients who are under 21 seeking medical marijuana recommendations that are MALINGERING (lying) is VERY high.

7. What is a primary caregiver?

Someone who is a designated primary caregiver for another patient is allowed to purchase, transport, possess and grow marijuana for that patient.  They can not however use the medication personally.   To be a primary caregiver you have to someone who regularly provides services for that person.  For example,  you must house, feed or regularly assist them with daily tasks outside of just getting them their medical marijuana.

Many of these fly-by-night clinics try and capitalize as quickly as possible without following state medical board guidelines.  They see patients over skype on the computer, require no medical records and do not maintain HIPAA compliance.   If patients have any issues with law enforcement there is no one that they can rely on to produce medical records or write letters on the patients behalf.

What has happened over the past 12 months is that many clinics that were directly affiliated with dispensaries also closed.   Many of them were controlled by the dispensary itself which is a felony in california (see “The Corporate Practice of Medicine).   Dispensaries would open clinics, hire a doctor at an hourly wage and advertise low recommendation prices to lure them into their dispensaries ultimately.    Unfortunately these clinics turned into “mills” for recreational users to legally use cannabis.   It is for this reason why I believe the communities got fed up with the industry and why no one takes “medical” marijuana seriously anymore.

My entire staff takes medical marijuana recommendations very seriously and we only want to attract the most qualified patients.   It has been a blessing to give hope to so many patients over the past 4 years.    Most return with incredible stories of healing and relief.   It would be an honor to take care of you.

Be blessed,

MCSoCal Staff

The federal government has basically taken a stance that when it comes to medical marijuana the states have no rights.   They are determined to make it difficult for store front dispensaries to operate.   How long this will last is the question.   The California Supreme Court has decided to review the Pack Case to see if the feds can legally interfere with state law and shut down local collectives.  That will take at least 12-24 months. 

Because of the federal governments stance the city of Long Beach is voting on February 14 whether or not to reverse its ordinance that created a safe haven for a few well run dispensaries to operate.    Los Angeles is in the process of figuring out what to do with its few hundred dispensaries as well.   In the next 2-3 months the landscape could change even more.

So what does this mean for patients?    Certainly they may have to drive a little bit further to find a great collective.  Many will simply turn to delivery services. Many will learn how to grow their own.  Industry experts have been telling patients how hard it is to grow quality medicine but that simply is not the case.    For most patients, a small up front investment and a little time is all it would take to get enough medicine to last an entire year.   The state allows you to grow 12 plants (6 mature at any given time) which should yield 4 ounces per plant.   The average patient uses between 1-5 eighths of an ounce per month.   That means an ounce would last them 4 months.   If you do the math one harvest can yield enough medicine to last a few years.  There are plenty of good resources for patients to grow their own medicine.  Many hydroponic shops have instructions on exactly how to do it.

How did this happen?  How did we go from President Obama saying he was not going to use federal resources to go after states medical marijuana laws to regular raids using federal resources?     In my opinion the industry has no one to blame but themselves.  Let me explain.

1. Lets start with the doctors.  It is inexcusable how doctors have distorted the law for $25 have handed out recommendations to anyone who can fog a mirror.  The state medical board set guidelines for recommending medical marijuana and the bottom line is that they are not being followed.   I can not count how many times over the past 6 months I have told patients that they do not qualify who have presented recommendations previously from other doctors.  The majority of these cases is because the patients have not been adequately evaluated by doctors for the condition they are telling me they are using medical marijuana for.   For example, a 23 year old male came in with a previous recommendation to use cannabis for migraine headaches.   He was never evaluated or even diagnosed for his headaches.  In fact he had not been to a doctor in over 7 years.  The last time he did see a doctor for for a sports physical in high school.    Yet, despite having no documentation of having migraine headaches he was given a medical marijuana recommendation. As a result of this blatant disregard for the state guidelines we had half of the senior graduating high school class partying with medical marijuana.

2.  Dispensaries:  The reality is that the many of the dispensaries were not helping the cause.   Many were blatantly providing marijuana to recreational users and drug dealers.    Many would sell ounces at a time on more than one occasion in the same week to the SAME patient. Clearly they know that he/she was selling it and not using all that medicine for personal use.    Secondly, how many raids of dispensaries also turned up cocaine?!!  Clearly these dispensaries were illegally dealing drugs under the guise of medical marijuana.    When dispensaries advertise “happy hour” and put girls in thongs behind the counter they are not giving any city official the impression that they are interested in taking care of patients.

3. HempCon:   all you to do is walk through a hemp con convention to realize that much of medical marijuana is recreational use.   “Hot girl contests”, “Smoke rooms” and the in your face advertising only hurt the genuine medical marijuana community.   It’s pretty hard to stand in front of the city council and argue why we need good dispensaries in the community when there are so many bad apples hurting the cause.

The difficult thing to accept about this recent crack down is that there are genuine patients who need this medicine who are going to suffer.    I wish the legitimate patients could have a voice in all of this.    Last week I took care of a 61 year old man with end stage cancer who really needs safe access to medical marijuana.  He would not know what to do without it other than suffer tremendously.   It breaks my heart to see good dispensaries go down as a result of all the bad apples.

This “sweep” of local medical marijuana dispensaries comes after similar raid in Oregon.   It is the opinion of many people in the industry that once they use up their resources here in California they will move on to Colorado to do the same thing.    This will give people here in California time to re-group.

The state supreme court recently agreed to review the Riverside decision that stated any city/county can not legally approve something that conflicts with federal law.  Once the supreme court renders a decision will have much clearer guidance on what any individual city can and can not do.  Attorney Anthony Curiale, a specialist in medical marijuana law, told me that because of the supreme courts decision to review the case “we are back back in the game.”  He went on to say that “they are not going to be able to put the genie back in the bottle.”

In the mean time, the feds are doing everything they can to try and bankrupt local dispensary owners.   In Costa Mesa they did not make one arrest. They just go and take all the plants, lights, medicine, cash and freeze assets.   Essentially they force the businesses to start over from scratch.   These tactics are far from American and will ultimately make the industry stronger in the long run.   More and more patients who are benefiting from medical marijuana will let their voices be heard on election day.   I will be shocked if President Obama wins California without the medical marijuana vote (which is HUGE!).

Stay tuned.

1)Medical marijuana dispensaries in Long Beach, CA are not going anywhere yet.   At a recent meeting with the city counsel they decided to delay making any decisions until the State Supreme Court decides whether or not to hear the case next month.   If they decide to take the case it will be at least a year before the city can do anything.  In the meantime patients will continue to have safe access to quality medicine.  

2) The DEA and Orange County sheriffs department raided three dispensaries in Costa Mesa on Tuesday however made NO arrests.     The city continues to struggle with dispensaries operating in their city and refuse to write a sensible ordinance to allow for safe access to medicine for patients.   Otherside Farms and 2 others closed shop after the Feds took all of their medicine, cash and records.

3) The mayor of Costa Mesa was on a local medical marijuana radio show, hosted by Robert Martinez of Newport Mesa Patients Association, stating that he supports the city writing an ordinance that allows them to operate legally.  Word is that they are trying to get a special election for this summer so the people can decide for themselves if they want it in the city.

4) Two medical marijuana patients made the news this week.   Both were arrested and charged with selling marijuana to non-patients.   One male was stopped while driving after purchasing 7 ounces of marijuana from one dispensary.   When they looked at his phone they found text messages from various people asking where they could meet him to buy marijuana.   The second was a female who was selling marijuana to non-patients at a local high school.   Unfortunately for her two of the people she sold marijuana to were undercover police officers.

**for the record. Dispensaries that sell more than a few ounces to a patient at any given time should be shut down.  It is obvious that these “patients” are buying that quantity of medicine so they can sell it on the black market.  There are RARE exceptions of course**

Here is what I anticipate in 2012:

1. More uncertainty:   More cities will try and create ordinances to limit where dispensaries can operate.    It also looks like Katherine Harris is going to release a new set of guidelines to qualify how the system needs to work.   Word on the street is that California wants to get away from ALL storefront dispensaries. The question is going to be how do patients get safe access to medicine.

2. Patients will still be able to get recommendations from their doctors and grow 12 plants at home at will.   There WILL be dispensary locations to get their medicine but they may have to drive a little bit further than last year.

3. Delivery services will start thriving.    We are already starting to see many delivery services taking over in areas where dispensaries closed.   This is a good thing as it limits the visibility of medical marijuana and hopefully the cities will forget about it and leave them/us alone.

4. Ballot initiative: it looks like proponents of total legalization for recreational use are going to put another ballot measure for vote in November.  I expect this to NOT pass by about 3-4% points just like proposition 19 failed.    However I expect a second ballot initiative to be placed on the books to tax and regulate MEDICAL marijuana.   This I think WILL pass but ONLY IF they do a great job at promoting it as MEDICAL and not recreational.   So how they campaign will be huge.

5. Doctors: expect a handful of doctors to lose their licenses this year for failing to follow the medical board guidelines.   I expect that we will see a lot of these fly-by-night clinics closing and falling like dominos once the medical board takes action.  This is a good thing.

6. Expect President Obama to LOSE CALIFORNIA in the general election.  This will mean the end to his presidency.   The one vote that he had was the left that thought he was a proponent of medical marijuana.  He HAS LOST that vote 100%   Across the board people are fed up with his lip service on respecting states rights.  Expect the next Republican President to be neutral on this issue.   I believe a republican president will be more inclined to respect states rights.

I expect Governor Brown to create a sensible plan for medical marijuana in California.  He is a thinker and a realist.    He will understand the futility of pushing medical marijuana back to the black market.

Stay tuned!

Many patients are not aware that they even qualify to use medical marijuana.  In California, there are over 150 different indications to recommend marijuana but the most common reasons people get recommendations for are:

1. Chronic Pain: for things like arthritis, headaches, back pain, dental pain etc.

2. Sleep disorders: primary insomnia to anxiety related sleep disorders.

3. Nausea, Vomiting or Lack of appetite for any reason.

4. Chronic anxiety in patients that do not want to take xanax or valium.

5. Har reduction for people who are addicted to opioids.

If you are wondering if you would qualify to use medical marijuana feel free to pre-qualify for free on our homepage or call our professional staff at 877-721-0047

These closures are not unexpected.  The medical marijuana industry went from being very profitable, to maybe cover the overhead and take a small salary, to being not profitable at all in a 3 year period.     Why the rapid change?   The simplest explanation is because the playing field was not level and the market priced good clinics out.  Let me elaborate.

Marijuana is considered a controlled narcotic drug by the california medical board and they expect it to be prescribed like any other controlled narcotic.   This means a doctor (MD/DO) has to evaluate the patient, order an necessary tests and prescribe it under the same standard of care as if they were prescribing vicodin.   Clinics like medicann employed professional doctors who followed the rules as set by the medical board.   These doctors were paid $80-$100/hour to issue recommendations.   The overhead to run a clinic was fairly substantial.

ALONG CAME POLLY

What happened fairly quickly is that dispensary owners and entrepreneurs realized that if they put a doctors office next to their dispensary it would serve as an endless source of leads for their dispensary.    These people could care less if the clinic made money as they knew that if they just broke even they would make a fortune in selling marijuana to those patients.    What they did was undercut the going cost of a recommendation ($150 at the time) by 75% and started offering recommendations for $25.00.    Some clinics even had doctors their via skype to limit the cost of having a doctor on location.   Under normal business circumstances, supply and demand dictate where the market is at and the price settles accordingly.

But these weren’t normal business circumstances.   These new clinics that were undercutting the price of legitimate clinics were running illegal operations.   They did not have doctors present (required by the medical board) and more importantly the offices were not owned by doctors.   This is considered an illegal medical practice and is a felony in California.    Only doctors can have ownership in a medical practice.   Secondly, they handed out recommendations to anyone who could fog a mirror.  They didn’t require medical documentation supporting their diagnosis nor examine their patients.    It wasn’t long before these clinics were 30-50 patients deep with lines extending out their doors.

With the economy slumping and unemployment at an all time high, patients that would normally go to medicann and get a legitimate recommendation were lured by the price of a cheap recommendation.   This severely hurt the business of every doctor who ran a legitimate practice.   Ultimately many had to close.

The future:   Just as the mortgage industry went from normal, to insane and now back to being overly cautious to the point of being ridiculous, the same thing is happening in the medical marijuana industry.    The medical board is slowly weeding out doctors who are not following the standard of care and cities are closing dispensaries run by criminals who also operate illegal medical clinics.    Ultimately the situation will return (close) to what it was in 2007.   You will have a handful of good doctors willing to recommend medical marijuana for a legitimate price.

I am going to give you some basic guidelines to help you make the right decision.

1. Call the clinic first and ask them the following questions:

a.  Is the doctor going to physically be present or will I be speaking to a doctor over skype (computer) or phone?   The medical board of California states that to have a legal recommendation the initial consultation MUST be done in person, face to face.   There have been a plethora of clinics that are doing recommendations over skype for dirt cheap.  SAVE YOUR MONEY.  Local dispensaries know who these clinics/doctors are and do not accept their recommendations.   So essentially you just wasted your money and more importantly time.

b. Ask them for your fictitious name permit number?    Any clinics that advertises a name other than the doctors name requires this by law.    In order to obtain one they have to prove that the clinic ownership is a doctor.   In California, only a doctor can own a medical practice.   However what has happened is many dispensary owners and entrepreneurs have opened clinics with hopes of getting rich and just hire doctors to see patients.   This is ILLEGAL and considered a felony (look up “the corporate practice of medicine” and “aiding and abetting an illegal medical practice”)    Clinics that are NOT owned by doctors will not have a fictitious name permit.

c. Ask them if you can still get a recommendation if you do not have medical records with you?    By law, in order for a doctor to recommend medical marijuana, they must first verify that you have an accurate diagnosis.   Many of these clinics you can just walk in and say you have headaches and they will issue you a recommendation.   These clinics will come and go (they eventually get caught) and your recommendation is not valid.

d. Ask them where the nearest dispensary is?   If they tell you it is right next door than run for the hills screaming.  This is the obvious sign that the medical clinic is being run by the dispensary and is most likely an illegal medical practice.

e.  Ask them for the doctors name and medical license number?   You want to see a doctor whose license is in good standing with the medical board.   Many doctors who are issuing medical marijuana recommendations have suspended licenses and are just trying to make as much money until they ultimately lose their license.   You can go to the medical boards website and search for free.

2.  Call a few local dispensaries and ask them if they can recommend a reputable doctor in your area.   Most of the dispensaries know where the good clinics are and can give you non-biased feedback.

I hope that helps!

LASTLY, IF YOU ARE IN THE ORANGE COUNTY OR LONG BEACH AREA YOU CAN CERTAINLY MAKE AN APPOINTMENT TO SEE DR BREEN.   SIMPLY GIVE US A CALL AT 877-721-0047