on the cover / By Helen Sanderson

Prescription for trouble

Pot doc’s checkered past catches up

(April 26, 2007)  While visiting Sacramento a few weeks ago, Patient X, a Humboldt County resident who asked that her name not be published, went to a medical marijuana dispensary to fill her prescription, which she uses for migraine headaches. In her two years as a card-carrying medical cannabis user, the college-aged woman purchased the drug in dispensaries numerous times, from Hollywood to Berkeley, without trouble.

But this time she hit a snag.

Photo by Bob Doran.

GALLERY >

The receptionist at Canna Care, a Sacramento marijuana collective, explained to Patient X that her physician, Dr. Hany Assad - owner of Norcal Healthcare Systems Inc., with offices in Arcata, Ukiah, Bakersfield and Oakland - has restrictions on his medical license. According to records from the Medical Board of California, Assad “shall not examine or treat” female patients until 2009. Patient X argued that she hadn’t actually been examined by Dr. Assad, that the work had been done by a physician’s assistant in Arcata. But Lanette Davies, a Canna Care employee, wasn’t biting - after all, that was Assad’s signature at the bottom of her recommendation.

“There’s nothing worse than to have someone ill and to have to turn them away,” said Davies. “But at the same time we need to follow the law.”

Davies was referring to two pieces of law in particular: California’s Proposition 215, also known as the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, and 2003’s Senate Bill 420. One stipulation of SB 420 is that attending physicians must be in “good standing” to recommend marijuana, and Davies wasn’t so sure that Assad fell into that category.

Canna Care had been asking itself these questions for a couple of weeks: What are the definitions of “good standing” and “treatment”? Was Assad within his rights to prescribe marijuana to women so long as he wasn’t examining them? Or was he cheating the system at the expense of unwitting patients?

It turns out that medical marijuana patients and providers all over the state had been asking themselves the same questions. What to do with Dr. Hany Assad’s marijuana recommendations? The doctor had set up a burgeoning statewide medical empire, based on his willingness to recommend marijuana for patients. But was it legal? Was he prohibited from signing recommendations for female patients? Cannabis clubs and issuers of Prop. 215 cards had to deal with the man - but were they staying on the right side of the law?

The answers are starting to become clear, and the California Medical Board and the state Attorney General’s office will take action in Dr. Assad’s case this week. What that will mean for his presumed thousands of patients, as well as the future of the medical marijuana system, remains to be seen.

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