[NYTr] Federal Jury Convicts Pro-Cannabis Doctor

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Counterpunch - Sep 1, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.org/gardner09012007.html


The Trial of Mollie Fry, MD

Federal Jury Convicts Pro-Cannabis Doctor

By FRED GARDNER

After a 10-day trial, it took a federal jury in Sacramento less than
three hours August 16 to find Marion "Mollie" Fry, MD, and her husband,
attorney Dale Schafer, guilty of conspiracy to grow and distribute
marijuana. Schafer was represented by Tony Serra, Fry by Lawrence
Lichter. The lawyers' eloquence was no substitute for an admissible
defense.

Schafer, 53, acknowledges that he grew cannabis -initially for his wife
and himself, and then for some of her patients. He had intended to
argue that he did so on the advice of counsel after a 1999 ruling by
the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals made "medical necessity" a possible
defense for marijuana distribution. But the U.S. Supreme Court
overruled the 9th Circuit, and Judge Frank Damrell forbade Fry and
Schafer from citing their once-possibly-valid belief that "medical
necessity" justified marijuana production and sales.

Their only remaining hope was that a juror might disapprove of the war
on drugs and vote not to convict on principle. Everyone in the jury
pool who said they'd heard of California's medical marijuana law got
dismissed. Seven women and five men were seated. Two were people of
color. One was a paralegal employed by a public defender's office. The
defendants and their well-wishers kept hoping, scanning faces for a
glint of support.

Opening arguments hadn't concluded before Damrell instructed the jury
that any references to "medical" anything were irrelevant under federal
law. He also told them that -- contrary to what the defendants were
saying on Christine Craft's radio show -- they absolutely had to abide
by his instructions.

Your correspondent fantasized about making an opening statement, too:

    What could possibly have possessed Mollie Fry and Dale Schafer, a
successful doctor and lawyer, to grow marijuana and distribute it to
her patients? Money isn't a plausible motive. They were successful
professionals whose lifestyle was modest; they had no need to
supplement their income. So how did they lose perspective and take this
outrageous, absurd risk?

    A belief in God.

    Mollie Fry's office is in a town called Cool but she is the
opposite of cool. She hugs you as if you were a most intimate friend
and tells you everything she's feeling. She emotes and dramatizes. She
cries readily and profusely. She talks about what God wants and what
God might do. God is justice and justice must prevail. Her God talk and
her marijuana talk are in the same key and intertwine; the sacred herb,
the healing herb, she makes no distinction. She goes all the way. She
goes too far. She opens up her home to people in need. She takes in
strays. She's probably the most empathetic psychiatrist in California.
She has suffered and she doesn't want to see other people suffer. In
her 40s she was diagnosed with breast cancer, which had killed her
mother, who was also a psychiatrist, in her 40s. Mollie had both
breasts removed. She attributes her survival to God. If she was
involved in distributing marijuana to patients it was in the same
spirit that she issued them approvals -doing God's work, reducing human
suffering. But the belief that she was doing God's work is literally
delusional. Shouldn't a sincere belief in a just God qualify Fry and
Schafer for an insanity defense?

Damrell put off sentencing until Nov. 26, for which the defendants were
grateful. They both face five-year minimums. A key question is whether
they'll be allowed to remain free on bail while they appeal their
conviction.

Conflicts of Interest 'R' Us

Conflict of interest is inherent in corporate medicine and cannot be
reversed by superficial reforms -especially reforms involving voluntary
compliance on the part of likely miscreants. For example, a study
published in the Journal of the American Medical Association July 25
concludes that padded hip protectors fail to prevent fractures in the
elderly. Three of the authors didn't inform JAMA that they had taken
money from manufacturers of bone-strengthening drugs (whose sales might
decline if padded hip protectors were shown to work). JAMA adopted a
stricter disclosure policy in 2006 but doesn't consult a database to
confirm that authors are being forthcoming about their links to
industry. Lindsey Tanner of the Associated Press discovered the
conflict.

A Laguna Beach cosmetic dermatologist named Arnold Klein who injects
the rich and famous with Botox -a "pioneer in the field," according to
a Wall St. Journal piece August 29- has urged the FDA to reconsider its
approval of a product called ArteFill, a mixture of calf colleagen and
tiny plastic beads that fills wrinkles permanently. Klein and six other
celebrity dermatologists warned the FDA in July that ArteFill "may pose
immediate, debilitating and disfiguring health risks."

Indeed it may. It definitely poses immediate, debilitating financial
risks to the Botox-injectors whose patients have to come back for
touch-ups two or three times a year. "Dr. Klein has past and current
ties to ArteFill competitors," Rhonda L. Rundle reveals in her WSJ
piece. "From 2000 until last April, Dr. Klein worked for Allergan Inc.,
which sells Botox and Juvederm, and since 2004 he has been a consultant
to Restylane maker Medicis Pharmaceuticals Corp. Dr Klein, who made
$250,000 a year from Allergan for several years, says such ties 'have
nothing to do whatsoever' with his concerns about ArteFill. 'I refuse
to see the field of soft-tissue augmentation destroyed,' he says of his
motivation.

Patients in the U.S. must wait 26 days to have a possibly cancerous
mole evaluated whereas the wait to get a Botox shot for wrinkles is
eight days, according to a study by UCSF dermatologist Jack Resneck and
colleagues published by the Journal of the American Academy of
Dermatologists in August. The cosmetic treatments tend to be easier and
more lucrative for the dermatologists, who must wait for reimbursement
by insurance companies when they provide medical treatment. An
apologist for the skewed system, professor Alexa Kimball of Harvard
Medical School, told the New York Times, "The study shows that the
Botox needs of the United States are being met. If dermatologists
stopped providing cosmetic care, it would not necessarily have an
impact on medical dermatology patients." Especially if the doctors used
the freed-up time to play golf instead of treating patients with
medical needs.

[Fred Gardner edits O'Shaughnessy's, the journal of cannabis in clinical
practice. He can be reached at fred at plebesite.com ]