Tod H. Mikuriya

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Tod Hiro Mikuriya (b. September 20, 1933 Pennsylvania) is a psychiatrist and an advocate for the legalization of the use of marijuana for medical purposes. He was the director of non-classified marijuana research for the National Institute of Mental Health Center for Narcotics and Drug Abuse Studies. His 1972 self-published book, Marijuana Medical Papers 1839-1972 became a landmark in the modern movement for the legalization of Medical marijuana. Collected from the reference section at the National Library of Medicine it was saved from complete oblivion. Much to the irritation of cannabis prohibitionists, this medical intelligence has been restored for possible alternative medical applications.

As of 2007 he continues in private psychiatric practice limited to cannabis clinical consultation. He has approved marijuana for medical purposes in over nine thousand patients, not solely in terminal cases, but also alleviation of physical and emotional pain in non-terminal cases. The legal situation is extremely complex—see Medical marijuana. His practices are controversial and have drawn him into conflict with authorities. He is currently on 5 years probation with the Medical Board of California resulting from prosecutorial manipulation and conspiracy with local, state, and federal law enforcement vendetta starting in 2000. No patients were harmed. There were no complaints from patients, families or community physicians. Only law enforcement in eleven rural northern California counties responed to solicitation by Medical Board investigators and officials in the Californi Attorney General's office.

In a 1998 interview, Mikuriya (whose father was a Japanese Samurai and a converted Christian and whose mother was born in Germany and was a practicing Bahá'í), made a connection between his family background and his views. Growing up in the Quaker community of Fallsington, PA and attending Quaker schools: George School and Haverford College it was the compromise chosen by his parents that the three Mikuriya children were raised as Quakers. "The Quakers were proprietors of the Underground Railway, I’m proud to say. The cannabis prohibition has the same dynamics as the bigotry and racism my family and I experienced starting on December 7, 1941, when we were transformed from normal-but-different people into war-criminal surrogates."

Mikuriya wrote the lyrics for several songs used in the campaign for the 1996 Medical Marijuana Initiative in California known as Proposition 215. One criticized what Mikuriya saw as the hypocrisy of then-President Clinton:

Our pudgy White House waffler

Who never did inhale

The deaf and blinded congress

Wants to put us all in jail

And it don't look like they're ever going to cease their panderin'

So keep on with the struggle

For compassion, love, and trust.

California needs drug laws

That protect, and are just

But it looks like they're never gonna cease their panderin'.