This was a private conversation, and he did not give permission to publish his name, so I'm not posting it for him to become a target for email and possible harassment. He's affiliated with a major California medical center. His exact word was "prescribe". I accepted your information that it is actually a "recommendation in the file," but perhaps I shouldn't? According to
this (caveat - comes from a cannabis site) the Supreme Court decision referenced was far from clear. "If, in making the recommendation," the court wrote, "the physician intends for the patient to use it as the means for obtaining marijuana, as a prescription is used as a means for a patient to obtain a controlled substance, then a physician would be guilty of aiding and abetting the violation of federal law."