David L. Nathan

David L. Nathan (born 1968) is an American psychiatrist, writer, and founder and Board President of Doctors for Cannabis Regulation. Best known for his advocacy of marijuana legalization, he has also published research in the academic and lay press on a range of other topics, including proto-cuneiform writing, numismatics, the history of animation and early American football. Originally from the Philadelphia area, Nathan graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University. He received his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where he distinguished himself in the development of medical education software. He subsequently competed his psychiatry residency at McLean Hospital, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, serving as Chief Resident of Bipolar and Psychotic Disorders in 1993-1994. In addition to his writing and political activism, Nathan has a private practice in Princeton, New Jersey. He is the Director of Continuing Education at the Princeton HealthCare System and a clinical associate professor at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

Drawing from his experience in clinical psychiatry and the treatment of substance use disorders, Nathan is a vocal physician advocate of cannabis legalization. He has published numerous articles on the topic. Nathan was one of the founding steering committee members of New Jersey United for Marijuana Reform, speaking at their televised launch in early 2015. He was the first physician in New Jersey history to testify about marijuana legalization at the state legislature later that year.

In 2016, Nathan founded Doctors For Cannabis Regulation (DFCR), which advocates for the legalization, regulation and taxation of marijuana. He wrote the organization’s “Declaration of Principles,” which was signed by number of nationally prominent physicians, including Joycelyn Elders, Andrew Weil, Chris Beyrer, David Lewis, and Lester Grinspoon.

In numismatics, Nathan was the first to propose that there was a Hebrew letter aleph (א) on the first coins minted in the Western Hemisphere by Spanish Conquistadors in Mexico City, suggesting a possible connection with Jewish conversos fleeing the Spanish Inquisition.

Nathan published an analysis of a proto-cuneiform tablet, which included the discovery of a previously unknown numerical sign.

Using original drawings from 1914, Nathan reconstructed the lost “Curtain Call” sequence from Winsor McCay’s animated vaudeville film Gertie. With animation historian Donald Crafton, he coauthored an article about the structure and history of Gertie.

Publishing in the Princeton Alumni Weekly, Nathan was the first to identify all 24 documented members of Princeton University’s 1869 football team, who participated in the first intercollegiate American football game.

In 1990, Nathan was elected by the faculty of Princeton University to the membership of Sigma Xi: The Scientific Research Society. The same year he received Princeton’s Charles M. Cannon Memorial Prize for his senior thesis entitled Web Repair in Several Species of Orb Weaving Spiders. In 2007, Nathan won the Odesser Award for Outstanding Contribution to Judaic Numismatics and Exonumia for his article on early Mexican coins. In 2012, Nathan was elected as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.