Depression: Antidepressants Can Kill You or Your Loved Ones

Phillip Leveque has spent his life as a Combat Infantryman, Physician and Toxicologist.

(MOLALLA, Ore.) - As a Medical Marijuana Physician I have interviewed over four thousand patients in Oregon. Depression is not one of the medical conditions for which a patient can get a permit to use it but depression is common with chronic pain which is acceptable.

I punched up Marijuana Replacements on my computer and soon the index to SSRI stories jumped out at me! It included Antidepressant Violence, Suicide and Bizarre Behavior.

The Oregon Medical Board has condemned the use of opiate pain killers for chronic pain for about forty years with the screwy philosophy that depression causes chronic pain which is backwards.

Doctors, including me, were punished for prescribing pain killers for chronic pain. I must say that there never was a physician with training in Pharmacology on the Board and few of them ever cared for chronic pain patients.

With all of this in my mind, I was intrigued but not surprised to see the Antidepressant bombshell on my computer. My patients had told me this. I started going down the list of bad, bad reports. There are now 2,515 on file.

The list included the following highly advertised Antidepressant, obviously very dangerous drugs: Prozac, Zoloff, Paxil, Effexor, Celexa, Wellbutrin (Zyban), Cymbalta, Chantex, Lexapro, Luvox, Remerom, Ritalin, Psychotropics, ADHD meds, SSRI’s, Seroquel, Strattera, Resperdal, Accutane, Steroids, Desipramine, Zoloft plus Ambien and Valium, Lexapro with Zoloft and Methadone. I only looked at the first five of the thirty-five pages. I’m almost afraid to look further.

The bizarre behavior included school shootings, murder and murder attempts, suicides, mania and psychosis, bank robbery, many deaths, self mutilation, violent behavior, anxiety, panic attacks. I could go on but I hope the reader gets the idea.

Contrasting with all of the above including the highly touted medicines and the causation of horrendous adverse effects, my medical marijuana patients told me that marijuana, which is a mild euphoriant or antidepressant, works better than any of the above drugs without the above mentioned adverse effects.

The Pharmaceutical Companies Attorneys and Pharmacologists (?) will say these are rare events. Yes sure, 1750 events with many thousand dead and seriously wounded are rare but there sure are a lot of them.

Marijuana is a safer drug. The U.S. Government publishes that 50 million Americans use marijuana. I’ve never heard or read about these kinds of adverse effects and I’ve even watched the movie Reefer Madness about eight times.

It is time some people somewhere got their acts together and made marijuana legal and available.

More information on the history of Dr. Leveque can be found in his book, General Patton's Dogface Soldier of Phil Leveque about his experiences in WWII.
Order the book by mail by following this link: Dogface Soldier If you are a World War II history buff, you don't want to miss it.

Watch for more streaming video question and answer segments about medical marijuana with Bonnie King and Dr. Phil Leveque.

Click on this link for other articles and video segments about PTSD and medical marijuana on Salem-News.com:
Dr. Leveque INTERVIEWS & ARTICLES

Salem-News.com Marijuana Coverage

Where and How to Smoke Legal Marijuana without Fear of Arrest in the U.S.

Eulogy of a Great Warrior: Hoss Plourde

The Ripple Effect How Marijuana Laws Are Impacting Society

Audit the Audit

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jose May 18, 2009 3:51 pm (Pacific time)

weed is indeed

rata May 18, 2009 3:50 pm (Pacific time)

that sucks come live with me

stevecgorsuch August 30, 2008 10:17 am (Pacific time)

EDITOR: Your entire commented has been forwarded to Dr. Leveque for response. Unfortunately it was much too long to be published in total here. Here is a condensed version, and thank you for sharing.

As a 13 yr PTSD/BI-POLAR/Broke-BACK, Chronic fatigue syndrome,methadone (up to 30 mg a day), i keep it low, after 60 mg nearly zombified me like the freaking VA's SERAQUOEL ALMOST did, i mean i'd be sitting there watching TV, and wife would wipe drool from chin, on that crap...i NOW use only 100mgs of it BUT only if I KNOW ill be able to sleep without these very very debilitating nightmares/sweats/fights (yes i attack my wife in my sleep from time to time, evenstill 17 yrs later after last combat.
but i get DEPAKOTE (found it wasprescribed at TOO LOW a dosage, so i was like a HATEFULL MEAN RapidCycling from full mania, morpohing back into complete and utter depthsof disspare, when id wish i was shooting myself over their, and idnever made it back kinda stuff )
the anti-depresent (zoloft) helps and isALSO in a very LOW dose, 50 mg-100MG still,and forever,,,,but the'downs' have gotten much worse since i have hit mid 40's....
I often have my, ahem, life-recycling-kit, stashed very close for, well, JIC iam one of the 30K of us bipolar/depressed people that don't make it back from onna our 'BOTTOMS'
THAT IS 1 VIETNAM MEMORIAL EVERY 2 YEARS! ANDthe fraking constant pain is just terrible...

TO Dream of FREEDOMS and OBLIVION at one time,,,,,yes thats what ill do after my 20 min of daily meditation,,,yes to survive all this CRUD, u better have a well equipped toolbox of tricks.....i know mines big, but i often worry, yes all to often, that im the weakest link, and tomm ill be a damned memory and a flag for momma.....PTSD SUCKS HARD...wish i could get some decent counseling for it...this hit or miss drug and/or personal counseling wil not cut it for much longer!

Joy Ward August 26, 2008 3:45 pm (Pacific time)

I am a child of a mother who was prescribed muscle relaxers and tranquilizers for neck injuries for 20 years. They (Dr's) turned a wonderful God fearing woman into a typical junkie (over the years). The last time i talked to my mother alive, she told me she had a physical done by her MD, He called her back in to discuss the damage to her liver and kidneys...she already knew(instincts and symptoms) so she never went back. She died 10 days later. When we cleaned out her house after the fact,,there were pill bottles in the 100's with every name you could think of on there from many different pharmacies from around the area. It was typical 'junkie' behavior from a naive, good as gold woman. I wanted to get on the 'soap box' then and never have..so here ya go John Q Public. These damn pharmicueticals kill!!!! BTW..I have never taken them myself,,, after 8 major surgeries I have always relied on good old marajuana to ease my pain. It is now up to us as human beings and righteous citzens to let the world know all of our knowledge and stop letting the bureacrats write the books of our lives!! Wake up World!!!

roblee August 14, 2008 4:24 pm (Pacific time)

i would like to share my mothers story with you.

EDITOR: Please email your story to: newsroom@salem-news.com

Thanks!

truthman30 August 14, 2008 4:14 pm (Pacific time)

I was prescribed the poisonous SSRI Paxil (Seroxat) in 1998, of course they (the manufacturers ; GSK) didn't warn me that this drug would turn me into a zombie with no feelings, no compassion and no empathy. These drugs are just as bad , if not worse, than narcotic drugs! They are highly addictive, the side effects are disgusting and the withdrawal is horrific beyond words, for the truth about these meds, particularly Paxil (seroxat as it is called in the UK), check out my blog http://truthman30.wordpress.com/

Anonymous August 12, 2008 2:34 pm (Pacific time)

I forgot to mention....I recieved my recommendation in 2001 from Dr Leveque. I'd stiil be coming to see him for renewals if Oregon's medical board were not a cartel determined to undermind Oregon's medical marijuana laws. Lots of $$$ coming from pharmecutical companys and federal grants make it hard for that cartel to do whats best for Oregon's sick and broken. I thank God for the doctors we do have in our state who put patients 1st. Its just a damn shame they have to risk their careers to do it.

canabisflower August 12, 2008 2:21 pm (Pacific time)

I have gone to over a dozen doctors in the past 10 years since a violent attack from an ex left my cervical and lumbar spine injured. Every one of them prescribed ssri drugs except Dr. Leveque. He prescribed medical marijuana and saved my life. Lots of people will say no, he saved my quality of life because they have no idea what cronic unrelenting pain can do to your desire to live. I had a dr who kept telling me i'd be in a wheelchair in 2 years if I didn't have surgery on my cervical spine. In the months leading up to surgery he gave me percocet. Because of the mmj just 1 pill twice a day kept me painfree. When it was time to refill I was told to sign a contract not to do ''street drugs'' amoung other things. My organic mmj never saw a street, they came from my garden, so I signed it. The next month (2 weeks before scheduled surgery)there was a newly worded contract for me to sign before a refill specifying marijuana. When I refused to sign I was told I coundn't even have pain medication immediately after surgery if I didn't quit mmj. I canciled the surgery and found a new doctor. She told me I would be in a wheelchair in a few years if I didn't have surgery on my lumbar spine! OH....and she's not allowed to prescribe pain meds to mmj patients. She sent me to a liver specialist after discovering I had hepc, he said studies have shown marijuana causes liver damage. But he said it was safe to take tylonal as directed on bottle! Then he tells me he's doing a research study of tylonal! I had been getting blood tests regularly form drs because I was helpless from pain and getting the ''flu'' all the time. 9 years of bloodtests before this last dr told me I had hep c. I went to the specialist at OHSU last Oct. It wasn't until Feb that I was told I had a virul load in the millions and March when I was told I also had hepB. OMG!!! Maybe if they knew I had liver disease they would have believed me when I said the muscle relaxants or the ssei's or the elavil or the steroids made me worse, but it was their job to know and not just dissmiss me as a lier who wants to get ''high'' on mmj. Idiots!!!!!!!!! I stopped with the ''doctors'' then. I Use nothing but thc in its various forms and truley feel like I'm just getting better everyday. I know for a fact my quality of life is dramaticaly improved. I tryed the drugs drs put me on even though they made me feel worse because I wanted to be a cooperative patient and get better. I'm just so glad I back down on the surgery because then they woulda owned me. They had their own agenda (mostly federal grant money that they would risk by allowing mmj) And my suffering came 2nd to that!!! I'm so done with trusting doctors. Except a few.....like you Dr. Leveque. I know what you've lost and continue to risk on behalf of telling TRUTH and may God Bless you for it!!

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