Medical Marijuana Accolades: Semper Fi David and Fellow Grunts

Pain pills prescribed by the VA don’t always work for PTSD and cause addiction.

(MOLALLA, Ore.) - The people who know the most and best about the benefits of marijuana as medicine are certainly not the physicians nor the pharmacologists such as myself. Frequently I get letters like this one I am responding to.

David is a Marine Combat Veteran/Victim of two extensive combat tours in Iraq. He definitely has PTSD with depression, pain and social and family problems. This is a sterling example of been there, seen that, done that.

He has been given pain pills by the VA which don’t work for PTSD and just cause addiction. Anti-depressants don’t work either, they just make most people dopey!

His pleas like many others is this, “please help other Vets like me and myself in trying to reason with these Govt. officials that used us and now that we are out (of the service) they just want to shove pills down our throats to medically drug us to keep our mouths shut.”

He pleads through me that I appeal to our 3 million or so Veterans and organizations for help in alerting and advising Congress to please do something for the Veterans.

Numerous stories are in newspapers and television about the miserable medical malpractice of the VA for these Veterans.

Apparently ONLY Congress can do something about it. A couple of years ago, senior generals running Walter Reed Army Hospital were FIRED. Has the situation improved?

Do you have a a question, comment, or story to share with Dr. Leveque?
Email him: Pot Doc Answers

More information on the history of Dr. Leveque can be found in his book, General Patton's Dogface Soldier of WWII about his own experiences "from a foxhole".
Order the book by mail by following this link: Dogface Soldier

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

Welcome Home, Tom

Comments Leave a comment on this story.

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SS April 13, 2009 12:56 pm (Pacific time)

Ya lets turn our veterans into a bunch of potheads. That will send a great message to our youth!

Tim King: Dude, Brother! Don't you like me any more? Better a bunch of potheads than a bunch of sad and angry alcoholics or morphine based drug addicts. That's what it's all about.

Daniel Seidenberg March 21, 2009 6:24 am (Pacific time)

My combat unit was D company, 5/12, 199th Light Infantry Brigade. I worked as a light weapons infantryman in heavy combat from that time until I was seriously wounded in a rocket propelled grenade ambush in which I incurred a penetrating temple wound on March 2, 1969. Fragments from the rocket grenade lodged in my right temple, head, face and neck. Our medic had to stop the bleeding and restart my heart three times on the way to the field surgical unit. The survival rate was .02% for penetrating temple wounds in the Vietnam war with over 90% of the survivors rendered 'vegetables'. I incurred the following residual conditions: Loss of part of skull, both inner and outer tables, area larger than a 50cent piece; seizure disorder; chronic brain syndrome; cephalgia; total loss of vision in right eye; sleep disorder, [hypersomnia]; constant tinnitus right ear, post traumatic stress disorder; scars disfiguring scalp, face and neck; hearing loss, sensoneural, severe, bilateral; facial muscle injury, right temporalis. When I was about to be released from the army hospital, my army neurologist handed me a prescription for Dilantin but advised me to smoke marijauna instead because, "Pot is much more forgiving for your conditions. I know it is illegal, so be careful." That was early summer, 1969. I tried the Dilantin for a few months and could barely get out of bed on it. I could not open my mouth with out drooling. I could not think in complete sentences. So I started substituting marijuana and it has helped me tremendously with out the debilitating side effects. I hope that the VA and our federal government will recognize the benefits of medical cannabis for traumatic brain injured veterans and everyone who can benefit from it very soon, for it truly is a life saver. Daniel Seidenberg, US Army, Retired

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Medical Marijuana Accolades: Semper Fi David and Fellow Grunts

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