VA and Army Medical Care: More Dangerous than IED's
It's Also More Futile

Because medical cannabis is legal in Oregon I ended up with about one thousand PTSD Vets from all recent wars as legal MMJ users.

Images from Afghanistan by Tim King

(MOLALLA, Ore.) - Along with other writers here, I have repeatedly posted articles of the same tone and I have received dozens of emails agreeing with me or commenting further in the same vein. I have had very few comments from Vets stating that they had received good or even adequate care. (see: Lack of Healthcare Kills Veterans at Much Higher Rate than Combat - Salem-News.com November 15, 2009).

I have written about alcohol and tobacco use by the military and that their use was not only common & routine but almost necessary. Any soldier needs a tranquilizer frequently even to be able to cope with the realities of being trained to be a killer or to evade being killed.

The collective scuttlebutt seems to be that we have about one million PTSD battle veterans in the U.S. from all of our wars from WWII on. The WWII Veterans died by the millions of alcoholism and tobacco poisoning. There are only about one million of us WWII guys left.

I’m sure there are many Korean War Vets with us and I’ll bet they have PTSD also but PTSD never came out of the closet until the Vietnam guys came home.

Medically we had gone through several medications probably since 1776 with alcohol and opium for starters. They probably worked but the treatment was worse and more dangerous than the PTSD.

It appears that with the Vietnam War came a Tsunami of drugs for the VA and the Nam Vets.

I have written about these before, check salem-news.com/Leveque. At any rate it won’t hurt to write about this dirty dozen again. They include so-call anti-depressants such as the SSRIs (Prozac), then came Trazadone, etc. These did not work well or at all for many. Then came the MAOIs such as Phenetzine, etc. Then the Tricyclic Anti-depressants such as Elavil, etc. Then the Anti-adrenergics like Propanalol.

Very few of the above gave any satisfactory PTSD relief. Then came the anti-convulsants (what in the Hell for you ask?). Then the anti-psychotics (we weren’t crazy, honest).

None of the above won any prizes and the Vets reverted to what they had learned in Basic Training – alcohol. This has been even more unsatisfactory than the others. It may make one drunk but not GOOFY like most of the other stuff above.

The Vietnam PTSD Vets gradually or quickly reverted to what they had discovered in Nam which probably has been using cannabis/marijuana as medicine for centuries or more.

Because medical cannabis is legal in Oregon I ended up with about one thousand PTSD Vets from all recent wars as legal MMJ users. They have told me many times “It’s far better than the stuff they give us at the VA”.

The strange thing is that many VA Doctors and Nurse Practitioners know this but they cannot help their patients. Many, many, many PTSD Vets are using it anyhow.

IT TAKES BRAINS AND LUCK TO SURVIVE INFANTRY COMBAT!!

*********************************************

Dr. Phillip Leveque has degrees in chemistry, biochemistry, pharmacology, toxicology and minors in physiology and biochemistry. He was a Professor of Pharmacology, employed by the University of London for 20 years, during which time he trained the first doctors in Tanzania. After training doctors, he became an Osteopathic Physician, as well as a Forensic Toxicologist.

Do you have a question, comment or story to share with Dr. Leveque?
Email him: ASK DR. LEVEQUE
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 OF WWII