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.
Pain Causes Depression
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.
Got a question or comment for Dr. Leveque?Email him:Newsroom@Salem-News.com
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
Depression: AntidepressantsSalem-News.com