Medical Marijuana Casualty Report: Demonizing The Brightest Doctors Makes No Sense

[bobandtorey]

People like Dr. Phil Leveque have suffered the ultimate wrath of reefer madness...

 

Dr. Phillip Leveque and Tim King
Salem-News.com photo by Bonnie King

(SALEM) - Marijuana is the big buzzword all over the country right now, but long before pot became posh,

 

men like Dr. Phillip Leveque were pounding the pavement for today's common public acceptance of

 

cannabis as medicine, and paying the price with their medical licenses.

 

Tod H. Mikuriya M.D.

 

His friend, the widely admired, late Tod H. Mikuriya M.D., in California, battled

 

authorities as he researched medical marijuana, even though he had the most

 

noble intentions.

 

 

His license to practice was suspended by the California Medical Board for five years at one point.

 

He was truly one of the first and most prominent physicians to take on the subject.

 

Fred Gardner wrote of Dr. Mikuriya, in Tod Mikuriya, 1933-2007, for the Berkeley Daily Planet:

 

 

• In 1967 he became director of non-classified marijuana research for the National Institute of Mental Health Center for Narcotics and Drug Abuse. He left the position after
•  
• several months, he said, “When it became clear they only wanted research into damaging effects, not helpful ones.”

 

Like Dr. Mikuriya, Dr. Leveque is a hero for the medical marijuana movement. He was also a hero in WWII; a decorated U.S. Army Infantry

 

soldier who fought the Germans, and watched his friends blown to pieces, injured and killed. One day he captured 26 German officers who had

 

taken over a French house. His late wife was a Jewish Holocaust survivor.

 

PBS Producer Ken Burns and Dr. Phil Leveque

 

Dr. Leveque first became a Professor of Pharmacology, and spent twenty years training doctors.

 

He worked for the University of London and trained the first doctors in Tanzania and Uganda.

 

He and his wife, Eve, adopted a Ugandan boy who had been targeted by Idi Amin, then president of

 

Uganda, due to his family's political affiliations. They got him out of the country and raised him as their

 

own, today their son is a successful businessman in Los Angeles.

 

Later he went to medical school himself, after years of training doctors, and became an Osteopathic Physician or DO. Dr. Leveque is also a Forensic

 

Toxicologist, a title held by few.

 

Because this esteemed physician allowed a medical marijuana patient in Eastern Oregon, who was handicapped, to renew her permit without

 

traveling a long and difficult distance to Portland for a physical, Dr. Leveque lost his ability to practice medicine.

 

The Oregon Medical Board, which took Dr. Leveque's license to practice medicine away, should feel the weight and shame of their gross mistake,

 

if it was a mistake at all, and not a corrupt, calculated attempt to punish the good doctor for pushing Oregon's legal boundaries and helping

 

establish the state's current medical marijuana law.

 

 

Oregon Media Attacks

 

The Oregonian newspaper dubbed this man "The Most Dangerous Doctor in Oregon" and they too should be ashamed for printing such rubbish.

 

Closed and narrow minds can be cruel.

 

Lars Larson, the right-wing radio talk show host, helped launch the attack on Dr. Leveque's license because he was treating a patient, a small child,

 

who was struggling against seizures to stay alive

 

, successfully with marijuana. Larson stated "Doctor Leveque you are giving this small child a joint to smoke" which was absurd, as the marijuana

 

was being administered orally, but that wasn't sensational enough I suppose.

 

Like in other cases, the relief this herb can bring a sick or dying person is mocked and nearly discounted, even if a small child's life hangs in the

 

balance, in order to demonize and persecute a person like Dr. Leveque.

 

It only mattered to Lars Larson that "a child" was being treated with "marijuana".

 

Targeting of Doctors Continues

 

 

 

 

Sensational media reports like those are starting to finally starting to abate, but while that happens, the witch

 

hunt against doctors continues. Dr. David Allen in California, is a heart surgeon who also works in the medical

 

marijuana field.

 

He was recently set up by two undercover agents from the California Medical Board, who recorded video

 

without a court order in an attempt to trap him in some sort of illegal act, which did not take place.

 

The taxpayer's money is still being used by law enforcement to harm the practice of doctors strictly because of their involvement in the legal 

 

Treatment of patients with marijuana.

 

And if that isn't bad enough, read the third link below and learn what happened to Dr. Allen in Mississippi. He could write a book about the political

 

Attacks waged on doctors who dare to be involved in this legal practice.

 

Read more Here

 

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/february152014/doc-leveque-tk.php

[AmishRnot4ganja]

Ignorance reigns supreme. It is just sad that the ignorant have so much influence in our society.