About the VMCA

About the VMMA
  • Mission Statement:

Veterans for Medical Cannabis Access is committed to protecting the rights of veteran patients and health care professionals by advocating for safe and legal access to cannabis (marijuana) for all appropriate therapeutic uses and to encourage research on cannabis as a treatment alternative.

Goals:

  • To serve veterans as an educational and patient advocacy resource on medical cannabis related veterans issues.
  • To work with the Veterans Health Administration on crafting medical cannabis policy and ensure that veterans affairs medical staff are well informed of the latest medical cannabis research findings.
  • To encourage the federal government to reschedule cannabis to an appropriate drug control schedule given the scientific facts that are now well known.
  • To ensure that state laws allowing for the medical use of cannabis recognize medical conditions common to veterans such as chronic pain and PTSd.

    • Advisory Board:

    Al Byrne-Lcdr, SC, USN (ret)
    Founding Director of VMCA. Son of cancer patient, Howardsville, VA

    >>

    Martin H. Chilcutt
    Retired Psychologist
    mhchilcutt@gmail.com

    >>

    Dr. Phillip Leveque, DO, Ph.D
    World War II U.S. Marine Infantryman
    Forensic Toxicologist and Pharmacologist

    >>

    Mary Lynn Mathre, RN, MSN, CARN
    Substance Abuse Consultant, Howardsville, VA

    >>

    Dr. Robert Melamede, Ph.D
    Associate Professor and Biology Chairman (ret)
    Biology Department, University of Colorado

    >>

    Dr. David Ostrow, MD, Ph.D., FAPA
    Director, Ostrow & Associates

    >>

    Dr. Tom O'Connell, M.D.
    Researcher
    Dr. Tom O'Connell's Weblog

    >>

    Perry Parks, CSP
    CW4 United States Army Retired

    >>

    John Targowski, Attorney
    Law Office of John Targowski, P.C.
    310 East Michigan Ave Ste 501
    Kalamazoo, MI 49007
    (269) 290 5606
    www.targowskilaw.com

    <<

    Executive Director:

    Michael Krawitz
    miguet@infionline.net
    540-365-2141

    A little about our Executive Director:

    A disabled US Air Force veteran, Michael Krawitz served from 1981 to 1986 

and was injured in an accident in Guam that was deemed "in the line of duty" 

although not in any way combat related. Mr. Krawitz had some 13 surgeries 

to put him back together including some done in the Air Force and some done 

by VA. His job title in the Air Force was Electronic Warfare Systems Technician. 



In Guam he worked on equipment onboard B-52's. Since his disability - separation 

he attended college at Virginia Tech and although attaining a 4.0 grade point 

average in his Junior year of Computer Engineering he had to leave college 

because of the medical disablity. 



Since leaving college Mr. Krawitz tried to use his time well as an advocate 

and in 1998 he was able to be part of a United Nations drug summit. He 

gave testimony and presented information inside the UN General Assembly 

Hall on the basic right to access required medicine. Since then he has been 

a leader in this international field of NGO drug policy work and was a key 

player in the recent UN NGO drug summit and was responsible for writing 

the grants and the arrangements for the bulk of the US drug policy reform 

leadership to attend and participate in the summit which can be viewed 

on this website: www.vngoc.org 



Mr Krawitz was responsible for a bill being submitted to Virginia's Legislature 

in 2009, to be refiled in 2012, reforming Virginia's long standing medical 

marijuana law. 



Mr. Krawitz has done many TV, radio and print media interviews in his 

advocacy work including a spot on NBC network news just after the release 

of the landmark Institute of Medicine [IOM] medical marijuana report and another on 

FOX network news just after the the new VA medical cannabis policy directive 

went into effect. The pain case study in the handbook that accompanied the 

IOM report is his personal story and the HCV story in the report itself is the 

study of one of his patient advocacy cases. 



Mr. Krawitz is on the board of advisers of Patients Out of Time, a leading 

medical marijuana patient advocacy organization offering continuing medical

education credits to medical professionals and has recently taken over the job of 

running all aspects of Veterans For Medical Cannabis Access.

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    By mail:

    Veterans For Medical Cannabis Access
    3551 Flatwoods Road
    Elliston, Virginia 24087