About the VMMA

About the VMMA
  • Mission Statement:

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

Goals:

  • To serve veterans as an educational and patient advocacy resource on medical marijuana related veterans issues.
  • To work with the Veterans Health Administration on crafting medical marijuana policy and ensure that veterans affairs medical staff are well informed of the latest medical marijuana research findings.
  • To encourage the federal government to reschedule marijuana 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 marijuana recognize medical conditions common to veterans such as chronic pain and PTSD

    • Advisory Board:

    Al Byrne-Lcdr, SC, USN (ret)
    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 in the USA 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 last
    year, to be refiled this year, 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 FOX network news just after the release of the landmark Institute
    of Medicine medical marijuana report. The pain case study in the handbook
    that accompanied the 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 and has recently taken
    over the job of running all aspects of Veterans For Medical Marijuana
    Access.

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    By mail:

    Veterans for Medical Marijuana Access
    3551 Flatwoods Road
    Elliston, Virginia 24087