Medical Marijuana proving gateway to better method of medicine in Maine

“I’m using marijuana as the hook to connect people to a better method of medicine, and it’s working,” said Dustin Sulak, an osteopathic doctor from Maine in a recent interview from Morning Sentinel in Maine.

Most average people I run into on the street in my field work as a cannabis activist agree reform is needed, but have no idea what states have laws more liberal than our own, let alone just how stiff a penalty can be for a marijuana offense in another.  Turn that conversation from field work in the street to lobby work in a capitol and sadly you find the same type scenario.  I continue to work with a variety of folks and one person I have found inspiration in is Dave Wilkinson, author of Witchgrass: A Pipe Dream.  His novel is set in Maine and touches on a variety areas in the war on marijuana his work continues to to help the marijuana movement.  Maine is making marijuana news right along with him.

Dustin Sulak probably has the fastest growing medical practice in Maine.
  The osteopathic doctor, who’s been licensed for just over a year, had 30 patients last fall. Now, he treats 1,300.  On the wall of Sulak’s examination room, next to his diplomas and state license, are framed certificates naming him a Reiki master and a clinical hypnotherapist.  All patients, on their first visit, get a hands-on healing treatment from either Sulak or a nurse practitioner, he said between bites of quinoa, a grain-like seed that he ate from a mason jar.

Just like we found out in Wisconsin, most doctors and patients are willing to address medical marijuana, with many patients self medicating everyday.  The article touches on that very subject also and addresses the need for doctor’s and patients to decide what is best for their pharma protocol, not government mandates.  I specifically would like to see post-traumatic stress included as a qualifying ailment in Wisconsin.

Sulak said most of his patients already use marijuana and, in light of the new law, have decided to get the legal protection the state offers. He does have to turn down patients who he believes benefit from the drug but don’t qualify under the law. Most of them suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, Sulak said.

The main stream media picks and chooses what to report on, we always hear about the California dispensaries and news from the west coast.  As I stated in my opening paragraph, most people I speak to have no clue just how many states have medical marijuana laws.  The positive impacts are everywhere in Maine, including marijuana providing a gateway to a method of better medicine, not a gateway to use of harder drugs as the old propaganda suggests.

Sulak takes his time with appointments and, because of that, he tends to run behind schedule. On the coffee table is a laptop with Internet access, a print out on the benefits of Vitamin D and books about alternative medicine, including “Spontaneous Healing,” by Dr. Andrew Weil. The copy is from Sulak’s freshman year of college. Sulak, who grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, first became interested in alternative medicine when he was teenager experimenting with marijuana. He said the drug “had some positive effects on my psyche,” and opened his mind to more creative thinking.

To read the entire article entitled Central Maine emerges as center of medical marijuana prescribing the following direct link is provided.  Morning Sentinel Link.