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Don’t Let the DEA Ban Recommending Medical Marijuana for Veterans
The DEA is preventing doctors at veteran’s hospitals from recommending medical marijuana to patients — even in the 14 states where medical marijuana is legal.
The Veterans Administration is taking advice from the DEA based on the federal government’s assertion that marijuana has no medicinal value. This especially tragic because of the widespread evidence that marijuana is a safe and effective treatment for post traumatic stress disorder which is all too common among our veterans.
In fact, in New Mexico for example, PTSD is the most common affliction for patients enrolled in the state’s strictly regulated medical marijuana program.
But veterans who could benefit from medical marijuana, regardless of the legality in their own states, have to go outside the VA system and find new doctors just to learn about and try a potentially helpful medicine.
Sign this petition and tell the Obama administration that our veterans deserve better. They deserve to have doctors who practice medicine, not politics.
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Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=21747
Posted by Johnny Punish on Mar 15 2010, With 0 Reads, Filed under Health, PTSD. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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DEA fags FAIL!
All your base are belong to us.
Now you eat donut with hand on gun always on scan because public alienation.
If America safer, how come cops getting slaughtered willy nilly?
You are fools!
Based on the unalterable proviso that drug use is essentially an unstoppable and ongoing human behavior which has been with us since the dawn of time, any serious reading on the subject of past attempts at any form of drug prohibition would point most normal thinking people in the direction of sensible regulation. By its very nature prohibition cannot fail but create a vast increase in criminal activity, and rather than preventing society from descending into anarchy, it actually fosters an anarchic business model – the international Drug Trade. Any decisions concerning quality, quantity, distribution and availability are then left in the hands of unregulated, anonymous, ruthless drug dealers, who are interested only in the huge profits involved.
Many of us have now finally wised up to the fact that the best avenue towards realistically dealing with drug use and addiction is through proper regulation, which is what we already do with alcohol & tobacco –two of our most dangerous mood altering substances. But for those of you whose ignorant minds traverse a fantasy plane of existence, you will no doubt remain sorely upset with any type of solution that does not seem to lead to the absurd and unattainable utopia of a drug free society. There is an irrefutable connection between drug prohibition and the crime, corruption, disease and death it causes. If you are not capable of understanding this connection, then maybe you’re using something far stronger than the rest of us. Anybody ‘halfway bright’ and who’s not psychologically challenged, should be capable of understanding, that it is not simply the demand for drugs that creates the mayhem; it is our refusal to allow legal businesses meet that demand. No amount of money, police powers, weaponry, wishful thinking or pseudo-science will make our streets safer; only an end to prohibition can do that. How much longer are you willing to foolishly risk your own survival by continuing to ignore the obvious, historically confirmed solution?
If you still support prohibition then prepare yourself for even more death, corruption, terrorism, sickness, imprisonment, unemployment, foreclosed homes, and the complete loss of the rule of law and the Bill of Rights.
The only thing prohibition successfully does is prohibit regulation & taxation!
very coherent. thank you.
I worked in drug addiction clinics of Philadelphia for years, and I have seen plenty of cases of severe dependence on opiates as well as many “nerve” and “sleeping” pills. Recent overdose death of Corey Haim is a good illustration of what I have observed over and over – an addiction to current “legal” controlled prescription drugs. At the same time I have seen very, very few questionable cases of marijuana dependence and NEVER a case of marijuana “overdose”. The so-called “gateway drug” theory is a complete fantasy, and according to Substance Abuse: A Comprehensive Textbook, 4-th Edition, cannabis use suppresses, instead of inciting, violent crime (p. 267) Since medical marijuana is also highly effective in a variety of medical conditions (pain, muscle spasms, malnutrition, nausea, glaucoma to just name a few), as well as depression, anxiety, insomnia, mood swings and PTSD, it should be legalized ASAP and made available to our veterans.
Thank you for a concise argument in support of this subject.
the va told me the one thing not to do with ptsd is drink-weed has helped me more than all the va treatment i have recieved for 40 years-
My name is James Morrow, I am a US Army and US Navy veteran and get my medical treatments through the Togus, Maine VAMC. I recently broke the ice regarding the use of Medical Marijuana issue w/ my health care provider. I was informed that VA recently had an in-service for the doctors there where they had been instructed not to engage in discussions of the use of Medical Marijuana w/ patients. That the reason for this policy is because the VA does not want to appear as if it is promoting the use of marijuana, PERIOD! That the DEA has federally mandated laws stateing that marijuana has NO viable medical use and that it is an ILLEGAL drug.
BUT, at least one of my VA care providers “personally” disagrees and stated to me that he belives that there is in fact substanciated medical uses for medical marijuana that patients could benefit from. One big drawback though, the DEA has threatened to revoke ANY licencing of any VA doctor, his ability to prescribe medication, from any doctor who makes a Medical Marijuana RECCOMENDATION!
Let us be clear on one issue, a medical marijuana reccomendation is NOT a PRESCRIPTION! All it is, is a doctor stating that it is in his professional opinion that his patient could benefit from the use of marijuana as a course of treatment.
All we want is for something that is natural, with less of these crazy side effects, and non-addictive, to treat the pain, the sickness, the nausea, the anxiety, without making us zombies or addicted to narcotics from the shopping bag full of drugs that the VA sends us home with every month, and to be afforded the same federally protected rights to reccomendations and treatments as NON-VA patients. The problem is that the VA doesnt get a big kickback from the drug companies, if vets start effectively treating their ailments with the use of medical marijuana, like they do by ordering millions of dollars of manufactured drugs from the pharacutical companies.
But the first thing that has to happen is for us vets to do is ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, DEMAND that our request for a Medical Marijuana Reccomendation be put INTO our official medical record EACH and EVERY time we see and ask for a RECCOMENDATION from any one of VA health care providers, whether it be our PCP (primary care physicians, mental health care providers, etc….) It is up to us, the vets, to make it quite clear that we have federally protected rights to at least ASK for the reccomendation, (if of course it is pertaining and relevant to our individual treatments) and that a record mof such REQUEST be noted within our official medical file. Then get copies showing that you made every effort possible to avail yourself w/ such treatments from the VAMC.
Also, you must remind your health care provider that HE has a right first of all to freedom of speech, in making such reccomendation, remind him that YOUR care is paramount, and that he has a legal obligation to YOU as his Patient to be able to make any and all reasonable and legal RECCOMENDATIONS in regards to your health. (NOT TO MENTION any and all legal ramifications, such as medical malpractice liabilities if he fails to do so.
The VA can no longer be allowed to openly discriminate against medical marijuana patients in states where the use of medical marijuana is LEGAL, and doctors in the VA system should not be “blackmailed” by the DEA for simply stateing their professional opinion. Must we declare a war, an open armed conflict against the DEA to get them out of our VA to protect our rights and the rights of our health care providers, simply for the right to request from our doctors a course of treatment? Remember, we served, we fought, and some died to protect those rights. Now, it is time we foughts for OUR rights and the rights of our health carte providers right to reccomend treatment. (Not even prescribe, but simply RECCOMEND)
James Morrow
james_morrow3@yahoo.com
PS: Feel free to contact me at the above email address regarding this matter, especially if you are a vet who resides in a state where the use of medical marijuana is legal and the VA has refused to even discuss the possibility of a Medical Marijuana Reccomendation as a means of treatment.
Standing around by yourself will get you nowhere, but there is strength in numbers!