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Vets with PTSD and Compassionate Cannabis Laws
by Eileen Fleming
“Physicians should use the same standard of care in recommending medical marijuana to patients as they would when recommending or approving any other medication.”- Frank Lucido, M.D
Cannabis, also known as marijuana, comes from the seed bearing Cannabis plant and is known for its use as a psychoactive drug and for medicinal purposes.
Medical cannabis refers to its physician-recommended forms-the God designed way as an herbal therapy, or man-made synthetic forms such as in the drugs Marinol and Cesamet.
Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds…And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours…—I give every green plant”…And God saw that it was good and it was so. -Genesis 1:11-12, 29-30
The Cannabis plant from which the cannabis drug is derived has a long history of medicinal use, with evidence dating back to 2,737 BCE.[1]
From the time of the United States Revolution through World War I, Veterans had legal access to cannabis; but in 1942 a few powerful men managed to have cannabis removed from the United States Formulary.
In recent years, the number of veterans seeking disability compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has spiked by almost 80 percent.
America’s veterans are killing themselves at the rate of over five hundred suicides a month.
Approximately 20% of veterans returning from Iraq/Afghanistan are being diagnosed with PTSD.
VA statistics regarding Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans:
- Veterans Diagnosed by VA with Mental Health Condition: 193,879 (45.6% of veterans treated by VA)
- Veterans Diagnosed by VA with PTSD: 114,908 (27.0% of veterans treated by VA)
- Veterans Filing Disability Claims Against VA: 381,782 (38.9% of veterans)
- Veterans with Approved PTSd Claims: 53,079 (46.2% of the veterans diagnosed by VA with PTSd)
- Veterans: 981,834 (out of nearly two million deployed)
- Veterans Treated at VA Hospitals and Clinics: 425,538 (43.3% of veterans)
Medical research has shown medical marijuana has been very successful in treating PTSD and it’s symptoms.
Medical science proves that the human body makes it’s own cannabis like substances called cannabinoids which are known to ease pain and anxiety. The cannabinoids in marijuana work with this natural body system to ease the symptoms of PTSD, which would give disabled Veterans a big improvement in their quality of life.
PTSD patients have poor responses to psychotherapy and often turn to alcohol and drugs. Many also suffer from chronic pain and addictions to opiate pain medications. However, Vets with access to Cannabis under medical marijuana laws, report cannabis use is a uniquely successful treatment of their symptoms.
In 2005, Psychiatrist Tod Mikuriya, MD, wrote:
“Approximately eight percent of the 9,000 Californians whose cannabis use I have monitored presented with PTSD (309.81) as a primary diagnosis. Many of them are Vietnam veterans whose chronic depression, insomnia, and accompanying irritability cannot be relieved by conventional psychotherapeutics and is worsened by alcohol. For many of these veterans, chronic pain from old physical injury compounds problems with narcotic dependence and side effects of opioids.
“Cannabis relieves pain, enables sleep, normalizes gastrointestinal function and restores peristalsis. Fortified by improved digestion and adequate rest, the patient can resist being overwhelmed by triggering simuli. There is no other psychotherapeutic drug with these synergistic and complementary effects.
“In treating PTSD, psychotherapy should focus on improving how the patient deals with resurgent symptoms rather than revisitation of the events. Decreasing vulnerability to symptoms and restoring control to the individual take priority over insight as treatment goals. Revisiting the traumatic events without closure and support is not useful but prolongs and exacerbates pain and fear of loss of control.”
Michael Krawitz, a Disabled United States Air Force Sergeant and the Executive Director of Veterans For Medical Cannabis Access wrote:
As the leader of Veterans For Medical Cannabis Access [VMCA] I helped the VA create a medical marijuana policy that respects the rights of disabled Veterans using this important medicine according to state laws. That policy has been made to look like a cruel joke given the latest actions of this presidential administration.
In response to the actions of the president, our organization has crafted a petition that we have placed on the new White House, “We The People” website: http://wh.gov/4xd “Allow United States Disabled Military Veterans access to medical marijuana.”
The fact that a Veteran in New Mexico can use cannabis legally for PTSD, but a similar Veteran in Florida will face arrest and punishment at the VA hospital for using the same medicine is wrong. It is illogical. It is not the practice of medicine; it is the practice of politics on the wounded. It is shameful and must end! [2]
In 2008, there were over three hundred thousand backlogged disability claims involving veterans with PTSD and depression and that fact depresses me!
We owe our Veterans true support and that includes fighting for their right to obtain Medical Cannabis.
If this fiscal conservative, spiritual progressive and citizen of conscience is elected to the US House of Representatives in 2012, among my first acts of Congress will be to sponsor a House Resolution for Compassionate Cannabis laws in Florida and I will strive to make it National.
Learn More:
Please donate to my campaign and receive a signed copy of my third book Read more…
1. ^ Mohamed Ben Amar (2006). “Cannabinoids in medicine: A review of their therapeutic potential”. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 105 (1–2): 1–25. doi:10.1016/j.jep.2006.02.001. PMID 16540272.
2. Veterans for medical cannabis access—action-alert
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=154566
Posted by Eileen Fleming on Oct 25 2011, With 0 Reads, Filed under Vet News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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If elected, among my other acts of congress will be:
1. To invite all the USS LIBERTY vets who want to speak on the Record regarding what they saw that day in infamy when the LBJ Administration failed to support the troops and “not embarrass an ally.”
As that “ally” has become an increasing liability a change of course is most required!
2. Request an open, transparent, thorough investigation of all the questions the 9/11 Families have NOT received answers for.
In Solidarity YES WE CAN begin the world again,
Eileen Fleming, a Citizen of CONSCIENCE for House of Representatives 2012
Thanks Eileen, just for being you.
Love is like that, is it not girlfriend, we are creatures which seek and bestow our affection which is love that is a natural extension of God’s promise in our lives, to be involved as creators of love in our endeavors with all other creatures as best we can is good stewardship of our gift of life. Soldiers, trained in combat arms arts rarely are appreciated as peacekeeping or peacemakers, but of course, we are that and can be much more if we are followed after service in care of our health as assiduously as we are courted before our service by recruiters for Uncle Sams military. Rejection post service may be from two possible problems with post service care of vets as regards their entitlements to treatment for PTSD disorders and other service related maladies.One sense of rejection is from the mental state of vets unwilling to ask for help from a service agency they feel is immorally founded and irrationally overbaring in their mission, scope of force and rationale of expenditures, This type of rejection is made by the vet against their better judgment as regards being treated for maladies by the service brances hospitals and regaing their mental or phisical health paid for by those whose service inflicted these wounds, the other is a rejection made by the Veterans administration of clandestine services not registered as official which garner no benefits or recognition of service as service but are regarded by the VA as disservice due to activist roles engaged in the lives of anti violence orinted protesting veterans for peace, The rejection made is a security based one that pervades Homeland Security’s countenance and bars many vets from seeking aid for their travails due to a state of confusion as to if they are loved by their nation unconditionally or not, which is born on insecurity in the vets mind made so by their lack of trust in the banner they once served as it stands today,
My nations service at one time meant the world to me and still has a clarion call about my life’s work and sentiments, but that nation died a grisly death and it’s foundations are rocked with corruptions and unsavory alliances to the point of disownership made in my minds eye and I cannot recouple until the path, narrow and true to salvation, is made willingly by my nations leadership and their constituents which shows their understanding of why vets refuse treatment from Veterans affairs administrations out of a lack of a feeling of being a part of something good, well reasoned and clearly supportive of the American melting pot we all signed on to serve and protect with our lives, Until I see a nations leaders rejecting ugly foreign influence and regaining their moral fibre, I wont feel that I am due anything from what I now see as my nations service to veterns entitlements I am not entitled to anything from an ediface of evil militarist intentions against people who DO RESPECT ME, and want nothing but to be left alone to die in my own way, as Ghadaffi did under US miliraism, as an enemy of it, a martyr dieng every day for ALLAH is my way of life, I’ll buy my own weed and smoke with angels the US DOD will meet someday but not on friendly terms, again, quite unfortunatly, we all chose our fate, do we not?
Yeah I think we do get to “choose our fate” and whether we unite with our destiny is a matter of doing something to achieve it.
As you also wrote: “…I see a nations leaders rejecting ugly foreign influence and regaining their moral fiber…”
I do see it and as Rilke wrote: “You must give birth to your images and dreams; They are the future waiting to be born.”
My image/dream is that we the people will take over The HOUSE as all the Founding Fathers required to enter the House of Rep. is be at least 25, a citizen for 7 years and live in the state which your district resides.
AND as we the people have RIGHTS and Governments have Obligations, it is our duty and responsibility to seize our RIGHTS:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all [people] are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights…that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among [people] deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the RIGHT of the people to ALTER or to ABOLISH it.” -July 4, 1776, The Declaration of Independence.
What I found out in combat in Vietnam about pot was that for alot of us it was the alternative to alcohol and other strong psychotropic perscriptions or opium. Didnt smoke in the field but after combat operations, some of us smoked, got musical and we analized the insanity of that war and war in general. When not drinking with pot, there was more critical thinking, creative thinking, individual thinking and questioning of authority. The last thing many of the medical/authoritarian/corporate/military leaders and followers in this country want is the situation of, What if they gave a War and no one came? These authorities would have to fight each other and leave the rest of us alone. Pot is a minor tranquilizer for some and for some it is a mild hallucigen and for others it expands the mind in order to by- pass the brain-washing that the military and media and politicians do to people to keep them complient. The higher functioning part of my brain, the moral conscience part of my brain, the critical thinking part of my brain, and the common sense part of my brain all woke up in Vietnam after enough carnage and then smoking pot in the rear with a few others who were waking up. This plant is looked at by some as a dangerous drug that helps folks question things too much for the powerful status quo. It is looked at by some as a multi-billion dollar industry that because of it’s illegality is causing drug-gang related violence that makes alcohol prohibition look like Disney Land. Doctors, wake up, they brainwashed you in the rigorous, ER shifts that you trained in and were traumatized in. Now you walk around prescribing all these strong ass meds for PTSD that not only dont work but create at best comfortably numb veterans. With proper guidance and teaching, pot can be very helpful to process and move through the suffering from war. I am experienced enough from many angles with this issue and believe that the reluctance to legalize at least medical pot nationwide is all about money and control rather then healing. This will change. the 60s were not that long ago and those roots are still with us in terms of peace, compassion, love and wakefulness and mindfullness and radar for bullshit. Peace and prosperity to you Eileen. Thanks.
Thank you for reading, writing, your service and insight:
“with pot, there was more critical thinking, creative thinking, individual thinking and questioning of authority…the moral conscience part of my brain, the critical thinking part of my brain, and the common sense part of my brain all woke up in Vietnam after enough carnage and then smoking pot in the rear with a few others who were waking up.”
PS: My husband is an Internist/Geriatrician and he tells me he has seen way too many alcohol OD’s but he has never seen an OD of cannabis.
Pot….the drug of choice. Doesn’t mess with your liver and kidney function, doesn’t cause you to want to fight, kill
or get rowdy and loud and DOES NOT cause one to want to get behind the wheel and possibly harm or kill others.
It mellows you out so you don’t get so frustrated with all of the shit going on in your life, the world and all of the
asshole Republican presidential “hopefuls” and ALL of the takers (both parties) we have representing us in
DC. I have PTSD..I smoke pot. It helps more than the diazapam, mirtazapine, trazodone and all of the other drugs that physicians use to treat anxiety and depression. How else would the drug makers make those huge profits if it weren’t for the scripts the medical community gives out ?!! I haven’t had a drop of alcohol in 10, maybe 15 years. Alcohol is poison. I never smoked pot in Nam. The place was too scary..you never knew when
the shit would hit the fan. But after coming back “to the world” I did start. Too much shit going on in my mind
from the Nam experience. It has helped immensly. VA docs won’t prescribe it….idiots. And can you imagine
how much better off our economy would be if it was legalized ? Tax revenues up the ying-yang. I have scripts
for the above mentioned meds from the VA. How else would I be able to deal the with “the powers that be”
that control my PTSD ? Play their game or you lose. Semper Fi to ALL vets…..
Thank you for sharing all of this.
RE: “the powers that be” such as pharmaceutical companies and politicians who have never inhaled: I have no interest in playing their game as the problems of the now cannot/will not be solved by the minds that helped create them and I do “imagine how much better off our economy would be if it was legalized. Tax revenues up the ying-yang” and the prison population would dramatically decrease.
IF anyone gets “ticketed” for using cannabis insist on a jury!
No jury of ones peers today will find ANYONE GUILTY for using it! There would have to be something else.
Can you say “jury nullification”? I knew that you could.
Thank you Mr. BJ
BJ..good though. But in most states, especially the deep south and my state of Arizona, there are so many
rednecks and close-minded people the statement you made would not fly. Even though our voters here
voted to legalize medicinal marijuana last year, our infamous Govenor Jan Brewer has yet let it come to
fruition. The Feds have her back since it is illegal to them, so she uses that for an excuse. You can buy a gun,
conceal it, take it with you to a bar (drunk and packin’ !) all without a permit. That’s how crazy this (still) wild,
wild west state is !!! Oh, well, happy tokin’ !! Semper Fi…..