{"id":5653,"date":"2017-11-26T10:20:11","date_gmt":"2017-11-26T15:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lcpllutzlivetotell.org\/?p=5653"},"modified":"2019-08-08T12:56:27","modified_gmt":"2019-08-08T16:56:27","slug":"states-mmj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/?p=5653","title":{"rendered":"Veterans are key, states OK medical pot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Veterans are key as surge of states OK medical pot for PTSD<\/h3>\n


\nA worker looks at a marijuana plant at the Desert Grown Farms cultivation facility in Las Vegas on June 28. Twenty-eight states plus the District of Columbia have enabled the use of marijuana to treat PTSD. (John Locher\/Associated Press)<\/span><\/p>\n

By\u00a0Associated Press<\/span>\u00a0November 26<\/span><\/div>\n
NEW YORK \u2014 It was a telling setting for a decision on whether post-traumatic stress disorder patients could use medical marijuana.Against the backdrop of the nation\u2019s largest Veterans Day parade, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced this month he\u2019d sign legislation making New York the latest in a fast-rising tide of states to OK therapeutic pot as a PTSD treatment, though it\u2019s illegal under federal law and doesn\u2019t boast extensive, conclusive medical research.Twenty-eight states plus the District of Columbia now include PTSD in their medical marijuana programs, a tally that has more than doubled in the last two years, according to data compiled by the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project. A 29th state, Alaska, doesn\u2019t incorporate PTSD in its medical marijuana program but allows everyone over 20 to buy pot legally.<\/p>\n
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The increase has come amid increasingly visible advocacy from veterans\u2019 groups .<\/p>\n

Retired Marine staff sergeant Mark DiPasquale says the drug freed him from the 17 opioids, anti-anxiety pills and other medications that were prescribed to him for migraines, post-traumatic stress and other injuries from service that included a hard helicopter landing in Iraq in 2005.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI just felt like a zombie, and I wanted to hurt somebody,\u201d says DiPasquale, a co-founder of the Rochester, New York-based Veterans Cannabis Collective Foundation. It aims to educate vets about the drug he pointedly calls by the scientific name cannabis.<\/p>\n

DiPasquale pushed to extend New York\u2019s nearly two-year-old medical marijuana program to include post-traumatic stress. He\u2019d qualified because of other conditions but felt the drug ease his anxiety, sleeplessness and other PTSD symptoms and spur him to focus on wellness.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo I still have PTSD? Absolutely,\u201d says DiPasquale, 42. But \u201cI\u2019m back to my old self. I love people again.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a sign of how much the issue has taken hold among veterans, the 2.2-million-member American Legion began pressing the federal government this summer to let Department of Veterans Affairs doctors recommend medical marijuana where it\u2019s legal . The Legion started advocating last year for easing federal constraints on medical pot research , a departure into drug policy for the nearly century-old organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople ask, \u2018Aren\u2019t you the law-and-order group?\u2019 Why, yes, we are,\u201d Executive Director Verna Jones said at a Legion-arranged news conference early this month at the U.S. Capitol. But \u201cwhen veterans come to us and say a particular treatment is working for them, we owe it to them to listen and to do scientific research required.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even Veterans Affairs Secretary Dr. David Shulkin recently said \u201cthere may be some evidence that this (medical marijuana) is beginning to be helpful,\u201d while noting that his agency is barred from helping patients get the illegal drug. (A few prescription drugs containing a synthetic version of a key chemical in marijuana do have federal approval to treat chemotherapy-related nausea.)<\/p>\n

Medical marijuana first became legal in 1996 in California for a broad range of conditions; New Mexico in 2009 became the first state specifically to include PTSD patients. States have signed on in growing numbers particularly since 2014.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s quite a sea change,\u201d says Michael Krawitz, a disabled Air Force veteran who now runs Veterans for Medical Cannabis Access, an Elliston, Virginia-based group that\u2019s pursued the issue in many states.<\/p>\n

Still, there remain questions and qualms \u2014 some from veterans \u2014 about advocating for medical marijuana as a treatment for PTSD.<\/p>\n

It was stripped out of legislation that added six other diseases and syndromes to Georgia\u2019s law that allows certain medical cannabis oils. The chairman of the New York Senate veterans\u2019 affairs committee voted against adding PTSD to the state\u2019s program, suggesting the drug might just mask their symptoms.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sooner we allow them to live and experience the kind of emotions we do, in an abstinence-based paradigm, the sooner that they are returning home,\u201d said Sen. Thomas Croci, a Republican, former Navy intelligence officer and current reservist who served in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

The American Psychiatric Association %href_on(file:<\/p>\n

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<\/p>\n

retrieved from: https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/business\/veterans-are-key-as-surge-of-states-ok-medical-pot-for-ptsd\/2017\/11\/26\/61b6e626-d2ba-11e7-9ad9-ca0619edfa05_story.html?tid=ss_fb&utm_term=.bd908bda4361<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Veterans are key as surge of states OK medical pot for PTSD A worker looks at a marijuana plant at the Desert Grown Farms cultivation facility in Las Vegas on June 28. Twenty-eight states plus the District of Columbia have enabled the use of marijuana to treat PTSD. (John Locher\/Associated …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cannabis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}