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Could Pot Help Veterans With PTSD?
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Newsweek
Posted: August 16th, 2015
http://www.newsweek.com/pot-and-ptsd-358139
Marijuana and the Veterans Affairs Hospital systems relationship is complicated. On the one hand, 23 states plus the District of Columbia say marijuana is legal for sanctioned medical use, and veterans are clamoring for it for their post-combat symptoms. On the other, marijuana is classified a Schedule I drug. Veterans [have] been stuck in the middle. As many as 20 percent of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Antidepressants like Zoloft and Paxil, along with other heavy-duty pills, have been the traditional mainstays in VA doctors arsenals. Non-FDA approved options, marijuana among them, havent been options at all. But that has started to change. The Veterans Equal Access Act ... aims to open the entire VA system to judicious prescription of medical cannabis. Prior to its introduction, VA doctors couldnt even discuss cannabis with their patients, much less prescribe it. Arizona psychiatrist Sue Sisley [has] spent two decades treating patients with PTSD. All we have now is Zoloft and Paxil. And if you know much about those meds, you know there are many side effects, and they often dont work. If they are effective, then patients are dealing with these side effects, Sisley adds. Vets come home from service, and they just want to reintegrate into their family. And we make them fat and impotent and mired in a bunch of disabling side effects. When asked why marijuana might be better than other options, Sisleys quick to answer: A single plant can provide monotherapy for this whole constellation of symptoms.
Note: The war on drugs has been called a "trillion dollar failure". The healing potentials of mind altering drugs are starting to be openly investigated.
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