Tell the DEA to Lift the Veterans Affairs' Ban on Medical Marijuana

[Royal Sloan 09]

Touring the grounds of the Department of Veterans Affairs last October, Michelle Obama spoke with an air of reverence, saying that the nation's veterans' deserve "our unwavering support." It seems "so simple," she continued. "They deserve the care that they were promised, and they deserve the benefits that they earned."

That may be the case, but inside her husband's administration, politics evidently trump the desire to provide U.S. veterans with the full spectrum of available care. The Drug Enforcement Agency is currently preventing the VA's doctors from recommending medical marijuana to their patients -- even in the 14 states where medical marijuana is legal. Any doctor who feels duty-bound to communicate the drugs' benefits to former soldiers risks civil and criminal penalties, as well as a lost license.

Among all of the uses for medical marijuana -- relief from nausea for people with cancer and HIV/AIDS and severe pain -- its benefits for victims of post-traumatic stress disorder are among the best-studied and documented out there. The need, too, is overwhelming: According to 2008 figures, some 20% of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer the disorder, yet less than 10% of veterans with PTSD ever receive full treatment. Meanwhile as Marjorie Childress writes, veteran suicides have "skyrocketed;" since 2001, more veterans have committed suicide than have died in the combined combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan.

For veterans like Charlie, who was deployed in Afghanistan before being discharged in 2006 -- and suffers from PTSD, as well as traumatic brain and back injuries and gastrointestinal problems -- nothing has helped his pain so much as marijuana. While the VA had tried giving him six different antidepressants, lorazepam for his anxiety, two sleeping aids, a trio of medicines for stomach problems and Topomax and amyltriptomine for his migraines, it was marijuana, he says, that ultimately brought him relief. Unlike other medications, it didn't reduce him to a "zombie," it didn't make him feel constantly jittery or drunk, and it didn't cause him to throw up.

Link;http://criminaljustice.change.org/blog/view/tell_the_dea_to_lift_the_veterans_affairs_ban_on_medical_marijuana


Cannabis works, give the veterans what helps them, what more proof do they need? University of Cal/Davis Medical school has released Medical research findings that have the proof that Cannnabis is very useful in the treatment of various health issues for the Human species. Enough with the lame excuses by the lying government, let's legalize Cannabis!
Change? Hope?
End the War on the People(Drugs)

[CountAllVotes]

1. it is not going to happen

Marijuana is illegal according to Federal law. Veterans are bound by the Federal government and the laws that surround it.

[rcrush]

2. I know soldiers here who get it from their doctors

A friend of mine is in the Army and he says there are burn victims from Iraq who are at BAMC who get Medical Marijuana from the base pharmacy. He says its usually crappy weed but no one stops them from smoking it.

Although he says they are THE ONLY ones who are allowed to get it. These are the guys who are burned 90% of their body. Because my friend was shot and he isnt allowed marijuana. But they give him all the pain pills he wants.

[ddeclue]

3. no.