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Mar-13-2012 12:08printcomments

PTSD: the Trillion Dollar Time Bomb
Cannabis is the Best Therapy

In the meantime Military and veteran suicides are reaching an alarming level.

Marijuana leaf
Courtesy: erowid.org

(MOLALLA, OR) - The Oregonian newspaper, March 10, 2012, Broken Bodies, Broken Souls, which aptly exposes the monstrous medical dilemma about maybe 1,000,000 military PTSD victims. Probably about one half will be declared unemployable because of what military battle service has done to their minds. PTSD and/or TBI literally destroyed their minds! It is difficult for combat/battle veterans to re-integrate into society. The differences are too great.

During combat every person, except for your closest buddy is an enemy camouflaged behind civilian clothing. Where a bomb or grenade is hidden waiting for the proper time to e thrown and kill or maim one. In a combat zone this continues 24 hours per day and can occur in the next second. There is no way to avoid or dismiss this mindset for survival, no way to escape nor minimize it.

The Oregonian as well as the Military Physicians, especially, brand these PTSD veterans as SUBSTANCE ABUSERS because they use a medicine which works – Cannabis or Alcohol because PTSD veterans have found that those two medicines work much better than morphine-like drugs, valium-like drugs, anti-depressants or a whole passel of drugs the military and VA doctors literally throw at the victims which usually make the PTSD patients worse. Today’s story is a typical example. There are 21 thousand plus veterans in Oregon and about 3000 will have severe PTSD. At least half will be “unemployable”.

The Oregonian article by Mike Francis deftly portrays the problems of one severely affected PTSD/TBI veteran. The Army and PTSD have destroyed him and the rest of us owe him whatever it takes to try to normalize him.

Along with this Oregon Guard PTSD victim recent news articles have come out reducing PTSD to pre-Army personality disorders which is really pernicious medical malpractice reportedly ordered by a non medical commanding officer to Army Psychiatrists. There is supposed to be about 285 soldiers getting shafted but it is most likely 10 times that not only from Ft. Lewis, Washington but all around the country.

In the meantime Military and veteran suicides are reaching an alarming level. Some say it is about 18 per day which totals about 700 per year which means that military life and post-military life is far more dangerous than combat itself.

The military and VA doctors are prescribing gobs of medications which they really KNOW that they do not work most of the time and the military and veteran patients revert back to what they know will work. This includes alcohol and heroin both of which can be lethal. In at least one state, New Mexico, veterans can legally use Cannabis and 45% of the permit holders are PTSD veterans.

In my own case as a Cannabis doctor I had at least 1000 PTSD veterans who fortunately had physical problems allowing them to get Medical Cannabis permits. Almost every state has Veterans Groups trying to change Cannabis laws so they can use Cannabis for PTSD and possibly TBI.

IT’S TIME TO LEGALIZE CANNABIS!!!

______________________________________________________

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M. Dennis Paul, Ph.D. March 13, 2012 2:44 pm (Pacific time)

Currently, the US Government estimates that 1 in 6 returned vets are homeless. That is, in my opinion, a low estimate as there exists no solid effort to identify the homeless, let alone locate all that are out there roaming the streets, woods, and subways. Since I can recall, the government has done its best to hide the facts and figures and has taken great effort to disguise the causes for such a sizable homeless vet population. Dr. Levesque knows well one of the leading causes...PTSD.

I believe he is also well aware that neglect goes hand in hand here. Sadly, when the neglected attempt to medicate themselves (it is man's nature to attempt self healing)they are often subjected to a legal system that prefers to recognize substance use as a crime rather than a cry for help. On the other side of the card is a medical system that prefers to dole out some of the most dangerous and destructive drugs imaginable to those it callously misdiagnoses.

There is so much compelling evidence for the use of marijuana for PTSD and other diagnoses that it becomes criminal to both deny its legal use and arrest those who use it. While I advocate full legalization of marijuana, I believe it is exceptionally warranted in the case of those men and women whose minds and very lives are devastated by the unholy wars we create and cause them to serve within.

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Sean Flynn was a photojournalist in Vietnam, taken captive in 1970 in Cambodia and never seen again.