It's time for a WAR ON DRUGS against the U.S. government and the Veteran's Administration.
(SALEM, Ore.) - One after another, we continue to receive horror stories about the VA's medical practices. They want to hook wounded combat veterans on hard pharmaceutical drugs that we have to pay for with our tax dollars, while denying them the one, solitary thing that can bring them relief: medical marijuana.
I am getting SICK of it, and I am not a wounded combat vet suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder who had his life forever impacted as a member of our combat forces. Reading these stories is heart wrenching, and I have to work to keep it together just going over them.
The injured soldiers and Marines and sailors and airmen who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, tell us how damned hard their lives are after returning home with the scars of war, and about the government's enthusiastic position in denouncing a simple herb that grows in the ground that is an answer to all of the problems, or at least part of them.
They are using our advocacy as a lifeline for all Americans to grab onto and move toward change.
People sometimes communicate to me their disapproval of the notion of medical marijuana, and you wouldn't believe how similar of a mold they all seem to spring forth from. I don't care about how those people feel; let them avoid marijuana all their lives and talk about it through knowledge all based on the federal government's lies, but stop denying our veterans even if it makes you uncomfortable.
Some even try to demean combat veterans for using it, and the only thing that takes is a lot of false courage.
That's the whole argument anyway right? The anti-pot people are "uncomfortable" and over the top with ignorance because they think the lies generated 70 years ago by groups like the Hearst Newspaper chain are true. Get over it! Reefer Madness is a joke, it is false.
Allowing combat vets and other people who are sick to use marijuana is compassionate. The only thing required for its acceptance is for people to get over their own hangups and educate themselves. Nobody helps by employing strict and utter condemnation.
Marijuana is the same thing as hemp. Hemp is the single most useful plant known to man on an industrial level, and I write this as our beautiful nation's economy becomes more and more hard pressed. Marijuana typically means the leaves and the flowers and hemp refers to strains not grown to get people "high" but for its many uses like food, clothing, paper and an endless list of uses.
We have allowed our government to become an entirely heartless model and we have to change it now, though yesterday would be better.
One vet who wrote just today, says after Iraq he found that medical marijuana helps him stay off hard addictive drugs. Programmed like other Americans, he felt bad abou this use even though he knew medical marijuana was giving him the relief he was looking for. In an effort to be a good citizen and fit the mold, he still opted to enter the VA's PTSD program.
"I went into the PTSD program. I was faced for 3 weeks having to just resort to meds and meds only. Right back to my worst nightmare."
He says after three weeks of the VA's drug prescriptions, he went cold turkey off methadone, tramadohl, burpropion, and a couple of other prescriptions.
"That wasn't smart but I made it and I will never forget that pain, never!"
Then this combat vet amputee did what the government says he can not do, in spite of how much it helps him. He smoked marijuana and had the honor to disclose it.
"I smoked then told the nurse what I did and she had to do what's fair and the reality of fair. I told her its just not time. I felt at peace within myself. The next day, before the staff had to kick me out, I proudly stood up and told the group what it meant for me to live well."
The government is getting our soldiers addicted to hard drugs by policy, and it is in many cases leading to their deaths. This happens through increased hopelessness, disparity, and suicide.
Every staffer in the VA who doesn't rise up and implement change has a great amount of blood on their hands, along with the politicians who rally against medical marijuana. This soldier who is missing one leg and suffered a broken back when an IED blew up near his position, held his head high and unlike some other combat vets, had his family supporting him.
"I told the staff and proudly took my discharge cause I felt I was in danger again. I came fist and my family came first and proudly faced the man."
So we know that at least one soldier was able to navigate the system which in the end, means not using the VA for their alleged "help" that equates to creating hard drug addicts. The "danger" he experienced before was dealt by the hands of insurgents, now those hands providing danger are connected to doctors and other care providers who work for the VA.
The VA Wants to Kill Combat VeteransSalem-News.com