Medicinal Marijuana for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Few opinions ignite the passions of people across the United States of America as the medical use of marijuana for any reason. However as more and more studies reveal the benefits of marijuana as used for pain, cancers, depression, and other physical and mental disorders, as well as the studies done that have determined that the common belief that THC, the principal ingredient found to be of medical use to patients, causes memory loss are faulty, it is becoming more apparent that the movement for legalizing marijuana for medical purposes is gaining ground. There is one sticking point though, the use of marijuana as a treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, commonly known as PTSD.

The reason for this sticking point is fairly simple; it's a mass psychological reality inside the US Military. "Pot" was widely used by the anti-war "hippie" movement during the Vietnam War. Inside the US Military the failure of the War in Vietnam is still a large black stain on our Marshal Culture. It takes minimal effort these days to find any number of stories of retired soldiers across the country who were arrested with marijuana and the Military then stripped them of any and all decorations and then reversed their discharge from honorable to dishonorable. I personally find, as a retired soldier myself, completely unacceptable, as I hope everyone does.

My own personal story starts like this; I was wounded and medically discharged after spending 3 years, 3 months and 13 days in the US Military. On January the 5^th of 2005 I was officially a civilian again, and one of the first things I did was buy a bottle of Jack Daniels. I climbed down the neck of that bottle and didn't come out again for over a year, at which point I admitted that I was an Alcoholic, went to AA, and have been sober since. I did it for the same reason soldiers have been doing it for centuries now, to stave off the images of the horror that is war.

My alcoholism, while if it had continued would have wrecked my liver, was then completely eclipsed. Having a need to stave off the images of war, I sought psychiatric help. The list of my prescriptions included Vicoprofin at 15mg as needed for pain, Valium at 10 mg twice a day for PTSD, Lamotrigine at 200mg once a day for Depression, and Gabapentin 1600mg twice a day for pain and mental stability. The combined side effects of these prescriptions is the following: Dizziness, Memory Loss, Brain Damage, Liver Damage, Stomach Damage and Citrus Allergy, not to mention so highly addictive that if you stop taking any of the above without a doctor working with you, you can actually die from the detoxification effects. All that and it didn't do more than dull out the world enough for me to stand being alive, but did not succeed in either removing the hallucinations of my PTSD nor help my pain enough to not have to walk with a cane.

I then had a surprising suggestion; I was offered the option of using medicinal marijuana. Since I was still a US Military veteran I was skeptical so I did a little research. It turns out that marijuana studies have shown that there is strong evidence for marijuana as an anti-carcinogenic, an anti-depressant, an immunity booster, a pain reliever, a mental disorder treatment, and most surprising to me actual stimulation of the growth of nerve cells, including brain cells. I'll repeat that, using marijuana actually makes you smarter and more creative; no study has actually shown that regular smokers of marijuana show any less memory loss than the average of all people. It turns out that memory loss is caused by what it always has been; old age. The only negative thing studies have found is that it contains a small number of the same compounds found in tobacco; a legal, addictive recreational drug. The difference between the two is that no study known to this author has found that marijuana is addictive in any way.

I went to see the specialist, was prescribed marijuana and now I sit here pain free and while my memories will never fade they don't come without my consent anymore. I suppose I've crossed that line between the US Military dogma, and the lobbyists working for nationwide medicinal marijuana. I like to think though that myself, and many other soldiers like me, are creating a new line, a line where the health of veteran's matches the service that they have provided their nation, namely anything asked of her, from her citizens, to help heal the pain that they endured on her behalf.