Page 6 - ARUBA TODAY

A6 U.S. NEWS
Monday 27 noveMber 2017

$ 10

Veterans are key as surge of states OK medical pot for PTSD

By JENNIFER PELTZ “People ask, ‘Aren’t you
Associated Press the law-and-order group?’
NEW YORK (AP) — It was a Why, yes, we are,” Execu-
telling setting for a decision tive Director Verna Jones
on whether post-traumat- said at a Legion-arranged
ic stress disorder patients news conference early this
could use medical mari- month at the U.S. Capitol.
juana. But “when veterans come
Against the backdrop of to us and say a particular
the nation’s largest Veter- treatment is working for
ans Day parade, Demo- them, we owe it to them to
cratic Gov. Andrew Cuo- listen and to do scientific
mo announced this month research required.”Even
he’d sign legislation mak- Veterans Affairs Secretary
ing New York the latest in Dr. David Shulkin recently
a fast-rising tide of states said “there may be some
to OK therapeutic pot as a evidence that this (medi-
PTSD treatment, though it’s cal marijuana) is beginning
illegal under federal law to be helpful,” while noting
and doesn’t boast exten- that his agency is barred
sive, conclusive medical from helping patients get
research. the illegal drug. (A few pre-
Twenty-eight states plus scription drugs containing
the District of Columbia A Marine veteran holds a sign to show support for cannabis for post traumatic stress disorder suf- a synthetic version of a key
ferers, outside the State Capitol in Des Moines, Iowa. Twenty-eight states plus the District of Colum-
now include PTSD in their bia have enabled the use of marijuana to treat PTSD, and the number has doubled just in the last chemical in marijuana do
medical marijuana pro- two years amid increasingly visible advocacy from veterans’ groups. have federal approval to
grams, a tally that has (Michael Zamora/The Des Moines Register via AP) treat chemotherapy-relat-
more than doubled in the says the drug freed him from cate vets about the drug 42. But “I’m back to my old ed nausea.)
last two years, according the 17 opioids, anti-anxiety he pointedly calls by the self. I love people again.” Medical marijuana first be-
to data compiled by the pills and other medica- scientific name cannabis. In a sign of how much the is- came legal in 1996 in Cali-
pro-legalization Marijuana tions that were prescribed DiPasquale pushed to ex- sue has taken hold among fornia for a wide range of
Policy Project. A 29th state, to him for migraines, post- tend New York’s nearly veterans, the 2.2-million- conditions; New Mexico
Alaska, doesn’t incorpo- traumatic stress and other two-year-old medical mari- member American Legion in 2009 became the first
rate PTSD in its medical injuries from service that juana program to include began pressing the fed- state specifically to include
marijuana program but al- included a hard helicopter post-traumatic stress. He’d eral government this sum- PTSD patients. States have
lows everyone over 20 to landing in Iraq in 2005. qualified because of other mer to let Department of signed on in growing num-
buy pot legally. “I just felt like a zombie, conditions but felt the drug Veterans Affairs doctors bers particularly since 2014.
The increase has come and I wanted to hurt some- ease his anxiety, sleepless- recommend medical mari- “It’s quite a sea change,”
amid increasingly visible body,” says DiPasquale, a ness and other PTSD symp- juana where it’s legal . The says Michael Krawitz, a dis-
advocacy from veterans’ co-founder of the Roches- toms and spur him to focus Legion started advocating abled Air Force veteran
groups . ter, New York-based Vet- on wellness. last year for easing federal who now runs Veterans for
Retired Marine staff ser- erans Cannabis Collective “Do I still have PTSD? Ab- constraints on medical pot Medical Cannabis Access,
geant Mark DiPasquale Foundation. It aims to edu- solutely,” says DiPasquale, research , a departure into an Elliston, Virginia-based
drug policy for the nearly group that’s pursued the is-
century-old organization. sue in many states.q