Page 163 - Total War on PTSD

excessive firing within those structures in patients that have PTSD. So the calming effect may reduce the neuronal firing in those structures,” she says. It offers “a capacity not to forget bad memories but to not fixate on them.” “Unfortunately when it comes to PTSD, we are failing all over the place. Vets are literally walking away from their pills. I have seen videos of Vets chucking their pill bottles on the floors saying, ‘No, we are not going to take these anymore.'” Sisley admits Cannabis isn’t a cure-all. “There is no doubt that Marijuana is a drug. It has benefits, risks and side effects. Anybody who tells you Marijuana has no side effects, well that’s not true. We are trying to do a study where both efficacy and benefits are addressed.”
Twenty-eight states plus the District of Columbia include PTSD in their medical Marijuana programs. The 29th state, Alaska, doesn’t incorporate PTSD into its medical Marijuana program but allows anyone over age 20 to buy pot legally. As retired Marine Staff Sergeant, and co- founder of the New York-based Cannabis Collective, Mark DiPasquale, stated, “The drug freed him from the 17 opioids, anti-anxiety pills and other medications that were prescribed to him for migraines, post-traumatic stress and other injuries from service that included a hard helicopter landing in Iraq in 2005. I just felt like a zombie, and I wanted to hurt somebody.” He pushed to extend New York’s nearly two-year medical Marijuana program to include Post-Traumatic Stress. As the American Legion’s Executive Director Verna Jones stated during a conference in November 2017, “When Veterans come to us and say a particular treatment is working for them, we owe it to them to listen and to do scientific research required.” “The sooner we allow them to live and experience the kind of emotions we do, in an abstinence-based paradigm, the sooner that they are returning home,” said Senator Thomas Croci, former Navy Intelligence Officer and current Reservist who served in Afghanistan. Dr. Thomas Berger, head of the Vietnam Veterans
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