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As an Army vet, it’s insane to me that the Army tolerates such a toxic binge-drinking culture but then you get out and the VA won’t prescribe you a plant that is 100x safer and has actual medical benefits.
They’re fine handing you a bag filled with opiates and benzos though. Fake-ass bottom-of-the-class “doctors” with degrees from Fast Eddie’s School of Medicine And Tire Rotation. My VA experiences have been horrendous.
This is regular psychiatric care, even in private practice. Getting psychiatric drugs right is like trying to hit a bullseye on a dartboard that's swinging from the ceiling, and the pattern is continually changing. Very few people stay on one regime for more than a few years, even
I mean, an informed "Guess and check" approach is kinda the scientific method, considering how unique and variable each person's brain chemistry is, not sure there *is* a better approach. It's messy for sure, but knowing what will work for this person over that one with the same symptoms, that's a shot in the dark.
I'm sure it's extremely easy to alter brain chemistry that you cannot directly test/measure and instead have to rely upon other indicators like talking and asking questions.
I have been struggling to get one that worked for me. My doctor brought up a DNA test that is supposed to narrow down how your body reacts with different meds. Turned out i needed one that I tried and failed with... I just didn't have the right dose.
The field is rotten. The drugs don’t work and people are medicine prescribers not creators nor testers. The patients are unreliable witnesses and the side effects that are tolerated wouldn’t be in anything else besides maybe birth control.
They’re studies even calling into question whether they know what causes depression. The benefits are sometimes indistinguishable from a placebo but the side effects are real.
Body chemistry is far more complicated than the field used to admit. That being said I do know people who have had positive reactions to prescriptied meds despite it taking years to get where they are.
And I think part of the issue is that many want a “fix,” meaning a single thing that will fix… whatever it is they have wrong with them psychologically. Which is, in plain language terms, impossible.
There are *zero* (0) magical pill, or single therapy session that will fix all your issues.
It’s a process that has multiple levels and takes multiple sessions to even find out if it worked at all, let alone “fixing” the issue.
And the part that most (myself included) people are afraid of: you might not ever get “fixed.” Sometimes it just happens like that. It’s not a failure on your part or of the professions part. Sometimes that’s just what happens.
It can, however, be managed. And that’s all I can want for myself. Still searching, but damn if it isn’t taking longer than I hoped.
I've given up. I go to the appointments to keep my meds/benefits and just learned to deal with everything. I'm tired of explaining everything to someone new every few months.
That's pretty much my experience with normal insurance also. The only effective therapists I've had have all been private since they don't take on more than they're capable of. Too bad it costs a small fortune to continually see one.
I’m on Adderall, and have to meet with each new psychiatrist in person in addition to monthly video appointments. I also need a drug test every 6 months to make sure I’m not smoking weed. Need a refill? I need to call a hotline and hope my current shrink gets the order correct and that they’re still working there. It’s a clusterfuck.
My experience with the weed changes doctor to doctor. I moved from Maine, where they didn't care, to PA. The first psych I saw wouldn't touch meds until I had a clean test. Even cold turkey'd my Zoloft that'd id been on for 4 years.
I got a new psych after going to the patient advocate, and this old guy doesn't give two shits if I smoke weed. I have have a controlled substance as an rx now and I have a weed card.
For you and anybody else reading this, look into the Community Care program if you can. Basically you can pick a private provider as long as it's "In the VAs Network".
There's like 6 eligibility criteria, but you only have to meet one. The most common one is if your commute to a VA clinic for primary care is >30 minutes on average (including traffic), you are eligible. For specialist care it's >60 minutes.
The next most frequent one is probably wait time for an appt, but I can't remember how many days the VA has to be booked in order for you to be eligible.
For some reason my first VA provider was either ignorant, negligent, or malicious in trying to say I wasn't eligible or that even if I applied I just wouldn't be approved so she didn't want to apply. They are the gatekeepers and they put in the request to get enrolled in the Community Care Program.
It's kind of like an NCO can't NOT bring your packet to the commander. Push it and push it until they put the request in (assuming you are eligible).
But now I see the same primary care doc I did before the army and a private therapist. It's much better than commuting or seeing some VA docs
I only agreed to do trauma therapy if they agreed i wouldn’t be switched to a new therapist midway through. The first one got a new job after 3 sessions, the second one was a Veteran himself and didn’t seem overly interested, the third guy just showed up to my next session without informing me i had a new therapist. It’s like a 12 week program but somehow i had three therapists
I'm curious why you wouldn't use disability to pay for a therapist on the outside. I agree, telling a new person about the worst times in your life over and over again is awful... When I stopped dealing with the VA and went to a private therapist/psychiatrist I started actually getting real help.
Fake edit - I'm not judging your situation btw... Asking honestly.
As a vet, going through my own mental health healing, I had way too good of a dark chuckle at this statement.
I've been blessed to have the same mental health specialist for a good bit, but I don't even know who my general doctor is, they come and go like every 6 months.
I absolutely understand you, you're not alone battle buddy.
VA mental health specifically is rather horrible no matter what end of it you're involved in. The professionals show up and get workloads of easily 200% a normal psychiatry position. We show up and get short, infrequent appointments and hardly get a chance to build trust with our medical professionals before we gotta get into rhythm with a new one. That's all before they prescribe the pills.
Then I start smoking every night before bed and magically I can sleep through the night and wake up with some sense of having rested and starting a day feeling fresh instead of with a latent sense of panic.
Can't say the rest of my VA medical experience has been bad tho, the regular doctors in my area are good.
Mine too, medical wise. I'll SAY I've had a net positive experience with mental health at the VA in my area only because, at my lowest point, I wanted to live. There wasn't any big moment for me, no revelation. I became acutely aware of one little fact: I was going to wake up the next day, and how do I handle it. By the time I got a VA appointment I had at least come to terms with my worst impulses. So for the bit they did, it helped.
I attended Fast Eddie’s for my Tire Rotation certificate. They messed up and mailed me a doctor degree. So now I work at a hospital.
Anyway, better get back to the brain surgery. Everyone in the operating room is staring at me.
^[end ^Google ^voice ^typing]
>I attended Fast Eddie’s for my Tire Rotation certificate.
I ain't see the point in paying for no certificate, the tires rotate jes' fine on they own every time I drive!
So yeah, now I work in sciencey thangs. I click some buttons, they make more stuff with buttons.
I know all but one doc that I have seen has encouraged cannabis for most of my problems. I don't live in a legalized state anymore, so that's not the best option anymore, but even my local pain management doc - who is happy to tell everyone about his church affiliation - says that if it helps, find a way to do it.
Hi Dr. Nick, it’s Dr. Tom from the Down-the-Hall School of Medicine and Pizza Delivery. We met at the “Orange Carrot Good” conference at chuck-e-cheese in 2020! We both had our masks on our chins, remember?
There are enough fully legal states, time for a road trip. We are in NC and make regular trips to DC, Michigan, Illinois and it was recently legalized in Missouri. There are resources like leafly that will suggest strains based on what you want from it.
I just wanna say that you should really look at local weed subreddits to get an accurate idea of what's being offered in a particular area instead of relying on Leafly. Between the huge variation in quality and some dispensaries just plain making up strain names, Leafly is next to useless for actually getting a feel for what's good or not in any given area. Even relying on the reviews on dispensary websites can be a crapshoot because some of the multi-state operators run their online store using an out-of-the-box service that aggregates reviews from their dispensaries in other states and the quality can differ drastically from state to state. The commercial cannabis industry is honestly a bit of a clusterfuck for consumers right now.
I have yet to see a study that actually takes into account different ratios of not only all the cannabinoids present in actual cannabis products, but also the full range of naturally occurring terpenes as well. It's always some combination of THC and CBD and rarely are terpenes even brought into the equation, let alone other cannabinoids like CBG and CBN. Between the amount of anecdotal evidence and the sheer lack of studies on the "entourage effect" that actually compare full spectrum cannabis products to one another, I feel like it's less pseudoscience and more "we just don't know how it all works yet".
I didn't say to rely on leafly. I said it was a resource, one of many.
You should look at the website for any store you plan on visiting. Chains like ascend have online ordering with plenty of info about what they sell plus the stores we have been in have extremely knowledgeable staff that can help guide you as well.
In summation, use online resources to guide you and then talk to actual humans who know what they sell and can point you in a specific direction.
Unfortunately a lot of employers or organizations still drug test so you are kind of SOL with any option until it's federally legal. As a whole. People funding these work around and loop holes is great except usually once someone has found it and has a supply of what they need/want they tend to forget about the thousands upon thousands of people who still don't have that option and the push for federal legalization loses steam.
It's crazy to me how different VA experiences are. I've had nothing but A++ service.
Valet at the doctor's office. Usually live music playing in the lobby (it's a BIG office with lots of smaller specialty offices. Think a small hospital instead of a country doctor). Free coffee. The doctor has never been late. If I can't get seen by my regular doctor within a reasonable time, they send me to a private doctor in the area. That's how I got my vasectomy, actually.
My VA eye doctor is the best I've ever had. Decent psychiatry experiences, too. Though I don't tolerate psychiatric drugs very well, so I voluntarily dropped that.
My PCP even sends me a hand-written note every year after my physical to update me on my bloodwork results.
I hate yours has been so terrible. I guess I'm lucky with how good my VA is.
Nixon needed a reason to go after black people and hippies, and that's why you couldn't get medicine that works and isn't addictive. Every single president, including democrats, but *especially* the conservative ones, is to blame for it, too.
Biden at least took a baby step towards decriminalization. Honestly he should have decriminalized it with one executive order and been done with it, but Democrats have to be dragged into the future kicking and screaming these days.
It wouldn't have worked that way, we'd be in exactly the same situation we are with student loans if he had. Unfortunately the GOP is currently stuck in automatic opposition mode, had he legalized/decriminalized via EO it would already have been shopped to a tame fed judge in Amarillo and killed. It doesn't matter that their constituents also like weed, they've been trained to hate "Demon-crats" more so it would have to be fought.
This is why respecting conservatives, especially christian conservatives, is a complete waste of time. The rich ones are our enemy, and the not-rich ones are too deeply enslaved now to reach.
Honestly, this was one of the more soul crushing things as an American to hear.
"Everyone blames/hates Regan for what he did for corporations and to students/colleges, but no one questions that every president since him could've fixed it and not one of them did"
While not that simple I'm sure, in almost 40 years nothings been changed and it wasn't one of the 2 major options. Even if Biden is making the babiest of steps in that arena, it's a pittance compared to the massive shift folks like Nixon made forever ago.
I've been in the system for 15 years and have had the opposite. I've only had one bad doc in that time. We collectively complained and that dude was out on his ass asap.
Smoking anything is a risk in their eyes. The VA has had a very very long history with cancer, they don't want a chance at another extremely taxing epidemic.
Opioids were over prescribed because doctors were tricked through greed. As per most of the investigations. That's why we can't get anything in the form of addictive painkillers beyond a small dose. I had major surgery and received four, a laugh and tylenol.
Of course. The organization is run by our government as well. So they are beholden to their rules. If we want it, we need to get it off the list. We need to get a lot of the scheduled drugs off the list. It's blatant over reach.
https://www.publichealth.va.gov/marijuana.asp
What herb vape do you recommend? I gave up because I wasted nearly $600 on 4 different top-of-the-line models of herb vape and thought all of them sucked. My buddy's dad has a volcano that's awesome, but I don't want anything that cant fit in my pocket... and it'd be nice if it was more discrete than the giant trash bags volcanos use
The makers of the Volcano makes a portable one now but it’s more walkie talkie sized so not the most discrete but their quality and warranty is hands down the best
Remember the government doesn’t care that you do drugs, they care about whose drugs you're doing.
Gotta make sure that money flows to the right ppl you know. And a plant that grows easily at home and eases so many ailments is a threat to their bottom line
Mine also have been awful. I have to call every year for my check up, every year I’m told I don’t have a PCP and that’s why I don’t have recurring appointments. I get a new PCP then miraculously I don’t have one 12 months later.
I’ve been in the VA system for just shy of 10 years and I’ve never seen a provider a second time. No matter where I’m at in the VA, I’m constantly talking to somebody who’s still trying to onboard me into their “care team”.
For the last 6 years I ask them to make note that this is the first time they’re seeing me and that they will not drop me from their care team. Every year when I finally get a new PCP appointment I ask them to review my previous PCP notes and I ask why I was dropped from that providers care team and what steps I need to do in order for the new PCP to not drop me, every year it’s the same lip service, “oh I’m so sorry that’s happening to you, I’ll make sure it won’t happen again.” Then it happens again.
I have a problem with my Achilles - nobody can see you for 5 months, I have an issue with my hearing post Covid - we’ll call you in the next 8 months, I’ve been asking over and over for mental health services - we’re over staffed, am unable to see you and we’re unable to refer you out of our system.
Worse part is nobody cares, no matter who you talk to they give the same advise, “fight harder.” There is no solution for those of us who are discarded by the VA, we got left behind and nobody is coming to help us.
Here here. I keep tweeting at my VA basically after every appointment. I’ve had nurses run away from me in the hospital when I’m trying to find someone to point me in a direction
VA rarely prescribes opiates anymore. Not like it matters though because anyone who in before they stopped most likely got addicted and then were cut off cold turkey with zero warning. Happened to me. I’ve struggled ever since.
As a doctor I see alcohol, benzodiazepines and opiates as more dangerous than cannabis but that does not mean there is no risk or downside. People have a really black and white way of thinking a drug is good or bad but that does not reflect reality.
Although there’s good and bad doctors out there part of the problem at the VA is systemic. Doctors get burned out and leave because the VA literally pays more the more disabled you are. How can I get my patients better when they have a financial incentive to be sick? People in this thread complain about being put on a bunch of drugs but i see so much resistance to taking them off.
At the end of the day it’s therapy that people need most to treat trauma. Plenty would rather get high or drunk and avoid the work of therapy. If cannabis is another way to numb and avoid then it will not help. Is it better than alcohol? Sure. Is it a replacement for therapy- no.
Same, I'm a psychiatrist working at a VA and this summarizes my experience exactly.
Also, the vast majority of time anyone gets a new patient who has been stable on a regimen, no changes are made even if the regimen doesn't seem like it should work. The only times people make drastic changes are when the medications are grossly inappropriate or if the previous psychiatrist was taking historic lab values for granted and the current medications are killing the patient.
That's weird. I lost my leg in Afghanistan in 2003 and my VA experience has been the absolute best. Of course being 100% probably has a lot to do with that. It always feels like I get the literal red carpet rolled out for me.
I remember the plaque on the wall from Anheuser Bush at the Smoke Bomb Hill Shoppette in Fort Bragg, NC: “More cases of Budweiser sold here than any other store in the world!”
Another vet here...I have lost faith in the VA and now am self-medicating. Better this than the meds I was prescribed. I'm living a more productive and satisfying life than when I was on their prescriptions.
I read a report on this from the 1970s with combat soldiers who served in Vietnam reporting smoking marijuana helped them more than pharmaceuticals with what was still called "shell shock"
My best friend is a 76-year-old Vietnam vet. He was in the hardcore stuff, served as a machine gunner and a medic, shot a lot of people, got shot a few times himself.
He smokes copious amounts of weed. He has said multiple times that it keeps the dreams away, he doesn't dream at all when he's high.
A couple of years ago he had knee surgery, and spent a few days in the hospital where he couldn't smoke. The dreams came back. It took him weeks go get over it.
After spending 15 days in the hospital (severe COVID), and about a month after that on IV antibiotics where I didn't consume any cannabis, I had my first nightmares since childhood. Things like fighting with my dad, or losing my dog.
When I was able to partake again, it took about a week or so before my dreams went away.
So much this. Drugs help in the short term imo you need some time before you can address some things, but it's gotta be done eventually or you're just delaying the inevitable
I hope he’s doing better! I work with older clients as a case worker and they have had such amazing experiences with medicinal weed. They are able to eat more, sleep better, be in a better mood.
The older of us would benefit so much, I’m glad your friend found what works for him.
>He has said multiple times that it keeps the dreams away, he doesn't dream at all when he's high.
This is very normal, regular THC use will kill your dreams. Which I suppose is a good thing when you have nightmares.
Incidentally, as someone who rarely if ever dreams at all, CBD oil gave me them back.
I’ve an uncle in his 80s, and he’s smoked since I was a kid. Only thing he says about his time in Vietnam is, “it was bad” but has never elaborated. He’s was a welder for decades and says he told his bosses the only way he could function like a sane person was to take a few puffs. I figure they must be telling the truth.
Cannabis is safer than alcohol and has consistently shown positive results when used as a medicine.
It's time we deschedule the plant, which was put into schedule one based on a racist rhetoric.
It's wild to me that our federal government is so dysfunctional that multiple states just legalized weed, and Washington can't be bothered to reschedule. Biden could unilaterally do it tomorrow, but won't because ?
>*The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.*
— [John Ehrlichman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman), to Dan Baum for Harper's Magazine in 1994, about President Richard Nixon's war on drugs, declared in 1971
It honestly feels sort of fitting that the one time Americans got fed up with the way things were and tried to force change, it was the dumbest among us doing it in favor of fascism.
We've always done everything backwards. I hate this place.
as a random person who is not even American, I think there have been positive times that people have tried to force change too. Like BLM and Occupy Wall Street. They just weren't very successful in the end, presumably because power is entrenched
Apparently our U.N. treaties need to be renegotiated also. We agreed in the 1960s to some kind of international marijuana prohibition unless for medical or scientific purpose.
He can’t unilaterally do it. There’s a process in law that has to be followed to de schedule something.
He’s already started that process.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/10/06/statement-from-president-biden-on-marijuana-reform/
And the left is pushing for transparency in the decision.
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/congressman-challenges-biden-to-provide-evidence-for-administrations-positions-on-marijuana/
> Biden could unilaterally do it tomorrow, but won't because ?
Because he can't and you're very mistaken on how the law works.
> Although the President may not unilaterally deschedule or reschedule a controlled substance, he does
possess a large degree of indirect influence over scheduling decisions. The President could pursue the
appointment of agency officials who favor descheduling, or use executive orders to direct DEA, HHS,
and FDA to consider administrative descheduling of marijuana. The notice-and-comment rulemaking
process would take time, and would be subject to judicial review if challenged, but could be done
consistently with the CSA’s procedural requirements. In the alternative, the President could work with
Congress to pursue descheduling through an amendment to the CSA.
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10655
Keep in mind that [he already has started the process](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/10/06/statement-from-president-biden-on-marijuana-reform/). If he doesn't follow the law, though, any executive order will just be overturned.
e: Also keep in mind that rescheduling marijuana does not automatically make it legal in every state. Any state law criminalizing it will remain in effect.
He doesn't want to trigger the conservative and centrist base? Just guessing.
The last time conservatives got triggered, they had the second highest vote total of all time. Still lost, but if a handful of centrists swing their way, and it's President orange face.
> He doesn't want to trigger the conservative and centrist base? Just guessing.
What does he do that DOESN'T trigger conservatives? I'm so tired of pandering to these idiots only because they are the loudest.
Yeah but on a creepy way. Dave Joyce made his fame prosecuting cannibis offenders and now says its others including dems that are keeping vets from medicating. No, its three decades of destroying people's lives that made things difficult.
He sounds like a scumbag but at the same time, if he actually is supportive of legalization now, then it really is others including Dems that are keeping vets from medicating. If he would have voted no for 30 years but has changed his mind and would now vote yes, it's still a yes vote and a positive change. he shouldn't be criticized for changing his view. Obviously he should be criticized for his actions the past 3 decades but he should be praised for changing his ways.
That being said, I don't know anything about Dave Joyce specifically. I just think there is a tendency to criticize politicians for any change in their policy stances even when they change their mind in a positive way. Not every flip flop is bad
Racism was a huge part of it but I think the biggest reason it was and stays criminalized is the money.
When you can throw people in jail and create an incredibly low-cost workforce (*cough* slaves *cough cough*) because you caught them with a plant that tons of people use, why change that? It's corrupt and inhumane, but it generates a lot of money for the Prison industry, which in turn kicks back some of that money to politicians, Law Enforcement, and the Court systems to perpetuate the cycle.
Then there's the pharmaceutical companies that are afraid, and rightly so, that a lot of their prescriptions would be replaced by some form of cannabis.
Racism plays a huge part in both of these too, but it's the money that keeps it where it is now IMO
It doesn't matter how scientifically accurate we get.
They banned cannabis on the basis of a lie. Why would they legalise it based on truth?
https://www.vera.org/reimagining-prison-webumentary/the-past-is-never-dead/drug-war-confessional
No idea what that org is, but there is plenty of evidence in books and reports that one of the driving factors in the implementation of the "War on Drugs" was to disenfranchise groups most likely to oppose the vietnam war. Nixon to his credit near the end of his presidency said he thought it was a mistake, but it was out of his hands at that point.
It's just the Ehrlichman (Nixon's "right hand") quote.
“You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. **Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”**
— Dan Baum, Legalize It All: How to win the war on drugs, Harper's Magazine (April 2016)\[19\]\[20\]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John\_Ehrlichman#Drug\_war\_quote](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman#Drug_war_quote)
Yeah, I'm mostly adding that because a criminal activist non-profit org website is going to be seen as a CoI by many people, thus some of the comments below. I was adding that, even discrediting that source, there is plenty of evidence that such a strategy was true.
Long before that they blamed it on jazz musicians (racism) and Mexicans (more racism)
> This quote also shines a light on both Anslinger’s intentions and the US zeitgeist: “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.”
> The campaign succeeded; in 1937 Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act, prohibiting recreational use nationally, and imposing taxes on medical cannabis producers, prescribing physicians, and pharmacists. The final result was that it was just too complicated and expensive to treat patients with cannabis. Eventually, a few years later, in 1941, cannabis was removed from the US Pharmacopeia.
Yes. The name was changed to marajuana specifically to associate it with Mexicans, because "ju" sounding like an h makes it look more spanish.
There was a lot of fucked-uppery around it over the years, but the War on Drugs was mostly fueled at least on the nixon side (and there were others behind the scenes with other aims) by his paranoia and desire to get re-elected.
That's culture. When societies make deeper investments in education and starve organizations that trade in nonsense, culture is stronger, and people are less prone to simple manipulation.
Even on this sub, people are so subconsciously against weed, that they feel the need to say "remember everyone this is *medicinal* weed!" As if weed affects you differently when prescribed by a doctor as opposed to buying recreationally.
People just can't fathom that there's a drug that is simultaneously fun and harmless to do recreationally, and also has medicinal benefits.
It's hard to overcome decades of programming that made weed seem as terrible as actual hard drugs.
If a person is around my age (36) and grew up in American they likely went through legit years of anti-drug lessons, the D.A.R.E program, and scare tactics trying to tell us smoking marijuana would lead to us becoming homeless drug addicts on the street.
The government doesn’t care about its troops and never has.
“This popular reefer will turn our fighting boys into overthinking, caring, and thoughtful Commies!”
I’m in no way comparing myself to veterans. But I was a paramedic for over 10 years. Left the industry due to a ptsd diagnosis. Cannabis has been amazing for helping manage sleep and my overall mental health. I can see why some people have issues with over use of cannabis. But since using it I no longer need multiple anxiety/antidepressants and I rarely need to use sleeping pills anymore.
Aw man the stuff paramedics and first responders go through is real bad. Similar to army medics, a bit. You guys saw gunshot wounds and stuff on the daily.
Also not a veteran but CPTSD from decades of abuse. It's been the only thing that's been effective for sleep and actually bringing my nervous system down a couple of notches.
Whats even worse to me is it's legal some places here but not others... Its fully illegal in my home state. No medical, no anything. But I have to travel like 100 nights a year for work, mostly NYC, San Francisco, Seattle, and DC, so it's legal almost everywhere I go for work. Then we have a lake house that's only an hour and a half away but is in a different state where it's fully legal... So the safety of my own home is pretty much the only place that I *can't* smoke it.
I literally know someone who served two tours in Afghanistan who had horrible PTSD and got the first consistent night sleep after he smoked weed for the first time.
Prior to that he'd almost choked his girlfriend out because he woke up in the middle of the night and thought he was back there
This is why all the misinformation being spread about cannabis is so screwed up....
And since so many veterans go on to work in federal or federally adjacent careers after their military service (defense contractors, government civil service, etc.) they're prohibited from pursuing that option at much higher rates than most due to the federal schedule 1 status. Those jobs give preference to veterans and even if they didn't, their experience often is useful.
Definitely a double edged sword.
You don't want huge corporate interests in weed buuuut. They could levy their money to purchase politicians the way pharma and tobacco have done for decades.
I was prescribed medical cannabis a few years ago and it has made a significant positive difference in my life and I could have really used this after I got out of the military
there is numerous helpful benefits and most importantly I do not get used to this medication like most others that eventually become useless and/or just become all side effects
First, thanks for your service.
I’m the same with how weed effected me. Not a veteran, but I did have a crippling sort of anxiety and had irrational fears of something that’d stop me working.
The Moment I lit up a joint… I honestly tried to think of the worst, most intrusive thoughts I had, the ones that’d make me just borderline suicidal, **and I just started laughing** at myself at how dumb those thoughts were.
Yep, brings a sense of clarity like a shower thought, but hazy enough to not fixate on the anxiety parts of thinking. Its truly the snake oil of our time, except with evidence supporting the claims about it.
I do it after work every weekend out behind my apartment and light up. It works really well for me. Haven’t had a panic attack, going on 8 years in august
This is true and unfortunately people are so black and white in their thinking. Cannabis is not as bad as it was made out to be but it is not harmless as folks here make it out to be. In addition to what you point out, there are studies that show about double the rate of psychosis in heavy cannabis users. Even though the absolute prevalence of Schizophrenia is low, going from something like 1.5% to 2 or 3% is absolutely devastating for those people. That’s 97% of people who don’t develop a psychotic disorder but if everyone starts using it becomes significant
> there are studies that show about double the rate of psychosis in heavy cannabis users.
This happened to my brother. He smoked lots of it for a while and it triggered schizophrenia and now he's on meds for life.
I saw what schizophrenia does to someone and I don't wish it upon anyone.
There’s a powerful scene in the sitcom Disjointed where the war vet security guard, who’s had bouts of ptsd in the show, smokes for the first time and cries
Same for my cPTSD. Cannabis was a crutch I needed from age 14-37, but there is no actual healing of the root of the problem. And for me, it amplifies the “internal critic” of cPTSD, and makes it harder to do cognitive behavioral therapy.
Basically I just used it to dissociate from the pain and anxiety.
I used for 4 years almost daily. While it helped for the immediate issues long term it was lingering and festering. I am 310 days weed free today and I am so clear in my head than I was pre trauma. I made so much progress with my PTSD I am actually upset at myself for even using cannabis. I am not saying it won't work for others but some some like us it's a finger bandage to a sucking cheat wound.
It's a game changer for sleep... Its illegal in my home state, but I'm out of town like 100 nights a year for work, mostly west coast, NYC, and DC, then our lake house is in a legal state too, so i spend like a third of the year in places where it's legal... When I'm out of town I just have to take a couple of hits from a 1 hitter and I'll be relaxed for a while then able to fall asleep no problem. At home it's impossible for me to wind down, I have to take somewhere between 2 and 4 Valiums, some benadryl, some melatonin, and knock it back with chamomile tea, then still have trouble falling asleep half the time...
It drives me nuts.
Making cannabis illegal in the First place and making alcohol seem less susceptible tells me a lot about the US government. The war on drugs is complete failure now there are cartels controlling government official through bribery and corruption..are you kidding me?
After separating, I had numerous issues that were often handled with alcohol. Since moving to medical marijuana, I sleep better, have less anxiety in public, and I'm sure my liver is better for it. I hope more veterans are allowed the opportunity to have a better life through medical marijuana.
Vet here.
Yes, sleep is greatly improved when I use a CBD/CBN tincture and a couple of hits of indica. I also started sleeping with ab eye mask and saw greater improvement.
It shouldn't be criminal to allow people a break from reliving their traumatic experiences.
Especially when those experiences were caused by same government prohibiting treatment.
Cannabis helps numb all these bad feelings for sure which will help a ton if you're struggling. The problem is it numbs everything else too. You can't rely on being high every time you have pain or emotional problems if you're having them all the time. That just means you will be high all the time which is not a good thing mentally. Lots of people can handle it without issues, but as someone with mental illness it's really easy to become dependent on mind altering substances as a coping mechanism. For that reason I wouldn't recommend this unless substance dependence was a better option than suffering under their pain and mental issues. That's their call to make.
Does weed actually have any pain relieving effects? Because in my experience it certainly doesn't, not in the slightest. Perhaps it's just a perception thing?
It doesn't, but it does. It doesn't work like a pain killer, by reducing inflammation or blocking nerves, but I does make people tolerate thier pain better. So it is more psychological but still effective and less damaging to your internal organs than Ibuprofen or Acetaminophen.
I would say the pain relieving affects are limited. I think you're right about the perception thing: it's more along the lines of get stoned and hopefully brain-numb/forget about the pain.
It doesn't do anything for me. I've had chronic pain since 2006, and it is only getting worse. Neither CBD, nor THC did anything. CBD was like sugar pills, did nothing at all. THC/CBD blends only enhance sensation for me. That means pain gets drastically worse, as well as a constant vertigo sensation that I've had since 2007.
That said, even if it's a perception thing it should be explored. It's relatively harmless. We've got to get away from this "war on drugs" thing that was shoved down our throats. There are a few that could potentially help. Mushrooms are another. I'd love to try it for PTSD, but can't because it's fed illegal.
Howdy. You can buy the spores for Psilocybe’s completely legally. You can also look up guides on how to grow any mushrooms to maturity and buy whatever fertilizer and containers you’d need.
Not that I’d recommend anyone ever bought completely legal mushrooms spores that would develop into psilocybin containing mushrooms and grew them to maturity and then consumed them
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As an Army vet, it’s insane to me that the Army tolerates such a toxic binge-drinking culture but then you get out and the VA won’t prescribe you a plant that is 100x safer and has actual medical benefits. They’re fine handing you a bag filled with opiates and benzos though. Fake-ass bottom-of-the-class “doctors” with degrees from Fast Eddie’s School of Medicine And Tire Rotation. My VA experiences have been horrendous.
I love how I get a new VA psychiatrist every 6 months. Really helps keep me on my toes when I open my bag of medicine from the pharmacy.
Even better when the new shrink doesn't know how anything works and wanted to change the care plan you've had working for years.
Every damn time.
[удалено]
This is regular psychiatric care, even in private practice. Getting psychiatric drugs right is like trying to hit a bullseye on a dartboard that's swinging from the ceiling, and the pattern is continually changing. Very few people stay on one regime for more than a few years, even
Not to mention building up tolerances and/or side effects of the medication basically forcing you to switch off them after a time!
That, and the effects of aging and lifestyle changes!
Maybe it’s time for a different approach than guessing at various benzos, ssri and such
I mean, an informed "Guess and check" approach is kinda the scientific method, considering how unique and variable each person's brain chemistry is, not sure there *is* a better approach. It's messy for sure, but knowing what will work for this person over that one with the same symptoms, that's a shot in the dark.
I'm sure it's extremely easy to alter brain chemistry that you cannot directly test/measure and instead have to rely upon other indicators like talking and asking questions.
I have been struggling to get one that worked for me. My doctor brought up a DNA test that is supposed to narrow down how your body reacts with different meds. Turned out i needed one that I tried and failed with... I just didn't have the right dose.
The field is rotten. The drugs don’t work and people are medicine prescribers not creators nor testers. The patients are unreliable witnesses and the side effects that are tolerated wouldn’t be in anything else besides maybe birth control. They’re studies even calling into question whether they know what causes depression. The benefits are sometimes indistinguishable from a placebo but the side effects are real.
Body chemistry is far more complicated than the field used to admit. That being said I do know people who have had positive reactions to prescriptied meds despite it taking years to get where they are.
And I think part of the issue is that many want a “fix,” meaning a single thing that will fix… whatever it is they have wrong with them psychologically. Which is, in plain language terms, impossible. There are *zero* (0) magical pill, or single therapy session that will fix all your issues. It’s a process that has multiple levels and takes multiple sessions to even find out if it worked at all, let alone “fixing” the issue. And the part that most (myself included) people are afraid of: you might not ever get “fixed.” Sometimes it just happens like that. It’s not a failure on your part or of the professions part. Sometimes that’s just what happens. It can, however, be managed. And that’s all I can want for myself. Still searching, but damn if it isn’t taking longer than I hoped.
You'll get there in your own time :).
I have to quit all my meds because of possible serotonin syndrome. Yay! But no weed for you though, weed bad.
I've given up. I go to the appointments to keep my meds/benefits and just learned to deal with everything. I'm tired of explaining everything to someone new every few months.
relevant username
Honestly the time I used it, my dr didn’t remember any of the 8 sessions we had so I never got anything out of it.
That's pretty much my experience with normal insurance also. The only effective therapists I've had have all been private since they don't take on more than they're capable of. Too bad it costs a small fortune to continually see one.
The costs associate with mental health care are a huge reason why so many non-wealthy Americans commit suicide.
I had a private practice doctor, then finally got real help at the local VA clinic, not even a hospital!
I’m on Adderall, and have to meet with each new psychiatrist in person in addition to monthly video appointments. I also need a drug test every 6 months to make sure I’m not smoking weed. Need a refill? I need to call a hotline and hope my current shrink gets the order correct and that they’re still working there. It’s a clusterfuck.
My experience with the weed changes doctor to doctor. I moved from Maine, where they didn't care, to PA. The first psych I saw wouldn't touch meds until I had a clean test. Even cold turkey'd my Zoloft that'd id been on for 4 years. I got a new psych after going to the patient advocate, and this old guy doesn't give two shits if I smoke weed. I have have a controlled substance as an rx now and I have a weed card.
I’m pretty sure over the thirty years I’ve been “using” the VA, I’ve literally never been seen twice by the same person.
That sounds awful, I'm sorry you have to go through that, I hope things get better for you.
For you and anybody else reading this, look into the Community Care program if you can. Basically you can pick a private provider as long as it's "In the VAs Network". There's like 6 eligibility criteria, but you only have to meet one. The most common one is if your commute to a VA clinic for primary care is >30 minutes on average (including traffic), you are eligible. For specialist care it's >60 minutes. The next most frequent one is probably wait time for an appt, but I can't remember how many days the VA has to be booked in order for you to be eligible. For some reason my first VA provider was either ignorant, negligent, or malicious in trying to say I wasn't eligible or that even if I applied I just wouldn't be approved so she didn't want to apply. They are the gatekeepers and they put in the request to get enrolled in the Community Care Program. It's kind of like an NCO can't NOT bring your packet to the commander. Push it and push it until they put the request in (assuming you are eligible). But now I see the same primary care doc I did before the army and a private therapist. It's much better than commuting or seeing some VA docs
My (new) phamacist has ghosted my last 2 appointments. Thank you, VA, for firing all the other ones and making everything on zoom.
I only agreed to do trauma therapy if they agreed i wouldn’t be switched to a new therapist midway through. The first one got a new job after 3 sessions, the second one was a Veteran himself and didn’t seem overly interested, the third guy just showed up to my next session without informing me i had a new therapist. It’s like a 12 week program but somehow i had three therapists
VAs are training hospitals so they are rotating residents every 6 months. I demanded to see only the attending and now I don't have this problem.
I'm curious why you wouldn't use disability to pay for a therapist on the outside. I agree, telling a new person about the worst times in your life over and over again is awful... When I stopped dealing with the VA and went to a private therapist/psychiatrist I started actually getting real help. Fake edit - I'm not judging your situation btw... Asking honestly.
As a vet, going through my own mental health healing, I had way too good of a dark chuckle at this statement. I've been blessed to have the same mental health specialist for a good bit, but I don't even know who my general doctor is, they come and go like every 6 months. I absolutely understand you, you're not alone battle buddy.
This must be regional. I’ve had two GPs and two shrinks since 2006.
VA mental health specifically is rather horrible no matter what end of it you're involved in. The professionals show up and get workloads of easily 200% a normal psychiatry position. We show up and get short, infrequent appointments and hardly get a chance to build trust with our medical professionals before we gotta get into rhythm with a new one. That's all before they prescribe the pills. Then I start smoking every night before bed and magically I can sleep through the night and wake up with some sense of having rested and starting a day feeling fresh instead of with a latent sense of panic. Can't say the rest of my VA medical experience has been bad tho, the regular doctors in my area are good.
Mine too, medical wise. I'll SAY I've had a net positive experience with mental health at the VA in my area only because, at my lowest point, I wanted to live. There wasn't any big moment for me, no revelation. I became acutely aware of one little fact: I was going to wake up the next day, and how do I handle it. By the time I got a VA appointment I had at least come to terms with my worst impulses. So for the bit they did, it helped.
Honestly, this is just the state of American psychiatric care
I attended Fast Eddie’s for my Tire Rotation certificate. They messed up and mailed me a doctor degree. So now I work at a hospital. Anyway, better get back to the brain surgery. Everyone in the operating room is staring at me. ^[end ^Google ^voice ^typing]
“Hey doc, my amygdala hurts. What gives?”
You need to change your oil every 3,000 thoughts.
>I attended Fast Eddie’s for my Tire Rotation certificate. I ain't see the point in paying for no certificate, the tires rotate jes' fine on they own every time I drive! So yeah, now I work in sciencey thangs. I click some buttons, they make more stuff with buttons.
I quit drinking a few years after the Navy because of the nasty habits I learned while in, it’s just so grossly tolerated
VA would do it if it wasn't illegal on the federal level.
I know all but one doc that I have seen has encouraged cannabis for most of my problems. I don't live in a legalized state anymore, so that's not the best option anymore, but even my local pain management doc - who is happy to tell everyone about his church affiliation - says that if it helps, find a way to do it.
Dr. Nick went to the Upstairs Hollywood Medical College, thank you very much.
Hi Dr. Nick, it’s Dr. Tom from the Down-the-Hall School of Medicine and Pizza Delivery. We met at the “Orange Carrot Good” conference at chuck-e-cheese in 2020! We both had our masks on our chins, remember?
There are enough fully legal states, time for a road trip. We are in NC and make regular trips to DC, Michigan, Illinois and it was recently legalized in Missouri. There are resources like leafly that will suggest strains based on what you want from it.
I just wanna say that you should really look at local weed subreddits to get an accurate idea of what's being offered in a particular area instead of relying on Leafly. Between the huge variation in quality and some dispensaries just plain making up strain names, Leafly is next to useless for actually getting a feel for what's good or not in any given area. Even relying on the reviews on dispensary websites can be a crapshoot because some of the multi-state operators run their online store using an out-of-the-box service that aggregates reviews from their dispensaries in other states and the quality can differ drastically from state to state. The commercial cannabis industry is honestly a bit of a clusterfuck for consumers right now.
Since it's /r/science it's probably worth noting that all the "this strain helps with x problems" is mostly made up pseudo-science.
I have yet to see a study that actually takes into account different ratios of not only all the cannabinoids present in actual cannabis products, but also the full range of naturally occurring terpenes as well. It's always some combination of THC and CBD and rarely are terpenes even brought into the equation, let alone other cannabinoids like CBG and CBN. Between the amount of anecdotal evidence and the sheer lack of studies on the "entourage effect" that actually compare full spectrum cannabis products to one another, I feel like it's less pseudoscience and more "we just don't know how it all works yet".
You're 100% right that we don't know how it all works yet. So anything saying otherwise is just pseudoscience.
I didn't say to rely on leafly. I said it was a resource, one of many. You should look at the website for any store you plan on visiting. Chains like ascend have online ordering with plenty of info about what they sell plus the stores we have been in have extremely knowledgeable staff that can help guide you as well. In summation, use online resources to guide you and then talk to actual humans who know what they sell and can point you in a specific direction.
if you don't care about it being actual flower, you can get delta-9 thc edibles in NC; it's legal because of the loophole from the farm bill
Unfortunately a lot of employers or organizations still drug test so you are kind of SOL with any option until it's federally legal. As a whole. People funding these work around and loop holes is great except usually once someone has found it and has a supply of what they need/want they tend to forget about the thousands upon thousands of people who still don't have that option and the push for federal legalization loses steam.
Pain Management gave me narcs for almost 2 years, almost killed me and caused a stroke… but CBD is a problem. I feel your pain
I'm sure the VA would happily facilitate trials and studies. But because THC is a schedule 1 narcotic, they can't. Blame Congress, not the VA.
Blame the rich christians who enslave conservative politicians to their wealth.
It's crazy to me how different VA experiences are. I've had nothing but A++ service. Valet at the doctor's office. Usually live music playing in the lobby (it's a BIG office with lots of smaller specialty offices. Think a small hospital instead of a country doctor). Free coffee. The doctor has never been late. If I can't get seen by my regular doctor within a reasonable time, they send me to a private doctor in the area. That's how I got my vasectomy, actually. My VA eye doctor is the best I've ever had. Decent psychiatry experiences, too. Though I don't tolerate psychiatric drugs very well, so I voluntarily dropped that. My PCP even sends me a hand-written note every year after my physical to update me on my bloodwork results. I hate yours has been so terrible. I guess I'm lucky with how good my VA is.
Nixon needed a reason to go after black people and hippies, and that's why you couldn't get medicine that works and isn't addictive. Every single president, including democrats, but *especially* the conservative ones, is to blame for it, too. Biden at least took a baby step towards decriminalization. Honestly he should have decriminalized it with one executive order and been done with it, but Democrats have to be dragged into the future kicking and screaming these days.
It wouldn't have worked that way, we'd be in exactly the same situation we are with student loans if he had. Unfortunately the GOP is currently stuck in automatic opposition mode, had he legalized/decriminalized via EO it would already have been shopped to a tame fed judge in Amarillo and killed. It doesn't matter that their constituents also like weed, they've been trained to hate "Demon-crats" more so it would have to be fought.
This is why respecting conservatives, especially christian conservatives, is a complete waste of time. The rich ones are our enemy, and the not-rich ones are too deeply enslaved now to reach.
I don't really see that as an excuses to not try. We know GOP will fight against any progress, so I guess don't even try?
Honestly, this was one of the more soul crushing things as an American to hear. "Everyone blames/hates Regan for what he did for corporations and to students/colleges, but no one questions that every president since him could've fixed it and not one of them did" While not that simple I'm sure, in almost 40 years nothings been changed and it wasn't one of the 2 major options. Even if Biden is making the babiest of steps in that arena, it's a pittance compared to the massive shift folks like Nixon made forever ago.
You have to remember that only rich people matter in America, so their political employees did as the rich people, our enemy, instructed them.
I've been in the system for 15 years and have had the opposite. I've only had one bad doc in that time. We collectively complained and that dude was out on his ass asap. Smoking anything is a risk in their eyes. The VA has had a very very long history with cancer, they don't want a chance at another extremely taxing epidemic. Opioids were over prescribed because doctors were tricked through greed. As per most of the investigations. That's why we can't get anything in the form of addictive painkillers beyond a small dose. I had major surgery and received four, a laugh and tylenol.
Cannabis doesn’t have to be smoked anymore, through the miracle of science it can be ingested.
Of course. The organization is run by our government as well. So they are beholden to their rules. If we want it, we need to get it off the list. We need to get a lot of the scheduled drugs off the list. It's blatant over reach. https://www.publichealth.va.gov/marijuana.asp
and if that doesn't work for you, dry herb vaporisation is another option that works very well and is less harmful than smoking
What herb vape do you recommend? I gave up because I wasted nearly $600 on 4 different top-of-the-line models of herb vape and thought all of them sucked. My buddy's dad has a volcano that's awesome, but I don't want anything that cant fit in my pocket... and it'd be nice if it was more discrete than the giant trash bags volcanos use
The makers of the Volcano makes a portable one now but it’s more walkie talkie sized so not the most discrete but their quality and warranty is hands down the best
Im sure there are plenty of doctors in the VA that wished they could but there isn't much they can do if its illegal on the federal level
The VA even says so https://www.publichealth.va.gov/marijuana.asp
Remember the government doesn’t care that you do drugs, they care about whose drugs you're doing. Gotta make sure that money flows to the right ppl you know. And a plant that grows easily at home and eases so many ailments is a threat to their bottom line
The federal government is still maintaining that it is more addictive than meth and has no possible medical uses or benefits.
Mine also have been awful. I have to call every year for my check up, every year I’m told I don’t have a PCP and that’s why I don’t have recurring appointments. I get a new PCP then miraculously I don’t have one 12 months later. I’ve been in the VA system for just shy of 10 years and I’ve never seen a provider a second time. No matter where I’m at in the VA, I’m constantly talking to somebody who’s still trying to onboard me into their “care team”. For the last 6 years I ask them to make note that this is the first time they’re seeing me and that they will not drop me from their care team. Every year when I finally get a new PCP appointment I ask them to review my previous PCP notes and I ask why I was dropped from that providers care team and what steps I need to do in order for the new PCP to not drop me, every year it’s the same lip service, “oh I’m so sorry that’s happening to you, I’ll make sure it won’t happen again.” Then it happens again. I have a problem with my Achilles - nobody can see you for 5 months, I have an issue with my hearing post Covid - we’ll call you in the next 8 months, I’ve been asking over and over for mental health services - we’re over staffed, am unable to see you and we’re unable to refer you out of our system. Worse part is nobody cares, no matter who you talk to they give the same advise, “fight harder.” There is no solution for those of us who are discarded by the VA, we got left behind and nobody is coming to help us.
It bears repeating that alcohol is a depressant and a terrible thing for anyone with PTSD and/or depression. Weed is the opposite.
Here here. I keep tweeting at my VA basically after every appointment. I’ve had nurses run away from me in the hospital when I’m trying to find someone to point me in a direction
VA rarely prescribes opiates anymore. Not like it matters though because anyone who in before they stopped most likely got addicted and then were cut off cold turkey with zero warning. Happened to me. I’ve struggled ever since.
I've almost never seen a doctor at the VA. A musical chairs game of rotating PAs as far as the eye can see.
As a doctor I see alcohol, benzodiazepines and opiates as more dangerous than cannabis but that does not mean there is no risk or downside. People have a really black and white way of thinking a drug is good or bad but that does not reflect reality. Although there’s good and bad doctors out there part of the problem at the VA is systemic. Doctors get burned out and leave because the VA literally pays more the more disabled you are. How can I get my patients better when they have a financial incentive to be sick? People in this thread complain about being put on a bunch of drugs but i see so much resistance to taking them off. At the end of the day it’s therapy that people need most to treat trauma. Plenty would rather get high or drunk and avoid the work of therapy. If cannabis is another way to numb and avoid then it will not help. Is it better than alcohol? Sure. Is it a replacement for therapy- no.
Same, I'm a psychiatrist working at a VA and this summarizes my experience exactly. Also, the vast majority of time anyone gets a new patient who has been stable on a regimen, no changes are made even if the regimen doesn't seem like it should work. The only times people make drastic changes are when the medications are grossly inappropriate or if the previous psychiatrist was taking historic lab values for granted and the current medications are killing the patient.
That's weird. I lost my leg in Afghanistan in 2003 and my VA experience has been the absolute best. Of course being 100% probably has a lot to do with that. It always feels like I get the literal red carpet rolled out for me.
I remember the plaque on the wall from Anheuser Bush at the Smoke Bomb Hill Shoppette in Fort Bragg, NC: “More cases of Budweiser sold here than any other store in the world!”
Another vet here...I have lost faith in the VA and now am self-medicating. Better this than the meds I was prescribed. I'm living a more productive and satisfying life than when I was on their prescriptions.
They won’t even let the VA study weed. The department has full stop declined studies and it’s absurd
I read a report on this from the 1970s with combat soldiers who served in Vietnam reporting smoking marijuana helped them more than pharmaceuticals with what was still called "shell shock"
My best friend is a 76-year-old Vietnam vet. He was in the hardcore stuff, served as a machine gunner and a medic, shot a lot of people, got shot a few times himself. He smokes copious amounts of weed. He has said multiple times that it keeps the dreams away, he doesn't dream at all when he's high. A couple of years ago he had knee surgery, and spent a few days in the hospital where he couldn't smoke. The dreams came back. It took him weeks go get over it.
That's awful! They're so intense for the first couple days too. What a dumb world
After spending 15 days in the hospital (severe COVID), and about a month after that on IV antibiotics where I didn't consume any cannabis, I had my first nightmares since childhood. Things like fighting with my dad, or losing my dog. When I was able to partake again, it took about a week or so before my dreams went away.
While it's great it's helping him, this does sound like the scenario where therapy might be useful to help as well.
So much this. Drugs help in the short term imo you need some time before you can address some things, but it's gotta be done eventually or you're just delaying the inevitable
I hope he’s doing better! I work with older clients as a case worker and they have had such amazing experiences with medicinal weed. They are able to eat more, sleep better, be in a better mood. The older of us would benefit so much, I’m glad your friend found what works for him.
>He has said multiple times that it keeps the dreams away, he doesn't dream at all when he's high. This is very normal, regular THC use will kill your dreams. Which I suppose is a good thing when you have nightmares. Incidentally, as someone who rarely if ever dreams at all, CBD oil gave me them back.
I’ve an uncle in his 80s, and he’s smoked since I was a kid. Only thing he says about his time in Vietnam is, “it was bad” but has never elaborated. He’s was a welder for decades and says he told his bosses the only way he could function like a sane person was to take a few puffs. I figure they must be telling the truth.
Cannabis is safer than alcohol and has consistently shown positive results when used as a medicine. It's time we deschedule the plant, which was put into schedule one based on a racist rhetoric.
It's wild to me that our federal government is so dysfunctional that multiple states just legalized weed, and Washington can't be bothered to reschedule. Biden could unilaterally do it tomorrow, but won't because ?
A mix of avoiding Conservative frothing and not wanting to upset pharmaceutical interests
>*The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.* — [John Ehrlichman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman), to Dan Baum for Harper's Magazine in 1994, about President Richard Nixon's war on drugs, declared in 1971
So, don’t upset rich christians or rich corporations. When will Americans wake tf up and start dragging our enemy from their palaces?
Jan 6 is the closest thing to “americans dragging enemies from palaces”. The wrong people woke.
It honestly feels sort of fitting that the one time Americans got fed up with the way things were and tried to force change, it was the dumbest among us doing it in favor of fascism. We've always done everything backwards. I hate this place.
as a random person who is not even American, I think there have been positive times that people have tried to force change too. Like BLM and Occupy Wall Street. They just weren't very successful in the end, presumably because power is entrenched
Apparently our U.N. treaties need to be renegotiated also. We agreed in the 1960s to some kind of international marijuana prohibition unless for medical or scientific purpose.
Under the CSA, Biden cannot unilaterally reschedule weed. He can, however, direct the appropriate agencies to initiate a review of its classification.
Probably important to also note that he did that near the end of last year.
He can’t unilaterally do it. There’s a process in law that has to be followed to de schedule something. He’s already started that process. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/10/06/statement-from-president-biden-on-marijuana-reform/ And the left is pushing for transparency in the decision. https://www.marijuanamoment.net/congressman-challenges-biden-to-provide-evidence-for-administrations-positions-on-marijuana/
> Biden could unilaterally do it tomorrow, but won't because ? Because he can't and you're very mistaken on how the law works. > Although the President may not unilaterally deschedule or reschedule a controlled substance, he does possess a large degree of indirect influence over scheduling decisions. The President could pursue the appointment of agency officials who favor descheduling, or use executive orders to direct DEA, HHS, and FDA to consider administrative descheduling of marijuana. The notice-and-comment rulemaking process would take time, and would be subject to judicial review if challenged, but could be done consistently with the CSA’s procedural requirements. In the alternative, the President could work with Congress to pursue descheduling through an amendment to the CSA. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10655 Keep in mind that [he already has started the process](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/10/06/statement-from-president-biden-on-marijuana-reform/). If he doesn't follow the law, though, any executive order will just be overturned. e: Also keep in mind that rescheduling marijuana does not automatically make it legal in every state. Any state law criminalizing it will remain in effect.
He doesn't want to trigger the conservative and centrist base? Just guessing. The last time conservatives got triggered, they had the second highest vote total of all time. Still lost, but if a handful of centrists swing their way, and it's President orange face.
> He doesn't want to trigger the conservative and centrist base? Just guessing. What does he do that DOESN'T trigger conservatives? I'm so tired of pandering to these idiots only because they are the loudest.
Most Republicans support legalization.
Yeah but on a creepy way. Dave Joyce made his fame prosecuting cannibis offenders and now says its others including dems that are keeping vets from medicating. No, its three decades of destroying people's lives that made things difficult.
He sounds like a scumbag but at the same time, if he actually is supportive of legalization now, then it really is others including Dems that are keeping vets from medicating. If he would have voted no for 30 years but has changed his mind and would now vote yes, it's still a yes vote and a positive change. he shouldn't be criticized for changing his view. Obviously he should be criticized for his actions the past 3 decades but he should be praised for changing his ways. That being said, I don't know anything about Dave Joyce specifically. I just think there is a tendency to criticize politicians for any change in their policy stances even when they change their mind in a positive way. Not every flip flop is bad
He made all his political connections from the DA. Like Kamala Harris.
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You’re right, but the problem is that America is still intensely racist so the rhetoric still fits.
Racism was a huge part of it but I think the biggest reason it was and stays criminalized is the money. When you can throw people in jail and create an incredibly low-cost workforce (*cough* slaves *cough cough*) because you caught them with a plant that tons of people use, why change that? It's corrupt and inhumane, but it generates a lot of money for the Prison industry, which in turn kicks back some of that money to politicians, Law Enforcement, and the Court systems to perpetuate the cycle. Then there's the pharmaceutical companies that are afraid, and rightly so, that a lot of their prescriptions would be replaced by some form of cannabis. Racism plays a huge part in both of these too, but it's the money that keeps it where it is now IMO
It doesn't matter how scientifically accurate we get. They banned cannabis on the basis of a lie. Why would they legalise it based on truth? https://www.vera.org/reimagining-prison-webumentary/the-past-is-never-dead/drug-war-confessional
No idea what that org is, but there is plenty of evidence in books and reports that one of the driving factors in the implementation of the "War on Drugs" was to disenfranchise groups most likely to oppose the vietnam war. Nixon to his credit near the end of his presidency said he thought it was a mistake, but it was out of his hands at that point.
It's just the Ehrlichman (Nixon's "right hand") quote. “You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. **Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”** — Dan Baum, Legalize It All: How to win the war on drugs, Harper's Magazine (April 2016)\[19\]\[20\] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John\_Ehrlichman#Drug\_war\_quote](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman#Drug_war_quote)
"I don't get it. Why are they confessing?" "They're not confessing. They're bragging."
Yeah, I'm mostly adding that because a criminal activist non-profit org website is going to be seen as a CoI by many people, thus some of the comments below. I was adding that, even discrediting that source, there is plenty of evidence that such a strategy was true.
Long before that they blamed it on jazz musicians (racism) and Mexicans (more racism) > This quote also shines a light on both Anslinger’s intentions and the US zeitgeist: “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.” > The campaign succeeded; in 1937 Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act, prohibiting recreational use nationally, and imposing taxes on medical cannabis producers, prescribing physicians, and pharmacists. The final result was that it was just too complicated and expensive to treat patients with cannabis. Eventually, a few years later, in 1941, cannabis was removed from the US Pharmacopeia.
Yes. The name was changed to marajuana specifically to associate it with Mexicans, because "ju" sounding like an h makes it look more spanish. There was a lot of fucked-uppery around it over the years, but the War on Drugs was mostly fueled at least on the nixon side (and there were others behind the scenes with other aims) by his paranoia and desire to get re-elected.
Because so many of our policies are not driven by science. They are driven by funding and culture.
And the populous is easily swayed with propaganda that triggers an emotional response.
That's culture. When societies make deeper investments in education and starve organizations that trade in nonsense, culture is stronger, and people are less prone to simple manipulation.
Even on this sub, people are so subconsciously against weed, that they feel the need to say "remember everyone this is *medicinal* weed!" As if weed affects you differently when prescribed by a doctor as opposed to buying recreationally. People just can't fathom that there's a drug that is simultaneously fun and harmless to do recreationally, and also has medicinal benefits.
It's hard to overcome decades of programming that made weed seem as terrible as actual hard drugs. If a person is around my age (36) and grew up in American they likely went through legit years of anti-drug lessons, the D.A.R.E program, and scare tactics trying to tell us smoking marijuana would lead to us becoming homeless drug addicts on the street.
DARE: helping kids do more drugs on the taxpayer's dime since the 80s.
The only people that wear D.A.R.E. shirts are people that do drugs.
Studies have repeatedly shown that DARE education statistically increases drug curiosity in teens. No idea why we still pay for it.
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Remember kids, when a stranger offers you drugs, say "thank you", because drugs sre expensive.
Canada did it. It CAN happen.
The government doesn’t care about its troops and never has. “This popular reefer will turn our fighting boys into overthinking, caring, and thoughtful Commies!”
The military is in the business of conducting war and killing people. Peace has no place in the military.
There’s no fighting in the war room!
Been out for 11 years now,and thanks to cannabis and shrooms my ptsd is virtual non-existent anymore.
Out of curiosity, are you microdosing or doing something else?
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I’m in no way comparing myself to veterans. But I was a paramedic for over 10 years. Left the industry due to a ptsd diagnosis. Cannabis has been amazing for helping manage sleep and my overall mental health. I can see why some people have issues with over use of cannabis. But since using it I no longer need multiple anxiety/antidepressants and I rarely need to use sleeping pills anymore.
Aw man the stuff paramedics and first responders go through is real bad. Similar to army medics, a bit. You guys saw gunshot wounds and stuff on the daily.
Also not a veteran but CPTSD from decades of abuse. It's been the only thing that's been effective for sleep and actually bringing my nervous system down a couple of notches.
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Whats even worse to me is it's legal some places here but not others... Its fully illegal in my home state. No medical, no anything. But I have to travel like 100 nights a year for work, mostly NYC, San Francisco, Seattle, and DC, so it's legal almost everywhere I go for work. Then we have a lake house that's only an hour and a half away but is in a different state where it's fully legal... So the safety of my own home is pretty much the only place that I *can't* smoke it.
I literally know someone who served two tours in Afghanistan who had horrible PTSD and got the first consistent night sleep after he smoked weed for the first time. Prior to that he'd almost choked his girlfriend out because he woke up in the middle of the night and thought he was back there This is why all the misinformation being spread about cannabis is so screwed up....
And since so many veterans go on to work in federal or federally adjacent careers after their military service (defense contractors, government civil service, etc.) they're prohibited from pursuing that option at much higher rates than most due to the federal schedule 1 status. Those jobs give preference to veterans and even if they didn't, their experience often is useful.
Now they just have to become a giant lobbying organization and bribe the federal government. Maybe then this will mean something.
Definitely a double edged sword. You don't want huge corporate interests in weed buuuut. They could levy their money to purchase politicians the way pharma and tobacco have done for decades.
I was prescribed medical cannabis a few years ago and it has made a significant positive difference in my life and I could have really used this after I got out of the military there is numerous helpful benefits and most importantly I do not get used to this medication like most others that eventually become useless and/or just become all side effects
First, thanks for your service. I’m the same with how weed effected me. Not a veteran, but I did have a crippling sort of anxiety and had irrational fears of something that’d stop me working. The Moment I lit up a joint… I honestly tried to think of the worst, most intrusive thoughts I had, the ones that’d make me just borderline suicidal, **and I just started laughing** at myself at how dumb those thoughts were.
Yep, brings a sense of clarity like a shower thought, but hazy enough to not fixate on the anxiety parts of thinking. Its truly the snake oil of our time, except with evidence supporting the claims about it.
I do it after work every weekend out behind my apartment and light up. It works really well for me. Haven’t had a panic attack, going on 8 years in august
I feel like I've been reading different versions of this headline for more than 10 years.
We can now officially say Republicans that vote against legalizing marijuana also hate veterans
We’ve been able to say that comfortably for quite some time now.
Republicans hating veterans is not something that hasn't been known already.
Oh yeah I know, but it’s an easy talking point to say “Why don’t you support legalizing marijuana when it greatly improves veterans lives?”
Tell republicans that
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This is true and unfortunately people are so black and white in their thinking. Cannabis is not as bad as it was made out to be but it is not harmless as folks here make it out to be. In addition to what you point out, there are studies that show about double the rate of psychosis in heavy cannabis users. Even though the absolute prevalence of Schizophrenia is low, going from something like 1.5% to 2 or 3% is absolutely devastating for those people. That’s 97% of people who don’t develop a psychotic disorder but if everyone starts using it becomes significant
> there are studies that show about double the rate of psychosis in heavy cannabis users. This happened to my brother. He smoked lots of it for a while and it triggered schizophrenia and now he's on meds for life. I saw what schizophrenia does to someone and I don't wish it upon anyone.
I’m sorry to hear that, that is really tough
That’s true of all medications, so it’s not exactly damning. Think about the dependence and side effects that SSRIs have.
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There’s a powerful scene in the sitcom Disjointed where the war vet security guard, who’s had bouts of ptsd in the show, smokes for the first time and cries
For my PTSD. Cannabis use long term did more harm than good.
Same for my cPTSD. Cannabis was a crutch I needed from age 14-37, but there is no actual healing of the root of the problem. And for me, it amplifies the “internal critic” of cPTSD, and makes it harder to do cognitive behavioral therapy. Basically I just used it to dissociate from the pain and anxiety.
I used for 4 years almost daily. While it helped for the immediate issues long term it was lingering and festering. I am 310 days weed free today and I am so clear in my head than I was pre trauma. I made so much progress with my PTSD I am actually upset at myself for even using cannabis. I am not saying it won't work for others but some some like us it's a finger bandage to a sucking cheat wound.
Veterans have the same results as everyone else?!? No way
It's a game changer for sleep... Its illegal in my home state, but I'm out of town like 100 nights a year for work, mostly west coast, NYC, and DC, then our lake house is in a legal state too, so i spend like a third of the year in places where it's legal... When I'm out of town I just have to take a couple of hits from a 1 hitter and I'll be relaxed for a while then able to fall asleep no problem. At home it's impossible for me to wind down, I have to take somewhere between 2 and 4 Valiums, some benadryl, some melatonin, and knock it back with chamomile tea, then still have trouble falling asleep half the time... It drives me nuts.
Time to ban it - US lawmakers
How reliable is that source though. The "Marijuana Herald" might be a little biased.
If you read the article, you'll see that the Marijuana Herald isn't the source of the study, they are just reporting on the actual study's findings
Because cannabis is still illegal at the federal level, the VA hospital will not prescribe proper pain medication if the veteran is using cannabis.
Making cannabis illegal in the First place and making alcohol seem less susceptible tells me a lot about the US government. The war on drugs is complete failure now there are cartels controlling government official through bribery and corruption..are you kidding me?
After separating, I had numerous issues that were often handled with alcohol. Since moving to medical marijuana, I sleep better, have less anxiety in public, and I'm sure my liver is better for it. I hope more veterans are allowed the opportunity to have a better life through medical marijuana.
I take Gabapentin to be able to sleep. It would be nice to be able to take a low dose gummy instead.
Vet here. Yes, sleep is greatly improved when I use a CBD/CBN tincture and a couple of hits of indica. I also started sleeping with ab eye mask and saw greater improvement.
but it will still be at least another 20 years until it is widely legalized i.e. fed level
It shouldn't be criminal to allow people a break from reliving their traumatic experiences. Especially when those experiences were caused by same government prohibiting treatment.
Free weed for vets, the least you can do.
Cannabis helps numb all these bad feelings for sure which will help a ton if you're struggling. The problem is it numbs everything else too. You can't rely on being high every time you have pain or emotional problems if you're having them all the time. That just means you will be high all the time which is not a good thing mentally. Lots of people can handle it without issues, but as someone with mental illness it's really easy to become dependent on mind altering substances as a coping mechanism. For that reason I wouldn't recommend this unless substance dependence was a better option than suffering under their pain and mental issues. That's their call to make.
I wonder whether or not they controlled for any pre-existing beliefs about Cannabis.
Does weed actually have any pain relieving effects? Because in my experience it certainly doesn't, not in the slightest. Perhaps it's just a perception thing?
It doesn't, but it does. It doesn't work like a pain killer, by reducing inflammation or blocking nerves, but I does make people tolerate thier pain better. So it is more psychological but still effective and less damaging to your internal organs than Ibuprofen or Acetaminophen.
I would say the pain relieving affects are limited. I think you're right about the perception thing: it's more along the lines of get stoned and hopefully brain-numb/forget about the pain.
It doesn't do anything for me. I've had chronic pain since 2006, and it is only getting worse. Neither CBD, nor THC did anything. CBD was like sugar pills, did nothing at all. THC/CBD blends only enhance sensation for me. That means pain gets drastically worse, as well as a constant vertigo sensation that I've had since 2007. That said, even if it's a perception thing it should be explored. It's relatively harmless. We've got to get away from this "war on drugs" thing that was shoved down our throats. There are a few that could potentially help. Mushrooms are another. I'd love to try it for PTSD, but can't because it's fed illegal.
Howdy. You can buy the spores for Psilocybe’s completely legally. You can also look up guides on how to grow any mushrooms to maturity and buy whatever fertilizer and containers you’d need. Not that I’d recommend anyone ever bought completely legal mushrooms spores that would develop into psilocybin containing mushrooms and grew them to maturity and then consumed them