Sunday, July 5, 2015

Can Pot cure PTSD? Many Veterans say YES.

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/can-marijuana-cure-ptsd-veterans-say-yes?akid=13274.294211.EGZRN-&rd=1&src=newsletter1038859&t=7

 images and anguish caused the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to diagnose Stys, 43, with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), along with service-related shoulder, knee and ankle injuries this past March, six years after getting out of the Army. Stys sees a VA therapist, but he's not taking drugs for his condition -- that is, except for cannabis, for which he has a Colorado medical marijuana card. He says the marijuana helps him sleep, manage anxiety and avoid succumbing to road rage. And cannabis helps Stys avoid the other substance he's used to keep the images away: alcohol, which led him to fall asleep behind the wheel in 2009. He somehow managed to avoid ending up dead or in jail.
"No one is saying this is a cure-all, but it is a cure," says Stys, his dark, tired eyes gazing out the window of his mountainside cabin. "There has to be a nuanced understanding of what cannabis is, how it affects people, how it can help with pain management, PTSD and war wounds."

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