A petition has been created by the Veterans for Medical Cannabis Association (VMCA) on the U.S. government’s “We the People” Whitehouse.gov web site in order to help gain support for a U.S. policy change that would allow disabled military veterans to access medical marijuana to treat posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). According to the web site, “cannabis is an effective medicine…to ease the symptoms of PTSD, giving disabled Veterans a big improvement in their quality of life.” Here’s a link to find out more.
Another petition was created by a veteran at Change.org to send a message to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the DEA to stop blocking MAPS’ medical marijuana research for treating veterans with PTSD. This petition specifically addresses the medical marijuana study proposed by MAPS to study how cannabis affects veterans with PTSD. The proposed study has been approved by the FDA, but has been blocked by NIDA’s refusal to allow the researchers to purchase the cannabis necessary to conduct it. According to Sergeant Ryan Begin of the United States Marine Corps—who served two tours in Iraq, and suffers from PTSD—his condition “received the greatest benefit from medical marijuana.” So it’s not surprising that a lot of veterans are upset about NIDA and the DEA’s attempt to block medical research and want to do something about it. More information about this petition can be found here.