Our troops deserve safe effective treatment for physical and mental trauma - legal medical marijuana.
Please visit Alternet and read Fred Gardner’s interview with Marine Sgt. Phillip Northcutt, one of thousands of Iraq veterans with PTSD who can benefit so much from medical marijuana, but are persecuted for doing so. I’ve excerpted a few clips in Sgt. Northcutt’s own words:
We lost our commanding officer to a suicide car bomber like 1500 meters from the gate.
The psychs came out to see us. They said “We’re going to do a screening of you guys. We want you guys to get help… So we went over there and got interviewed by a Navy captain. He said, “what you have is called chronic post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s a natural result of you being in combat and seeing the things you’ve seen, blah blah blah.”
The questions were, “Are you having nightmares?” Fuck yes. Are you kidding me? Do you know what I saw yesterday? “Are you having intrusive thoughts?” Yes. Fucking of course. They went through this whole series of questions that obviously, if you’re in combat and you’re being honest, the answer is “yes” to all of them.
The MRI showed that my L-4 and L-5 disks were bulging. They were pinching my sciatic nerve and causing me severe pain down to the back of my knees. They showed no interest in my PTSD, there was never a word about TBI. Three years later a VA doctor in Martinez diagnosed me with traumatic brain injury.
[While on medical hold] I would be given a grocery bag full of really heavy shit. Hydrocodones and anti-depressants, Neurontin, Seroquel, anti-nightmare pills, half of it you get really fucking high on. … You get back and they just like push 10 pills on you right away.
I started realizing, “Of all the crap they’re giving me, I feel the best when I’m smoking herb. Hmmm… That’s weird. When I just smoke herb I feel kind of relaxed, I don’t feel so stressed out, I don’t feel the depression, I don’t feel the guilt…” Eventually I realized: “this is real medicine.”
It helped me relax so I could sleep. That’s a big difference. The pills just knock you the fuck out. You’re just gone. Even if you don’t want to go to sleep you’re still sleeping. Which can be pretty dangerous. Once I decided to become a medical marijuana patient, that’s when everything changed.
One of the really wild things that happened was: I became a gardener for the first time in my life. I was developing a love of plants and an appreciation of nature. And I was developing a relationship with God. Instead of killing and maiming I was making things grow.
Next thing you know, they’re issuing a warrant for my business, based on my electric bill of $600. Which is not high in an industrial zone. The diesel shop next door uses three times as much.
They took me downtown to LA County Jail for booking and the whole time they’re talking shit to me: “Who do you think you are? You think you’re bad. You think you’re Rambo.”
I lost my business, I lost my car, I lost my respect in the community, I lost all my money trying to defend myself. I literally had nothing to my name. Jennifer had moved back to Oklahoma to stay with her mom while I was in jail.
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Marijuana is a PTSD nightmare cure. At least in my case, and among a small group of people I know who suffer from PTSD nightmares.
This webpage is the first instance I have seen where people actually mention that marijuana can help with PTSD nightmares. Believe me, I have searched, and as far as I can discern, the fact that marijuana can stop PTSD nightmares in their tracks is NOT generally known. This must be corrected because there are no doubt millions of people out there, police, fire, military, and just the general population, who wake up every night from recurring nightmares, and they don’t even know that marijuana would stop these traumatic events completely.
I have been trying to think of a way to get the word out on the use of marijuana to stop PTSD nightmares, and maybe I’ll start right here.
My story: I am a Vietnam veteran who served in Vietnam in 1968. After I had been there almost a year, I was involved in an attack by the Viet Cong on the Marine Combat Base at Phu Bai, South Vietnam, in 1969. It is not necessary to go into detail, just know that I thought I was about to be killed and went through all the trauma that this kind of thing can do to a person.
I obviously survived, and went on about my business, and then about two or three weeks after the incident, I started reliving this traumatic event every night in horrible nightmares. I didn’t think too much about it at the time, I thought this kind of thing was probably normal for someone who experiences such shocks to the mind. But as time went on, the constant nightmares really became debilitating.
Then, I was introduced to Vietnamese marijuana. And the nightmares quit. I still did not think much about it, thinking the nightmares had probably run their course, and did not connect the stopping of my nightmares with smoking marijuana.
I smoked marijuana steadily for a few years after that, and then decided to quit because I was trying to get a job that required a drug test. After I quit smoking, within just a week maybe two, my PTSD nightmares were back full-blown! It was like they never had stopped. It was really quite disturbing to realize that something inside me was causing me this kind of distress even these many years later.
I still did not connect the marijuana with having anything to do with my nightmares.
After I got the job, I started smoking marijuana again, and the nightmares stopped. But I still did not make the connection.
I continued for several more years, and then quit smoking again, and damned if the nightmares didn’t come back with a vengeance then! This was just a few years ago, and this time I finally made the connnection: When I smoked marijuana, I did not have nightmares at all, or hardly any dreams; when I did not smoke, I relived the same nightmare.
So I started talking to some friends who had PTSD and every one of them said that marijuana helped them the same way it helped me. Then I got the book “The Science of Marijuana” and right there in the first few pages it stated that “marijuana prevented the mind from entering into R.E.M. sleep. Instead, the mind bypassed the dream stage, and went directly to the deeper sleep stage.
This information needs to get out to the general public. This medical effect of marijuana on people who suffer from PTSD nightmares alone might be the thing that finally pushes the legalization battle across the goal line. This information has to be important to millions. Sleep deprivation is one of the most debilitating things that can happen to a human being. Sleep deprivation caused by PTSD nightmares can be cured!!! Permanently!!!
I do not know how much of a dose of marijuana it would take to trigger marijuana’s ability to stop PTSD nightmares. I, personally, would be classified as a heavy smoker of marijuana, but for all I know, a merinol capsule might do the trick. I cannot say for certain because again, as far as I can determine, this issue is not even being studied by the medical community or the marijuana legalization community. Im not even sure they are aware of it.
That’s about all I can think of to say right now. But that may change. :)
It just blows my mind sometimes when I think that nobody knows about this PTSD cure, but then again, it took me, a heavy marijuana smoker years before I made the connection, so maybe it is not so strange.
Bottome Line: If you or a loved one are having PTSD nightmares and want them to stop, you should try some marijuana. Your first good nights sleep will be like Heaven.
Keep up the good fight guys, because it is worth it.
I cant agree more, those folks that volunteer to protect our country DESERVE the best. Cannabis IS the best. Amazing how we treat folks that volunteer to protect us, just amazes me.
As a country we are ignorant, as a people we are able to conquer anything!!
Take back our country!
(20 year military vet) It keeps those dreams, thoughts, etc. down. I figure I would be a basket case if it weren’t for my illegal, self administered dose of this natural, safe and effective herb.
thank you,right to the point of truth
Israel has found marijuana to be very effective in treating soldiers with PTSD, among other ailments among the general population. Here’s a link to one article about MMJ in Israel:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1094284.html
Just now reading the book “Lone Survivor” a book by a NAVY Seal and the loss of 10 and many others of his brothers in arms.
Let us honor these people for the service they have given and still giving to our country and give them a simple plant that will make huge differences in their lives. After years of indoctronation to war and kill returning to peaceful and so called civil society is challenging for many of these service people.