Weed Between the Lines: PTSD and Medical Marijuana

Gavin Dahl is in for Leland Rucker for this weeks Weed Between the Lines column in the Boulder Weekly.

On July 15th, the Colorado Board of Health voted 6-2 to reject the latest attempt to add PTSD as a qualifying condition for doctor recommended medical marijuana, citing “an absence of scientific information.” This vote came after dozens of veterans and patients spoke in favor of the petition during public testimony. The Medical Marijuana Scientific Advisory Council, tasked by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment with reviewing petitions based on their scientific merits, recommended a yes vote. The state’s chief medical officer Dr. Larry Wolk also endorsed the proposal.

Local medical marijuana activists and veteran support groups have criticized the Colorado Board of Health for rejecting those recommendations and voting no. Ten other states have passed similar measures.

Gavin Dahl says the recent vote by the Colorado Board of Health highlights a bigger problem for veterans accessing health care. “A big issue for veterans is access to doctors at the VA and according to sources that I spoke with, around the country, in states where there is medical access to cannabis for PTSD, theoretically, veterans are supposed to be able to talk to their VA doctors about this. The VA has alluded that it is going to play along with state laws. So really the biggest complaint from veterans groups in this case was about the lack of access to doctors for veterans.”