Last month in Colorado, Iraqi veteran Steve Otero, with his toddler twin boys by his side, told a crowd at a Colorado Board of Health meeting, “Without cannabis, I’d be dead.” Otero said he had a noose (literally) around his neck when a civilian friend suggested he take a couple puffs off a joint to ease his troubled mind, and lo and behold, it worked. Yet even after the testimony of Otero, the Colorado Board of Health denied approving medical marijuana for PTSD due to a lack of hard information on the benefits of such treatment.
   Clearly, Colorado is conflicted, because a veteran can purchase marijuana for recreational use, but if the VA tests his or her urine and it’s positive for THC, they can lose their VA benefits. This is a perfect example of a few bureaucrats sticking to their ideology while also having their heads too far up you-know-where to realize what’s good for combat veterans when the only combat these health officials have experienced is a snow ball fight.
   I am an Iraqi veteran and veteran advocate suffering from both PTSD and MST (Military Sexual Trauma), and have spent countless hours at VA hospitals speaking with other veterans who suffer like I suffer. We talk endlessly about what can help us overcome the health issues inflicted upon us from being “over “There.” My Stryker brigade was engaged with the enemy nearly every day for 15-months, and when I returned home in 2007 it took me several years before I could be near a crowd again.
   Some of the time my conversations with fellow combat veterans lead to “natural remedies” for PTSD – of course the one most talked about is green, smelly, and grows on trees. Yet having to speak quietly about this illegal natural remedy (in Ohio for instance) is truly intriguing because many veterans know how effective marijuana can be. Yet the VA, with some major encouragement from their friends at Big Pharma, have pushed countless legal pills on us, and many veterans are now dependent on these psychotropics, which have side-effects equally debilitating as  PTSD or worse, such as suicide.
   Our nation is riding a wave of popular support for the legalization of marijuana, and Ohio may soon be another domino to fall. Twenty-four states have legalized medical marijuana and a few states have even legalized marijuana for recreational purposes. It has been seismic shift as most Americans now support marijuana for both medical and recreational purposes.
   No doubt we have entered a new era for this country regarding cannabis and THC, and it’s time we at least make an attempt at using marijuana to treat PTSD and MST, which are causing this epidemic of veteran suicides. I have heard that marijuana “helps me deal” far too many times to dismiss what so many in the past smeared as “dope.”
   And if medical marijuana can help even one veteran to step back from the edge, should we call it “miracle marijuana”? And if veteran suicides continue at their current level of over twenty per day, then aren’t those who deny veterans medical marijuana the true dopes?
   I believe the VA is sitting on the answer to a lot of veteran's prayers. Ingesting, smoking or vaporizing government issued marijuana is a more effective and potentially a safer treatment for PTSD than most anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds currently prescribed by the VA. What’s more, medical marijuana may prove infinitely cheaper than Seroquel and other meds that Big Pharma is flooding the VA with. And perhaps the VA’s addiction to Big Pharma is part of the reason the VA is facing a $2.5 billion dollar budget deficit and may be forced to close hospitals soon. The cost of this bureaucratic nightmare will be more veteran lives lost. It's inevitable.
   Yet all is not lost, as the US Senate, in an eye-opening move, recently approved funding for studies into the treatment of veterans with PTSD with marijuana. Nonetheless it’s mindboggling to me that after a decade of 20-plus veteran suicides a day, someone finally decided to do something proactive other than shoving pills down our throats.
   Put succinctly, delaying medical marijuana research for PTSD probably means a delay in saving more veterans from committing suicide. The chemical CBD (cannabidiol) in marijuana shows promise in reducing anxiety, and found to specifically reduce anxiety in patients with Social Anxiety Disorder. THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, however, can cause psychosis and increased anxiety according to some studies. These conflicting reports about marijuana's effect on anxiety are slowing down progress on the road to better treatment for PTSD.
   The VA is a federal organization, and because the laws regulating marijuana, medical or otherwise, are executed at a state level, most veterans have been unable to have access to government-sanctioned medical marijuana, presumably because certain state governments considered it addictive.
   What’s agonizingly ironic is the VA for the last decade has been creating junkies by the thousands, prescribing benzodiazepines or “benzos” for anxiety, for instance. PTSD is after all, an anxiety disorder. And not only are benzos addictive, the side effects are crippling. In 2012 the office of the Army Surgeon General released warnings that benzodiazepines were linked to an increased risk of suicide. Which makes me wonder, has anyone committed suicide after taking a couple of puffs off a marijuana cigarette?
   The VA apparently hasn't caught on to the Army Surgeon General’s warning about benzos because it prescribes them like Girl Scouts prescribe cookies. Which makes me wonder even more, does the Army Surgeon General’s warning about benzos make the VA and Big Pharma culpable for some veteran suicides?
   Suicidal ideation or thoughts is a frightening thing to experience. Imagine not being able to picture a future free from pain, or maybe not being able to picture a future at all. Imagine that no matter how many people love you and care about your well-being, you always feel alone. Imagine that no good feelings can reach you, and all you can feel is pain and apathy. Imagine facing a bureaucracy that cannot or will not help you when you finally get the courage to ask for help. Imagine knowing there is a potential solution out there that doesn't involve eating a bullet, but that solution is illegal. Imagine that you are a veteran contemplating suicide and unable to legally obtain the one medication that actually curbs suicidal thoughts. I am holding out hope that the American people will sway the government to help us.