ptsd military therapy medical cannabis

Post-Traumatic Syndrome A Natural Response to Trauma

Mary Lou Smart www.medicalcannabisart.com

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association, defines post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as the development of characteristic symptoms following exposure to an extreme traumatic stressor.

Reactions include helplessness, fear and horror.

Persistent memories of the event, or events, lead to dreams, nightmares, obsessive thoughts and flashbacks (actual recreations of an event).

While the walking wounded suffering from life’s traumatic episodes are every-where, military veterans experience post-traumatic stress in higher numbers and therefore receive more press.

Viewing it as a natural response to unnatural events, Mary Lynn Mathre, RN, CSN and CARN, a Vietnam-era Navy nurse and president and co-founder of Patients Out of Time, says that she’d be more curious about combat veterans who return from war without post-traumatic stress syndrome. Patients Out of Time is the leading educator for health care professionals and the public on the therapeutic use of cannabis.

“Frankly, if you talk to a lot of the vets, if they go to cannabis, they do so much better,” she said. “A lot of the vets coming back are committing suicide. This is a huge story that needs to be told.”

Drugs Aplenty for the Traumatized

In February, The New York Times published a story written by James Dao about the United States Veterans Administration (VA) dispensing a cornucopia of prescription drugs to soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD diagnoses.

Many are also on pain medications, and many are mixing, matching and self-medicating. With easy access to the likes of Ativan, Adderall Ambien, Celexa, Effexor, Elavil, Haldol, Klonopin, Lunesta, Prozac, Paxil, Restoril, Risperdal, Ritalin, Seroquel, Trazodone, Valium, Wellbutrin, Xanax and Zoloft, many who are trying so hard to cope end up dying. These deaths are often labeled as accidental. None are being treated by the VA with cannabis, the only medication that’s never killed anyone and has long been associated with weaning patients off of strong nar-cotics.

The VA’s been sending returning vets out on the streets with loads of prescription medications for decades. Its own personnel report a shortage of counselors to treat veterans and a lack of resources to track the multiple medications. Although in recent directives it acknowl-edges that veterans in states with medical marijuana programs will be permitted to use cannabis in tandem with medical treatment offered through the VA, for the most part this federal entity refuses to acknowledge the medicinal benefit of cannabis.

Despite decades of clinical studies overseas that have convinced authorities in other countries to treat wound-ed soldiers with cannabis, the federal government con-tinues to classify marijuana as a Schedule I drug with no medical benefit under the Controlled Substances Act.

“Israel and Czechoslovakia are using it for their soldiers right now,” said Al Byrne, co-founder of Patient’s Out of Time, past executive director of NORML, Vietnam vet-eran and retired Navy officer. “They’ve decided that the therapeutic value is so great that their soldiers can have it. These are the same guys that our guys are fighting next to in Afghanistan. They get hurt; they get cannabis. Our guys get hurt; they don’t get cannabis.”

Michael Krawitz, founding director of Veterans for Medical Cannabis Access, is a 100-percent disabled Air Force vet injured in the1980s who experiences consider-able pain. Over the years, his knowledge of standard pain treatment has grown along with the pain medica-tions he has been prescribed. He hated Ultram, a syn-thetic, narcotic pain killer whose negative side effects were “so horrible that they made taking the medication unbearable.”

With easy access to the likes of Ativan, Adderall Ambien, Celexa, Effexor, Elavil, Haldol, Klonopin, Lunesta, Prozac, Paxil, Restoril, Risperdal, Ritalin, Seroquel, Trazodone, Valium, Wellbutrin, Xanax and Zoloft, many who are trying so hard to cope end up dying.”

After his Ultram experience, he insisted on researching each new drug before agreeing to take it, which he did when Amitriptyline was offered. He told his doctor that the negative side effects that he’d read about – seizures, dizziness, drowsiness, impaired think-ing, sexual complications, suicidal thoughts and fatal reactions when combined with other drugs – made him reluctant to use it. With Ultram, the warnings he’d read stated that up to 40 percent of the patients taking it experience the same side effects. A series of other med-ications came with similar warnings. He also refused to take Vioxx, Celebrex and Lyrica.

To counter the depressing aspects of pain medications, he was given antidepressants. “When I first started being treated as a disabled vet at the VA in Omaha, they rou-tinely gave me huge jars of Zoloft, antidepressants, with my pain killers,” he said. “They just automatically give you Zoloft; they just automatically do, probably a lot of hospitals do, to counter the depressive effects of the nar-cotics.”

Krawitz read about Zoloft and decided not to use it. “I looked them up in the book and the effects seemed to be less than the cannabis could provide, so I never took them up. I just used cannabis.”

The Land of Enchantment

Numerous studies point to the endocannabinoid system’s strong role in regulating emotions. Such studies, along with considerable patient testimony, convinced lawmakers to include PTSD as the only psychiatric indication qualifying for a recommendation in New Mexico’s medical cannabis pro-gram.

Bryan Krumm, psychiatric nurse practitioner, is on Patient Out of Time’s advisory board and has spoken at its biennial conferences. He has petitioned the federal government in an effort to have cannabis moved from Schedule I to protect patients as well as medical professionals. Krumm helped draft New Mexico’s medical cannabis legislation, pushing for the addition of PTSD as an approved condition. New Mexico’s is the only medical cannabis program in the United States recog-nizing PTSD as a qualifying condition.

“In terms of safety, there is nothing that we have to offer phar-maceutically that can match the safety of cannabis,” he said. “In my own practice as a clinician, I have never come across a single pharmaceutical agent that is as well tolerated, and lacking in significant side effects, as cannabis.”

Many of Krumm’s patients suffer from post-traumatic stress. The greatest number of people applying for a recommenda-tion in New Mexico receive it for post-traumatic stress. As of February 16, PTSD was the qualifying condition for 1,105 of New Mexico’s 3,218 medical cannabis patients.

“I’ve seen some very significant benefits in helping with that, which go above and beyond what I’ve been able to do with just traditional pharmaceuticals,” he said. “Probably the vast majority of patients that I have in the program still require pharmaceutical treatment. But quite often the traditional pharmaceuticals are not able to manage the anxiety, not able to stop the nightmares, the flashbacks, the constant, recurring thoughts that people get, and that’s where cannabis is very helpful.”

Animal studies point to hyperactivation of the amygdala, the part of the brain involved in emotional regulation. Shown in research to perform a primary role in the processing and memory of emotional reactions, the amygdalae have a large number of cannabinoid receptors, as do other areas of the brain feeding into them.

“Activating those receptors helps turn off or slow down the hyperactivity,” Krumm said. “So we see things like a decrease in anxiety, a lessening of depression. With patients with chronic suicidal behavior, we’ve seen it take away suicidality when they would not remit with traditional pharmaceuticals. Another big thing, with PTSD we see mood swings with irri-tability and anger. Cannabis really helps to control that. It has the advantage of working very quickly when working with the inhaled route in being able to suppress those types of emotions and allow people to function better.”

Therapeutic Benefit

Pushing to have the D taken out of PTSD, Patients Out of Time would rather see it called post-traumatic stress syn-drome.

“This is a natural response to an abnormal stress, so why do you call it a disorder?,” Mary Lynn Mathre asks. “It’s post-traumatic stress. It’s a syndrome. To call it a disorder adds insult to injury. This is what happens when you real-ly are stressed with something above and beyond normal day-to-day stressors.”

For extreme emotional trauma, Mathre says that cannabis therapy is a safe solution.

“The basic science is showing that cannabis helps with the forgetting,” she said. “It helps patients to calm down.”

Ervin Dargan’s seen the connection between his stuttering and post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Less than one percent of stutterers carry the condition into adulthood. Dargan’s anxiety over past and future speech was great, which only exacerbated his torment.

“If you’re traumatized by an embarrassing episode of stuttering, you tend to dread it,” he said. “It becomes a cumulative stress that stays. I was one of the ones that didn’t grow out of it.”

There is no known cure for stuttering. Its impact can be severe, causing ongoing feelings of shame, embarrassment and frustration.

“Stuttering is a tough nut to crack,” he said. “I went to speech therapy when I was a teenager, and that didn’t seem to work. You can wear headphones, and that seems to work, but it also seems that most things for stuttering work for a little while and then they don’t.”

While Dargan is quick to distinguish between the severity of war and his experiences, he feels that the end result of trauma can be similar.

“The vets definitely deserve to have their post-traumatic stress up there, up front, but there definitely are others that deal with the effects of built-up stress,” he said.

For Dargan, 54, cannabis is the only treatment he’s tried that has provided lasting benefit. While occasionally smoking heavily-seeded, low-grade marijuana in the 70s and 80s, he noticed that it seemed to help his speech. In the late 1990s, visiting friends who consistently smoked strong weed, he realized the full benefit of high-quality, seedless, sinsimellia product, which did the trick. He’s stuck with it ever since.

“If I give it up for awhile, I notice after about a week that my tension starts to rise again and I start to stutter more,” he said.

Dargan’s experience instilled a desire to advocate for patients and medical cannabis. A videographer by trade, he combines his skill with patient / writer, Mark Pedersen, in documenting personal profiles on www.cannabispa-tientnetwork.com. He also films and provides website support for Patients Out of Time, www.medical-cannabis.com.

“I tell people that I’m thankful that I was a stutterer because it helped me to communicate,” he said. “I look ahead in a conversation to think of words. When you stutter, the desire to communicate is overwhelming because that’s the one thing that you can’t do. It can be extremely frustrating, but I think the overall experience helped me to communicate better.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest Posts

This menu shows the most recently posted content for a quick update since you last checked-in.

How to Sober Up from Being High?

Cannabis consumption brings different effects, depending on the person’s level of smoking tolerance. After an extreme euphoric effect, what comes...

From the Family Vault of Shanti-Baba

"Seems more than strange to grow up as a child and see how important my parents and their peers viewed...

Why Get Pines Wheatgrass

Wheatgrass might just be a typical plant growing in your backyard, but few people know that it has a lot...

How to Make Your Own Canna-Caps

by Old Hippie BeyondChronic.com What do you do when you need cannabis medicine and you can’t or don’t want to...

Database Search

Are you researching marijuana as medicine? Use the simple form below to search any condition. Read personal stories from patients just...

Cannabinoid Receptors in the Body and Their Importance

David B. Allen M.D. By legal Democratic Vote; Cannabis Is Medicine To get CBD from top verified sources, click here....

The True Origins of Haze

By Big Herb It all began in 1969, In Santa Cruz, California. At the time, there was Thai Oaxacan and...

Top 5 Health Benefits of Hemp Seeds

Hemp seeds are those seeds that are formed from Cannabis Sativa, a hemp plant. They are different from marijuana but...

Cannabis and Working Out

If you're wondering how cannabis can help you with your workout regime, then you probably need to read this article....

How Companies Are Creating Innovative New CBD Products

Cannabidiol (CBD) is a non-psychoactive compound found in cannabis and hemp that may deliver unique health benefits. CBD is just...

5 Marijuana Compounds That Could Help Combat Cancer, Alzheimer’s & Parkinson’s

by Paul Armentano Deputy Director of NORML (the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) This commentary was initially...

Living with Osteogenesis Imperfecta

By Michael Morrow My name is Michael Morrow, I'm 37  years  old and I have Osteogenesis Imperfecta. OI is a...

Gifts from Mother Nature

By Dianna Donnelly - "The couch activist” Aspirin, otherwise known as Acetylsalicylic Acid, is one of the most commonly ingested preventative medicines...

Paradise Seeds Allkush; More Than Just Kush

One of the new feminised strains from Paradise Seeds is named “Allkush”. So nothing but Kush? Taken genetically literally, no...

28ft… The John Berfelo Story

By John Berfelo "Medical marijuana saved me from a life on pharmaceutical drugs..." My name is John Berfelo and this...

My Grinspoon Moment

By Carl Hedberg Sometimes a single meeting can change your life. Such was the case for me when, in the...

The Science Behind Cannabis Safety

David B. Allen M.D. By legal Democratic Vote; Cannabis Is Medicine. Drug safety is on the minds of most all...

Heavenly Hash: The Art, Science and Industry of Cooking with Cannabis Extracts

by Samuel Wells Samuel Wells is an Assistant Professor of English in Denver, CO An Edible Enigma As scientific and...

Living High with HIV

How Medical Marijuana Rivals Mainstream HIV Medicine By BenBot In 2011, I was diagnosed with HIV. An unmarked van was...

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

With Veterans at Risk, Change is Necessary, but Progress is Slow By Mary Lou Smart In 1933, the repeal of...

Milagro Oil for Lung Cancer

By Mary Lou Smart www.medicalcannabisart.com Compassionate care advocates Michelle and Michael Aldrich at Patients Out of Time’s Seventh National Clinical...

Living and Dealing with ADHD

by Patricia Allen It was back in 1974 that I first became familiar with the term Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder...

Inflammatory Comments

by Bill Drake As a long-time TY reader I’ve noticed what seems to me to be a rather over- whelming...

How Cannabis Might Keep Coronary Stents Open Longer

By David B. Allen M.D.Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgeon, Member ICRS. And Prisoner of the Drug War Cali215doc@gmail.com First the set...

Unlocking the Secrets, Advanced Tissue Culture

Tissue Culture is a process of isolating cells from plant tissue (explants) which are cultured (grown artificially), in a nutrient...

Anxiety Panic Disorder and Cannabis

By Hal Lubinsky My name is Hal Lubinsky. I'm in my forties, a husband, a father, a grandfather, a U.S....

Can Cannabis Cure Schizophrenia?

By Richard Shrubb, Freelance sailing, health and social affairs journalist ould cannabis treat or even cure schizophrenia? Things look promising...

Multiple Sclerosis: Regaining the Good Life with Whole Plant Therapy

By Mary Lou Smart© 2012 www.medicalcannabisart.com A trial attorney, Jim Dyer practiced law in Tucson, Arizona for 34 years before...

The Science of Cannabis Leads in Many Directions

The Evolution of a Sense of Well-Being By Mary Lou Smart www.medicalcannabisart.com While speaking at Patients Out of Time’s Seventh...

Healthy Body, Healthy Mind

By Shantibaba It is evident for all people who wish to listen that doing all things within moderation is better...

Post Traumatic Stress

Psychology and Medication at its Best By Jeff Kundert OTR Jeff works as a Wellness and Fitness Educator. He has...

The Ripper Effect

By Subcool Some really interesting information has come to my attention, and I am very excited to tell everyone in...

Auto-flowering Plants

By Shantibaba The discreet evolution of Auto-flowering cannabis plants is a recent occurrence, one that is in mode at present...

Uncovering the Original Sacrament: Chris Bennett’s Cannabis and the Soma Solution

Review by Samuel Wells When asked to name an author crucial to the growing mainstream understanding of the uses of...

Cornerstone of Individualized Phytogenetics ACDC 22:1 @ CB3

Alternative Cannabinoid Dietary Cannabis 22%CBDA:1%THCA acting at GPR55 Alias CB3 by William L. Courtney, MD, AACM American Academy of Cannabinoid...

Mr. Magoo

By Ron Hudson My birthdays: I woke that birthday morning, in October of 1966, knowing it would begin like the...

Medical Cannabis University

By Reverend Philip H Hoff - Chancellor, MedicalCannabisUniversity.org ( MCU, Inc. ), a 501 c(3) nonprofit school. The school focused...

Storm’s Story

By Georgia Peschel WHEW! Delivering this kid was like delivering a hurricane!” When our son was born, those were our...

Soil Pests & Diseases

By Lazystrain Soil is a living organism made up of billions of microbes and bacteria. The cosmology of soil life...

A Tragedy Felt Around the World

by Jonny Appleweed On Oct. 27, 1970, President Richard M. Nixon signed into law the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and...

Autism & Cannabis

Prohibition Makes it Tough on Parents by Mary Lou Smart Jeremy Patrone (not his real name) has a goal. He...

Vaporization of Cannabis: Are there benefits over combustion?

By William Eckhardt Although vaporization is a relatively recent development for the delivery of cannabinoids the proliferation of vast numbers...

Bedrocan

By Harry Resin Generally when you think of Amsterdam, you think of the coffee shops, but that’s not all that’s...

How Does Wattage Affect Your Vape? Beginners Guide to Wattage

Many vape devices available on the market allow you to adjust the wattage so that it suits your personal preferences....

9 Healthy Ways of Coping With PTSD

PTSD can affect many individuals and isn’t something that only happens to folks who have served in the army and...

Secrets To A Good Night’s Sleep

After a night spent turning and tossing, you will wake up feeling tired, grumpy, and sleepy. As we get older,...

4 Things To Keep In Mind Before Starting Your Cannabis Journey

Cannabis has recently become legal for medical usage in multiple parts across the U.S and several other countries for recreational...