I had an alert appear on my news feed and I found this glorious information about the new stance that the VA has for MMJ! Please read the attached article and enjoy!!
VA doctors can now talk to patients about MMJ use for treatment
11 Likes
Thatâs great news! Keep this up guys! We can end marijuana prohibition!!!! đđ
3 Likes
Before you talk to the VA docs, make sure all you need is cannabis! If you are on treatment for severe chronic pain âadjustments necessary to your treatment plan on a case-by-case basisâ can mean they cut you off completely!
If you still need vicodin or similar drug for bad days or nights, then I donât think I would mention weed to the VA docs. If they drug test you and say you are positive for THC, tell them you have been visiting a buddy dying from cancer and he was smoking some powerful stuff, but you donât smoke it. They canât tell the difference between smoking weed and just inhaling second-hand smoke. Of course donât push it and smoke the day of your appointment.
4 Likes
@super_newby
Thanks for sharing this article
Thatâs awesome news for all out brother and sister veterans out there
I for one have managed to stayed away from the VA all these years
But for the veterans who do use them this is great stuff
Tides are turning for the better every day when it comes to legal Cannabis nation wide 
Although @1BigFella makes some good points
1 Like
Absolutely @1BigFella. I am a vet and the very mention of using marijuana and you will be lab tested for THC. If youâre positive you will be taken off of opiates. It was the biggest favor they ever did me. I posted to @super_newby a long time ago about this. Opiates should never be used to treat chronic pain. The withdrawal was the worst 10 days of my life so far. All I can say is that if youâre worried about being taken off of opiates for any reason⌠youâre addicted to them. I know this from my experience.
@Countryboyjvd1971
@AmnesiaHaze
I decided to take matters into my own hands and grow high CBD stuff to deal with my chronic pain.
2 Likes
Iâm very happy for you that cannabis controls all your pain med needs. Some vets may not be so lucky. Thatâs why I said to experiment well before any VA appointment and see if cannabis (THC, CBD, or both) really takes care of your pain. It is infinitely preferable over opiates, but some people may still need a few backup opiates for really bad days. Iâm thinking like one or two days out of a month. Not really addiction, and apparently there are lots of stories about people kicking their opiate addiction with cannabis.
The VA, even more than just doctors in general, should have programs to try switching over their opiate-addicted patients to mostly cannabis. But those programs should be gradual, not cold turkey. For example, I could see a program where they give you 5 vicodin and some weed, and if you can bring the 5 vicodin back after a month and show them to the doc, you get more weed. The savings could be huge because weed smoking patients are MUCH cheaper to take care of than heroin addicts.
3 Likes
I like the idea but the Fed says cannabis is illegal so that wonât be happening any time soon. I already tried the âbad daysâ thing with my personal doctor and she said no way. She keeps up to date on opiates for the treatment of all types of chronic pain. She gave me the full rundown as to the fact that opiates should never have been used to treat chronic pain in anyone not terminally ill. Doctors were so stretched thin that opiates were the easy answer. The problem is that in a short time from now, opiates are going to be made very hard to get by the Fed. All of these people on them had better get off of them or they are going to be left high and dry. As I learned, withdrawal wonât kill you if your heart is ok. If itâs not, theyâll have to use drugs to get you off. Cannabis only stops 50% of my pain. Itâs better than nothing.
1 Like
Cutting everybody off would be a very bad idea, but this administration has never let that stop them. Addicts will just buy heroin, which is actually what a lot of them do now. Besides terminally ill there are some people with real extreme pain and if you really cut them off they kill themselves. I donât know if cannabis will help them much, but finding out would be a way to make some actual scientific progress on the opiate crisis.
As for the DEA rules, everything about cannabis prohibition is based on the ridiculous lie that it has no medical value. EVERYBODY in the world knows that is a lie, and it just makes people think the DEA is run by political hacks that care nothing about facts, or science, or medicine.
I suspect THC is going to turn out to be the prevention for Alzheimerâs Disease and they are going to look like idiots for opposing it. There are already peer-reviewed papers in reputable journals where they found that THC removes amyloid plaques from brain cells. We all have a cannabidioid metabolic path in our brain cells for a reason.
1 Like
I belong to a few Disabled Vet Groups on Facebook and Iâm seeing more and more people getting denied the opioids, and being offered muscle relaxers, and no transition off of the opioids and that is horrifying to me. I understand the reasoning behind it but thatâs just wrong, anyone going through withdrawal could easily get turned onto heroine or worse.
As for myself, I have back and leg nerve damage and Iâve only taken prescribed opioids when I canât take it anymore and my doctor knows this (civilian, not VA). Now that my retirement has been approved, I wonât have to be so covert in using the MMJ that gives me relief. If I never take opioids again, Iâll be fine with it because using MMJ when I need to, instead of stopping a month before a doctorâs appt and having to use the opioids more frequently, will hopefully be enough to get me through the rest of my life in relative comfort. Besides, my doctor has approved for me to go to a local dispensary and get my MMJ card but I will refrain from MMJ until that green card is in my hand.
My other reason for sharing my initial post, and deciding to âcome outâ after the retirement is complete, is so I can stand up and be counted with my fellow brothers and sisters that were injured while in service and refuse to be appeased by bags full of worthless drugs that do more harm than good. If more and more of us find relief in MMJ, and arenât afraid of the social stigma in order to do so, it may be enough to tip the scales to help it be decriminalized and downgraded at a Federal level. If it doesnât work, then Iâm still in the fight and will continue to be because I wonât be a casualty to the opioids.
steps quietly from soap boxâŚ
2 Likes
@1BigFella the DEA doesnât want it legal because they are raking in billions from the stuff they seize and these government crooks would mostly be out of a job if cannabis is legalized. The governments answer to any problem like the opiate crisis is to blame the user for the addiction and shut it off to them. Drain the swamp yeah right!
1 Like
We need to make these politicians understand that we need pain relief and as far as anyone knows, cannabis has never killed anyone by ingesting it. Opiates have killed millions world wide. As I said to @1BigFella, I Know for a fact that a lot of people are about to get cut off from opiates soon so I suggest they get ready to deal with it.
1 Like
I guess the only way to die from weed, is if a truckload fell on you and crushed you. I donât think that has ever happened. I waited until retirement, too. Nobody to answer to, no tests, legal in my state.
1 Like