On Veterans Day this November, some hearty veterans of the Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam conflicts will pitch tents on the sidewalk at the entrance to the Veterans Affairs headquarters. Their top demand: that the agency supply veterans with cannabis to treat post-traumatic stress and other ailments related to their service.<\/p>\n
The band of brothers planning to launch their encampment on Friday, Nov. 9 are calling themselves the \u201cVeterans and Friends Against War and Nuclear Weapons.\u201d These traditional pro-peace demands will also be stressed in their actions, but the lead banner for the protest encampment, which they plan to maintain through the entire Veterans\u2019 Day weekend, will read \u201cVETS DEMAND VA MEDICAL MARIJUANA ACCESS NOW.\u201d<\/p>\n
The group first came together in 2011, when\u00a0veterans camped out<\/a>\u00a0in Washington, D.C.\u2019s Freedom Plaza as part of that year\u2019s\u00a0Occupy Wall Street<\/a>\u00a0movement. That fall, they held their first protest encampment outside the\u00a0Veteran Administration<\/a>\u00a0offices \u2014 to bring attention to the growing problem of veteran suicides.<\/p>\n Lead organizer John Penley, a Navy vet from North Carolina, told Cannabis Now that they\u2019re planning for the protest to include consuming cannabis in front of the VA office.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re calling for folks to bring medical marijuana edibles,\u201d Penley said. \u201cCannabis is legalized in D.C., and they\u2019re not going to want to arrest a bunch of vets at the VA office on Veterans\u2019 Day weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to the sidewalk, Penley also expects some vets to pitch tents in the VA headquarters\u2019 parking lot, which is federal property. Pursuant to the 2017\u00a0Initiative 71<\/a>, giving away cannabis is perfectly legal in the District of Columbia as long as no money is exchanged, and public smoking is just a\u00a0ticketable offense. However, this does not apply on federal property.<\/p>\n Currently, VA health care providers\u00a0are prohibited<\/a>\u00a0from recommending that their patients use cannabis or helping their patients obtain cannabis treatments. However, under a 2010\u00a0policy change<\/a>, veterans will not be denied treatment if they participate in a state-legal medical marijuana program, or discuss their cannabis use with their VA healthcare provider. There have been efforts both\u00a0in Congress<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0in the courts<\/a>\u00a0to allow VA doctors to prescribe or recommend medical marijuana.<\/p>\n Another organizer of the event is Ed Hunt, a Vietnam veteran who lives in Lynchburg, Virginia. He served as a medic\u00a0at the Freedom Plaza encampment in 2011 and then camped out at the VA office with Penley later that year.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been using pot since I got out of the military in \u201971,\u201d he tells Cannabis Now. \u201cThe VA just wanted to pump me full of drugs. Remember, in \u201971 there was no PTSD. They were just calling it depression. It was \u2018shell-shock\u2019 in World War I and \u2018battle fatigue\u2019 in World War II. After Vietnam, they tried to push all that off to the side. The sooner you die, the quicker they don\u2019t have to deal with you.\u201d<\/p>\n Hunt says medical marijuana helped him survive. \u201cIf I need to go to sleep because my mind is racing, I dip into my little stash and I vape, and get a full night\u2019s sleep,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n When asked about his experiences in Vietnam that he\u2019s still dealing with all these years later, Hunt responds: \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be good for me to talk about that. After I got off the phone. I\u2019d have to deal with the memories.\u201d<\/p>\n Last September, the VA reported, \u201cAfter adjusting for differences in age and sex, risk\u00a0for suicide was 22 percent higher among veterans when compared to U.S. non-veteran adults.\u201d Studies have shown some of these suicides to be\u00a0linked to PTSD<\/a>, while other studies have\u00a0indicated that cannabis can be an effective treatment<\/a>\u00a0for the syndrome.<\/p>\n \u201cVeteran suicides are still at a high rate,\u201d Penley says. \u201cWe think access to medical marijuana would help there too. And we\u2019re demanding no cutbacks to VA medical centers. The Trump administration is stealthily trying to privatize veterans\u2019 access to healthcare, sending vets to private doctors more and more.\u201d<\/p>\n Penley also notes the VA has limited veteran access to opioids, making cannabis a necessary option for pain management<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cThe VA has made access to opiate painkillers practically nonexistent,\u201d he said. \u201cIn order to get opioids from the VA, you have to be practically terminal.\u201d<\/p>\n Penley said he\u00a0was getting codeine from the VA for chronic back pain, but it was cut off two years ago.\u00a0He believes this policy is, paradoxically, encouraging opioid addiction, and that cannabis may point to a way out.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to take over-the-counter pain meds, or go on the black market,\u201d Penley said.\u00a0 If the VA would make medical marijuana available, it would help a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n On Veterans\u2019 Day itself \u2014 Sunday, Nov. 11 \u2014 Penley\u2019s group has a permit to hold a rally in McPherson Square, just a few blocks from the VA headquarters, where veterans will be speaking at an open mic.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s\u00a0military parade<\/a>\u00a0was scheduled to take place on Saturday, Nov. 10, until Trump tweeted on Aug. 17 that he had canceled the parade<\/a> because the costs were too high. Before the parade was canceled, Penley says he and his comrades plan to march to the parade route.<\/p>\n While their pro-peace message may not be popular with many Trump supporters, Penley said he had hoped to win even some of them with the demands for medicinal cannabis and no cutbacks at the VA medical centers. \u201cI think we\u2019ll get a good reception from vets,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re supporting all vets, no matter what their political affiliation may be.\u201d<\/p>\n This protest comes as the VA is mired in\u00a0controversies and a leadership shake-up<\/a>. Recent media accounts have aired claims that a clique of Trump\u2019s golfing buddies from his Mar-a-Lago resort, revolving around Marvel Entertainment chair Isaac Perlmutter, have been informally advising Trump on VA policy (while paying monthly fees to Mar-a-Lago). Advocacy group\u00a0ProPublica<\/span><\/a>\u00a0calls them the \u201cShadow Rulers of the VA.\u201d Based on e-mails they received through the Freedom of Information Act, ProPublica reports that they\u2019ve been pushing for \u201cexpanding the use of the private sector\u201d for veterans\u2019 medical care. In a write-up on the findings,\u00a0New York Magazine\u00a0<\/span><\/a>accuses the Trump administration of \u201claunching stealth attacks on veterans.\u201d Advocacy group\u00a0VoteVets<\/span><\/a>\u00a0has just\u00a0launched a federal suit<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>against the VA over the allegations.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Penley\u2019s own journey to activism has roots in his military service. Enlisting in the Navy to avoid being drafted into the Army in 1972, he served four years \u2014 mostly as what he calls a \u201cCold War Navy air-traffic controller.\u201d He says he controlled air traffic with nuclear weapons, which he credits for contributing to his PTSD. Although he served in Italy and Greece, he is technically a Vietnam-era veteran.\u00a0He still gets a monthly disability check from the VA for PTSD and a\u00a0degenerative back condition.<\/p>\n As a part of exorcising his angst over his service-time proximity to nuclear weapons, Penley became an anti-nuclear activist after his discharge. In 1982, he actually penetrated federal property during a protest at the\u00a0Savannah River Site<\/a>\u00a0nuclear-weapons fuel plant in South Carolina. He was convicted under the\u00a0Atomic Energy Act<\/a>\u00a0and sentenced to a year in federal prison. Instead, he went on the lam, fleeing to Nicaragua, which was then under the control of the revolutionary Sandinista regime that the Reagan administration was trying to overthrow. He spent a year there before being arrested by Nicaraguan authorities for an expired passport. He was eventually deported back to the U.S. and was arrested as he got off the plane in Miami.<\/p>\n After serving his time, he relocated to New York\u2019s Lower East Side, where he worked for years as a photojournalist, covering the city\u2019s activist scene \u2014 including cannabis advocacy. He was part of the Occupy Wall Street encampment until it was\u00a0evicted<\/a>\u00a0in November 2011, and then joined the vets\u2019 encampment in D.C.\u2019s Freedom Plaza. He\u00a0recently moved back to his native Asheville, NC.<\/p>\n He sees his current campaign as bridging a cultural divide. \u201cPeople will be coming from Colorado to bring vegan food for our encampment, but some vets will also be doing BBQ,\u201d he chuckles.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>,\u00a0do you think veterans deserve access to medical marijuana?<\/p>\n The post Vets to Protest For Medical Marijuana Outside VA Headquarters<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
On Veterans Day this November, some hearty veterans of the Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam conflicts will pitch tents on the sidewalk at the entrance to the Veterans Affairs headquarters. Their top demand: that the agency supply veterans with cannabis to treat post-traumatic stress and other ailments related to their service.Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5496,50,3217,53,139,5497,5498,339,210],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28696"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28696"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28697,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28696\/revisions\/28697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}A Veterans\u2019 Day Protest for Cannabis<\/h4>\n
Is Cannabis a Solution to the Veteran Health Crisis?<\/h4>\n
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John Penley\u2019s Long, Strange Trip<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Vets to Protest For Medical Marijuana Outside VA Headquarters<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"