Wonder How They Feel

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The photo attached is the cover of the current issue of the official magazine for the Disabled American Veterans. The cover story is quite interesting, to say the very least. The featured story is about the promotion of medical marijuana to treat veterans. The article points out that about 68,000 veterans are prescribed opioids from the VA, and that veterans are also twice as likely to die from misusing them as the civilian population. One of the takeaway quotes is from a proponent of allowing medical marijuana to treat veterans, Nick Etten: "Sixty percent of what the VA treats can fall into the category of chronic pain, and the system was not designed to do much more than push pills." Of course, this is a long way from being resolved, given that the federal government still classifies cannabis as a no-no. In fact, I remember the old "surprise urine tests" back in my service time. I distinctly remember a case, where a first-class petty officer had a positive result. That would have netted him a few letters, most notably RIR (reduction in rate). He chose to appeal the findings, and the CO warned him if he got a second positive he would get a few more letters, like BCD (bad conduct discharge). Well, it did, and he was busted two pay grades (E-6 to E-4) and kicked out. That's just one incident that I have personal knowledge of regarding people who were busted for pot use in the military. Wonder how they feel now, with the notion of the VA being petitioned to use pot in lieu of opioids for chronic pain and PTSD treatment. Now, I have chronic pain. Would I use it? I seriously don't know. But, despite all those corny headlines in the newspapers in the late 19th and early 20th century talking about people dying from overdoses of marijuana (while there was cocaine in the soft drinks and in the dentist's office), I think it's worth a shot. The worst that can happen is a potato chip shortage at the VA cafeterias, right?