CBS highlights growing number of vets using pot for PTSD

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More than 20 percent of all vets coming home from the Middle East report at least some symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. For some, it shows in depression and anxiety or an inability to function normally in day-to-day civilian life. For others, it’s more grave.
After two tours in Afghanistan, Matt Kahl says the only way out he saw after returning home was through suicide. He tried and failed, and likely would have tried again if it wasn’t for one thing: cannabis.


That marijuana is a good therapy for PTSD isn’t new knowledge. Soldiers have been turning to pot for decades, notably after Vietnam. But then it was seen as drug abuse, now people like Kahl are fighting off that stigma and are working to get vets the meds they need.
As we reported in May, a Colorado Springs-based group, Grow4Vets, plans to give free cannabis to vets suffering from PTSD. The idea, according to Grow4Vets founder Roger Martin, is to get the vets off of the heavy narcotics like oxycontin often prescribed to them by VA doctors.
“Anybody that’s been on narcotic medication especially wants to get off of it,” Martin tells CBS News this week. “I really have not met anybody who just enjoys being in a drug stupor.”
CBS This Morning profiled Kahn and Grow4Vets earlier today, highlighting an issue that has been pushed under the rug for too long: Check out the full story below:

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