Nearly 40 percent of the nearly 9,090 medical marijuana patients in New Mexico are on the registry for post-traumatic stress disorder.
That means nearly 3,700 percent of the New Mexico is relieved today after the Department of Health ruled that PTSD will remain a qualifying condition for the state medical marijuana registry.
This whole PTSD brouhaha all started in the fall, when Albuquerque psychiatrist William Ulwelling petitioned to remove PTSD because he didn’t think there was enough research-based evidence to support it thanks to federal laws severely restricting research. According to New Mexico law, citizens can petition to have the board add or remove qualifying conditions.
To Ulwelling, everything showing cannabis was good for PTSD was purely anecdotal. Basically, all of those people living more normal lives thanks to cannabis isn’t enough for this jackass, he needs the Feds to tell him what is and isn’t good for other people. Most of it stems from fear. According to the Santa Fe Reporter Ulwelling also says marijuana is addictive and can cause psychosis.
The guy is such a clown that at a November Medical Cannabis Advisory Board hearing, he half-seriously said that that donuts were safer than marijuana: “”If donuts were recommended as treatment for PTSD, I wouldn’t be here.”
The joke did not go over well with the activists in the crowd, according to the Reporter. In fact, it made Ulwelling look like a joke – and not just to sane, sensible and compassionate cannabis activists either.
At that November Medical Cannabis Advisory Board meeting the board unanimously recommended keeping PTSD. Yesterday was simply the formalized denial of Ulwelling’s petition, which “lacked any sufficient evidence ” according to Health Secretary Retta Ward.
New Mexico medical marijuana laws allow patients to possess up to six ounces at a time. Patients can cultivate their own supply or designate someone as a caregiver to grow for the patient.