Veterans seek clarity on medical marijuana

PALMER — It’s clear after Thursday’s meeting that medicinal marijuana use is important to local veterans.

Of the 30-some people present at the Mat-Su Borough Marijuana Advisory Committee’s third public meeting at the borough assembly chambers, many were veterans seeking treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and other health issues.

Committee chair and Midnight Greenery CEO Sara Williams said many veterans are “overprescribed by the VA,” and look to marijuana to replace many of their medications.

At the meeting, “we had veterans stand up and say they believe that they need access to cannabis because they don’t wanna be on these pills, they don’t wanna be overmedicated by the VA,” Williams said.

Williams said her husband is one of those veterans with PTSD, and she herself is dealing with it. Her husband has to wear sunglasses indoors or risk triggering an attack by exposure to fluorescent lights. And in Williams’ experience, those attacks can be helped by cannabis use.

“Hands down there is no better drug that treats PTSD,” she said. “I have PTSD, so I know.”

But it’s not just the Williams who enjoy the calming effect and pain management properties of cannabis. Williams estimated that 90 percent of all marijuana users she has come in contact with are medicinal users.

“I’ve seen it cure cancer,” and soothe afflictions such as Crohn’s disease, multiple sclerosis, depression/anxiety and fibromyalgia, she said.

The problem is, the only language in Ballot Measure 2 regarding medicinal use is a one-sentence reference to AS 17.37:

“Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to limit any privileges or rights of a medical marijuana patient or medical marijuana caregiver under AS 17.37,” section 17.38.130 of the measure reads.

Which means that all persons seeking treatment by marijuana use still have to go through all the red tape required before it was made legal last fall.

And, there is currently no differentiation between medical and recreational marijuana use, as far as strains that work best medically. All of that could depend on where the product is obtained, who the caregiver is, and how educated the grower is, Williams said.

“There’s no current industry-governing regulation board that tells people how to consume marijuana medically,” she said. “There’s no science behind it yet.”

Neither are there FDA guidelines or physicians with specialized training to determine what kind of marijuana a person needs or how much.

“At the moment we live in a world where you get what you get, and if you grow, you get what you grow,” Williams said.

But that world is, however slowly, changing. As this brand new industry develops, so will the science. There maybe be bumps in the road, but that’s natural — and non-life-threatening, Williams said.

“Just like the Legislature sometimes makes mistakes, the industry might make mistakes as it goes along, but (cannabis is) not a product that can kill you if you take too much — you just might take a really long nap,” she said.

Regulations for land use and cultivation were also discussed at the meeting, but no solid recommendations have been made, Williams said.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.