Lawmakers, Advocates Fight to get PTSD Covered Under the Law

When Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state Legislature agreed to a medical marijuana program in New York at the end of the 2014 legislative session, advocates hailed the decision, but were quickly disappointed by the small number of medical conditions eligible to be treated under the program.

A year later, the state Department of Health is set to announce the winners of the five licenses to distribute medical marijuana by the end of the month and elected officials and advocates are already eyeing the next big hurdle for the program: adding post-traumatic stress disorder, Alzheimer’s disease and muscular dystrophy to the list of qualifying conditions.

“That’s a decision that doctors should make, not legislators or government officials, but Governor Cuomo was very insistent that we had to have a list of specific conditions and that would be that,” Assembly Health Committee Chairman Richard Gottfried told City & State in a video interview.

State Department of Health Commissioner Howard Zucker has until January to consider whether the three conditions should be added to the state’s medical marijuana program.

“We need to resolve this. Veterans, in particular, could really benefit from this,” state Sen. Diane Savino told City & State. “It’s a very important issue for veterans, the (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs) is struggling with this. They know veterans are self- medicating with marijuana, they’re choosing to have their own version of ‘don’t ask don’t tell.’”

PTSD is a psychiatric disorder that can occur after experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event. After the event, individuals can suffer from flashbacks, bad dreams and many other emotional and psychological symptoms.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ website says the belief that marijuana can be used to treat PTSD is “anecdotal” and “there is no evidence at this time that marijuana is an effective treatment for PTSD.” On Thursday, the state of Colorado, which allows marijuana for recreational use, rejected it as a treatment for PTSD.

Michael Krawitz, executive director of Veterans for Medical Marijuana Access, argued that medical marijuana is an effective anti-anxiety drug, along with being a drug that combats neuropathic and chronic pain.

He says he has been told by many veterans he works with who suffer from PTSD that marijuana allows them to have a good night’s sleep.

Krawitz also noted that only two anti-anxiety medications, Zoloft and Paxil, are approved by the FDA for treating PTSD, and they can come with some severe negative side effects— including suicidal thoughts.

“They’re not particularly effective,” Krawitz said. “They’re not a magic bullet for post-traumatic stress. What you wind up with is a large population of patients that have either used these medications and they really haven’t helped them much or they’re having difficulty using them because of the negative side effects.”

Using medical marijuana to help veterans combat PTSD—although they are not the only group to suffer from the disorder—is a particularly complicated issue, since the VA is a federal agency and marijuana is still a Schedule I drug under federal law. Therefore, many VA hospitals decline to weigh in on the issue.

The Albany Stratton VA Medical Center does not have a position on the issue, a spokesperson said, but will address medical marijuana in their 2015 policy agenda scheduled to be released in a few weeks.

“Certainly I think that it’s something the veterans community picked up on a long time ago and the science has been catching up,” Krawitz said. “The VA has actually been very receptive to the knowledge, to the evidence and the science. What they haven’t wanted to do is get involved in the controversy.”

Because marijuana use—both medicinal and recreational—is still so controversial, the issue unavoidably becomes both a political and ethical discussion, not just a medicinal one.

“I think rationally it should not be up to the law to say PTSD is in (the state’s medical marijuana program) but this (other condition) is not,” Gottfried said. “We don’t do that for almost any other medication including some very dangerous and highly addictive controlled substances.”

Like state lawmakers who argue they should not make decisions best left to doctors, Krawitz said doctors should not be expected to act like police officers and should only act in the best interest of the patient.

“Unfortunately, veterans or non-veterans have run into trouble with their doctors, where their doctors feel like they’re supposed to act like the policemen in this particular instance,” he said. “The ethics are very clear here, the doctor is not supposed to be a cop.”