Colorado Lawmakers Push to Get PTSD Covered Under Medical Marijuana Program

Despite the fact that marijuana is fully legal in the state of Colorado, giving every adult 21 and older the freedom to get stoned without permission from a doctor, lawmakers are still hell bent on giving patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) the freedom to consume the herb under the state’s medical marijuana program.

Several attempts have been made throughout the years to make PTSD a legitimate qualified condition, but the supposed experts behind the Colorado Board of Health have simply refused to budge on the issue. Not even the valiant efforts tossed into the ring of the state legislature have been strong enough to keep the spirit of this topic alive for too long.

However, lawmakers believe 2017 could finally be the year for change.

Colorado Senator Irene Aguilar recently introduced a proposal (Senate Bill 17), which aims to include PTSD as a qualified medical condition. The measure was scheduled to be heard earlier this week before the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, but that meeting was postponed due the bill’s sponsors not yet having a grip over whether their proposal has the solitary power to make the change or if the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment carries all of the weight.

The hearing is rescheduled for next week.

There are some who believe it is ridiculous for lawmakers to continue wasting time trying to legalize another qualified condition, when the state has made weed legal for all—giving adults the right to purchase cannabis products in a manner similar to beer.

But many people suffering from PTSD say Colorado is not doing them any favors by refusing them treatment with medicinal cannabis. Despite the state’s recreational marijuana law, these folks have argued that fixed incomes have made it next to impossible to afford the 28 percent tax that comes from buying marijuana at a retail dispensary.

Some of them have even gone as far as to suggest that commercial dispensaries do not carry effective enough strains to calm the symptoms of PTSD, while also blaming housing restrictions for their inability to engage in home cultivation.

If lawmakers succeed this session in getting PTSD deemed an official qualified condition, Colorado would join the ranks of 19 other states and the District of Columbia that now allow patients with severe anxiety disorder to gain access to cannabis medicine.

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