Bill adding PTSD to Colorado medical marijuana list clears Senate committee
A state Senate committee voted 5-0 on Monday afternoon to advance a bill that seeks to include PTSD as a qualifying condition for medical marijuana in Colorado.
I probably wouldnt be alive today if it wasnt for cannabis, said veteran Curtis Bean, one of dozens speaking in support of the bill before the State, Veterans and Military Affairs committee. Bean said he has lost one friend a year to suicide as they struggled with the side-effects of drug cocktails prescribed to treat their PTSD symptoms.
The committee also heard from representatives of the states major medical organizations, which urged caution for such an addition without more robust research.
PTSD doesnt have an age or a gender, said Dr. Charolette Charlie Lippolis, a child and teen psychiatrist. Most sufferers are not vets. I have concerns, grave concerns, about putting this forward as a medical treatment without the data to support that.
The amended Senate Bill 17, co-sponsored by Sen. Irene Aguilar, D-Denver, and Rep. Jonathan Singer, D-Longmont, would add PTSD and acute stress disorder as disabling medical conditions under the states medical marijuana law.
SB 17, which heads to the full Senate for consideration, is the latest attempt of many to include PTSD as a medical marijuana qualifying condition in Colorado, joining the likes of diseases and conditions such as cancer, HIV/AIDS, seizures, severe nausea and severe pain.
Physicians, its still up to you. Were just giving (doctors) another option for what they might recommend, Aguilar said, following the hearing.
Aguilar, a medical doctor, told the five Senate committee members that she has never recommended medical marijuana in her practice and she even felt scammed when Colorado implemented medical cannabis regulations after a voter-approved initiative in 2000.
Theres an institutional bias in the medical community regarding cannabis, she said, adding that she became more open when hearing story after story from constituents.
If theres another tool that a doctor can use for the betterment of a patient, they should have the option to use it, she said.
By a show of hands, the majority of the standing-room-only crowd of about 100 people at Mondays hearing were there in support of SB 17. The majority of the public testimony came from supporters, who included veterans as well as survivors of abuse of trauma.
Teri Robnett, a medical marijuana advocate and organizer of the Cannabis Patients Alliance, which works with medical marijuana patients, said shes interacted with many PTSD sufferers who are prescribed drugs with black box warnings of suicidal thoughts.
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