One of the last to be drafted to fight in Vietnam, Jeffrey served and got out in April of 1975 during the fall of Saigon. He went immediately from the war into law enforcement, a thrill-seeker who was cited for bravery numerous times and commended for his work. “You couldn’t kill me with a bullet,” he told me. “I ate stress for breakfast.”
It was many years later, when Jeffrey was 39 years old, that he experienced his first panic attack that felt like he was having a heart attack. He found himself in the hospital facing a barrage of doctors who refused to acknowledge anything was wrong with him. Prescribed multiple drugs, including Wellbutrin, Zoloft, Xanax and Clonazepam, Jeffrey made two suicide attempts and was finally diagnosed with late-onset post-traumatic stress disorder.
Despite his growing stress, lack of sleep, panic attacks and fits of anger, rage and violence, Jeffrey found little relief in the medications and virtually no support from his employer or the physicians treating him. He lost his job, his insurance and thus his ability to pay for the pharmaceuticals, so he had to stop taking them abruptly and plunged into withdrawal that included violent episodes.
In a self-described “lost place,” a person who loved him dearly gave him a bag of marijuana and told him to smoke it. Jeffrey had smoked quite a bit of cannabis in Vietnam but hadn’t touched it in years. He began self-medicating that day and immediately felt relief. He was able to sleep without the nightmares that had plagued him for years, an improvement that radically changed his days as well.
While Jeffrey acknowledges that PTSD is never curable due to the parts of himself that he’ll never get back, he asserts that cannabis has been the catalyst that has gotten him close to what he calls “98% managed.” He manages the symptoms of PTSD every day by medicating with full flower and concentrated forms, both smoking and vaping it, as well as using edibles. In “getting a breath of relief,” the symptoms of PTSD become contained, and his loved ones can breathe in relief as well.
Jeffrey asserts that cannabis has made his life normal again. He is no longer on any pharmaceuticals. He is passionate about advocating for other war veterans with PTSD, despite the Veterans’ Administration and many doctors’ disapproval. He disagrees with their assertion that cannabis is only for stoners and stresses that using cannabis has brought balance to him and other veterans that use it.
“We were injured,” he states, “and we have to treat our injuries. We have to tend our wounds the best we can. The scars never heal – your essence, your soul and your being, but with cannabis I laugh, love, make love, hug, cheer, cry and celebrate. I’m a human being again.”