The drug czar honors veterans

From his “blog

On Veteran’s Day, we take time to honor the brave men and women who defend and protect America’s freedoms. Often times, these service members experience significant mental health and substance abuse issues after returning home from duty. As we reflect on their bravery and sacrifice, we must not forget our commitment to fight for them and ensure they have access to the highest quality medical and treatment support to address these issues.

… as long as it doesn’t involve cannabis.

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22 Responses to The drug czar honors veterans

  1. ezrydn says:

    To my brothers from the military side, A heart felt “GARRY OWEN” to all of you. To the rest of you “vets of the Drug War,” I honor your sacrifices and endeavors to strive for victory. Just imagine a 6’3″ grunt standing at attention…rendering a salute.

    Even Droopy’s tribute comes across as a slap in the face!

  2. Ed Dunkle says:

    “… as long as it doesn’t involve cannabis.”

    Or MDMA which I’m sure would be of tremendous help for those with PTSD.

  3. darkcycle says:

    That would be why they removed Viet Nam Veteran and my buddy Earl Terry from the liver transplant list after he admitted smoking marijuana. He’s tougher than they are though, and he’s still kickin’ after they gave him three months (that was two years ago).

  4. allan420 says:

    aye lads and lasses… a hearty salute to my fellow vets!
    And Droop Dog can kiss my white ass. Hypocrite. Liar. If you’ve got a single stone left Gil you’ll step up and really honor what it is that all vets served for – truth and justice and liberty for all. Not liberty for everybody but potheads, junkies, tweakers and trippers…

    I honor your service as a cop Gil, why do you dishonor me and mine? Like many a vet I’m from a family of vets – my dad served in the Army, fought in the Battle of the Bulge. My oldest brother served at the very beginning of VN, next brother served his full tour during VN and seved in VN and ground crew w/ the SR 70… And I served during the end of VN. We joined because we believed in that service to country thing.

    But your lying Droop Dog? It dishonors all vets, their service and the very founding notions of this country. We aren’t going away Gil…

    Here are two vet stories I think worthy of a read by those interested. The first is for the VN era guys and gals, the second is more current:

    US CA: Dave Herrick’s Strange Odyssey Through The U.S. War On Drugs

    Cops Execute US Marine On Porch Steps In Delaware

    The worst of drug abuse is nowhere near as bad as the worst of the WO(s)D Gil. We’re gonna push the issue Gil… we want to see you answer questions in public, questions you aren’t given before hand. Honor vets Gil – tell the truth.

  5. allan420 says:

    @darkcycle… I have one of those friends too. And see, dammit, these are the stories we all know too well that the general public doesn’t. Denied a liver because he consumes cannabis? That’s criminal behavior.

  6. ezrydn says:

    Wanna take a guess why I can’t get a replacement heart for the one that they poisioned with Agent Orange? My Cardio says mine’s working at 24% effciency at the moment. Cardio also knows I vap and says it’s not a problem.

  7. darkcycle says:

    We’re a nuisance to ’em boys, face it. I don’t use the VA. I have that option, most people don’t.

  8. allan420 says:

    I don’t use doctors or the VA… (knocks on wood/head) unless I stick my finger in the table saw blade of course. And when I did do that? The ER nurse was a very cool gal, served on Guam during VN… she was on the line treating wounded incoming to the hospital. I sucked it up and didn’t wince, tho’ the guy that brought me in was almost moved to nausea.

    I’m using a 36 year old image of me in uniform for my facebook pic. I had cheeks! And hair!! And stoner glasses…

    I wrote my first cannabis LTE about the time that pic was taken (1974), to the base paper. I was the base photog so the base newspaper folks’ office was next to the photo lab/studio, they printed it, signed it anon and bucked up and covered my ass when the base commander wanted to know who wrote it. Admitted to “an error in judgement in printing it.” The Colonel was satisfied if I remember correctly. I remember when I was short and my first sgt was shocked at how long my hair was, told me to get it cut. Next time he saw me he was shocked at how long my hair was… and then I went PCS – home. Didn’t cut my hair until last year. That was for you First Sargeant!

  9. claygooding says:

    The Re-up officer took one look at me,signed my post clearance papers and I was out of there.
    Six months after I finished my last five months in FT Sill,
    Okla I received a letter that my duffel bag from Nam had come in and was being held at the Transit Storage facility
    and to come get it.
    I was scared shitless,with 1/2 lb of VN black and appx 1/4 lb of Thai stick inside a Premium metal cracker box inside the bag. It took me a month to work up to going to get it.

  10. darkcycle says:

    For my own part, I avoid thinking about that stuff anymore. I would remember some shit that went on, and before you could blink, my PTSD would kick in and I’d spend the rest of my day inside, unable to deal with anybody and fighting battles that ended thirty years ago. I mean heart pounding palms sweaty, teeth gnashing, psycho-motor anxiety…everything. It was thirty years before I slept an entire night through.
    What, you may ask, finally helped me to let go and finally start to forget that stuff? I came down with cachexia from chemical exposure unrelated to my service (I lived as a kid growing up in the chemical shadow of an oil refinery). I got this here prescription for medical cannabis, and it changed my life.
    Not that I hadn’t recreationally enjoyed herb all along (hell, I put myself through graduate school growin it!), but I was only a very occasional user. It was after I began using large doses (and I mean Large doses) of cannabis to treat my cachexia, that I discovered the way I think about that stuff is different. I still remember the shit, but it has lost it’s power to completely destroy me. I remember, then I can stop. Hear what I’m sayin? and I know you combat vets know what I mean…I CAN STOP!

  11. darkcycle says:

    In case you’re wondering, I’m eating good now for six years. I’ve gained back weight and was able to continue working, though not full time and not as a therapist in institutions anymore. In April of 2005 I weighed 107 lbs. at 5’8″ and my weight in the service was 165lbs of lean muscle. I’m up to 130 on a good day now and holding…knock on wood. My health otherwise is so good that five years ago I married my second wife and recently started my second family. So I don’t complain. My life is exactly how I would want it and at this point I wouldn’t change anything about it. I owe a big part of that to marijuana, it supported me when I had no other means, and it cured me when I was sick. Who could ask for more? other than maybe make this miracle legal for everyone….

  12. darkcycle says:

    Hey Allan, I may be able to make the Oregon Medical Cannabis Awards this year in Portland, you gonna make it?

  13. vicky vampire says:

    Not being able to get a transplant because you tried a harmless plant called Cannabis. this seems like utter super duper supreme maddness on steroids,and we sit here in America and criticize other countrys over everything all the time, we need to look at our own situation charity begins at home and we seem to sorely lacking lately.

  14. allan420 says:

    keep me posted darkcycle, I’ll sure try!

  15. DdC says:

    As a proud Antiwar Veteran, actually I’m still active duty. I think its time for our tax paid universal soldiers to exercise their American rights and not just sign up for a paycheck to kill innocent foreign or domestic people in for profit police actions each and every soldier getting shot at knows is a war. Torture or carpet bombing political embarrassments doesn’t make one brave and its high time we stop this hero worship of thugs and killers, especially in the name of religion or the flag. The one bought at Wallmart, made in China, by kids in sweatshops, with plastic from Iraqi crude oil.

    Fucking hypocrites send these kids to hideous places and conditions to protect vested interest and sell war toys. Fuck that! Soldiers do a job like the garbage-man or fireman. If they are sacrificed by some Military Industrial Complex lobbyist how the hell is that anything but treason? How many Sam Stones are in prison for self medicating. How many Vets are homeless? Mostly deterrents to those of us still working to not question authority or blow any whistles in spite of the harm.

    Many Vets making a living growing Ganja and protecting that investment using the same means taught to them to protect corporate investments. Many decades of not even recognizing PTSD. Buck up you pussies was the standard treatment. Yet recruiters still have huts to suck in vulnerable kids, especially in these so called economic depressions.

    Now soldiers with their own Haliburton aids to peel potatoes and shine boots. Asbestos lawsuits sending Cheney to desperate measures, then Iraq turns it all around. That and no bid contracts and “Mission Accomplished” changing a declared illegal war profiteering and trading with the enemy war into a trillion dollar tax paid police action. Stop the Killing, Stop the Vice Wars and Stop bitching about taxes for schools while complete silence on taxes to blow up caves or burn villages or cage Ganja users. Let’s have a Peace Day and spend some of that dividend on us for a change…

    Many Veterans are the Enemy of the D.E.A.th War Jun 08, 2006
    Sam Stone came home, To his wife and family After serving in the conflict overseas. And the time that he served, Had shattered all his nerves, And left a little shrapnel in his knee. But the morphine eased the pain, And the grass grew round his brain, And gave him all the confidence he lacked, With a Purple Heart and a monkey on his back. There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes…

    300000 Iraq & Afghan Vets Suffer PTSD & Depression

    Book: Collateral Damage: America’s War Against Iraqi Civilians
    By Chris Hedges, Laila Al-Arian

    VIDEO: Why students, teachers and anti-war activists are coming to the National Conference in Los Angeles
    The National Conference taking place Nov. 13 and 14 in Los Angeles will be packed with discussion about ongoing struggles in the United States and abroad, including strategy sessions for educators, students and anti-war activists to fight back and win money for education, not for war.

    America’s Veterans: The Collateral Damage of War
    The facts put out by America Works explain that nationwide approximately 154,000 veterans are homeless each night. Foreclosure rates in military towns have been on the upswing of four times the national average. In 2008, more than 1.3 million vets were living in poverty. Almost one million were unemployed. More than a third of incarcerated veterans have screened for PTSD. In the New York City homeless vet population, approximately 85 percent is comprised of those who served in Vietnam and Korea. Many vets move to New York, looking for services and employment they couldn’t find at home.

  16. DdC says:

    He’s the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame,
    His orders come from far away no more,
    They come from here and there and you and me,
    And brothers can’t you see,
    This is not the way we put the end to war.

    Universal Soldier by Buffy St Maria (U2b)

    But your flag decal won’t get you
    Into Heaven any more.
    They’re already overcrowded
    From your dirty little war.
    Now Jesus don’t like killin’
    No matter what the reason’s for,
    And your flag decal won’t get you
    Into Heaven any more.

    Flag Decal by John Prine (U2b)

    Sam Stone by John Prine (U2b)

    Let me ask you one question
    Is your money that good
    Will it buy you forgiveness
    Do you think that it could
    I think you will find
    When your death takes its toll
    All the money you made
    Will never buy back your soul

    Masters of War by Bob Dylan

  17. darkcycle says:

    Allan, go to Oregon Norml’s website. It’s on Dec.18, from 10a-9p at the cannabis cafe. I’m going if I can because Danny Danko is a friend of mine, and he gets to this coast only once or twice a year. He’s running a growing seminar at the awards.

  18. ezrydn says:

    Luckily, I now qualify for Foreign Medical Program which means no more trips north. I can use my own doctors here instead of using the VA hospital maze. Ya know what that means? No more Indian Doctors who “know it all” and don’t care what you have to say. No nore “center dots.” Yea!

  19. So tired of... says:

    …your honored as long as…

    You dont use cannabis.
    you dont support any reform of outdated laws.
    You dont defy outright lies.
    as long as you look the other way and dont question our AUTHORITY !

  20. msgt thomas vance says:

    Mr. Boehner promises that the new Republican House will work on jobs and spending cuts and will do what the American people want. I will believe it when
    they pass a bill ending the prohibition of marijuana.
    The Democrats held a internet town hall meeting and the number one item was to end marijuana prohibition. So far the Democrats haven’t listened. The
    Republicans set up a web site asking what Republicans should do if they are returned to power. Here again the number one suggestion was to end marijuana
    prohibition.
    Ending the onerous and failed war on marijuana will create a new source of revenue that could be used for a number of things like maybe paying down the
    deficit. It would put tens of thousands of people to work, (more than 20,000 jobs have been created by the medical marijuana industry in California alone),
    and would send a wave of economic activity coursing through the country. There are no justifiable reasons for continuing prohibition.
    So, if the new Republican House wants to prove it is listening to the American people, then it must move to end marijuana prohibition. Otherwise the
    Republicans are as full of baloney as the guys they replaced. I will believe them when I see the end of prohibition.

  21. Duncan20903 says:

    @So tired of…, so many people miss the fact that it’s a free country as long as you do what you’re told. Gosh I think of all the people that call Adolph Hitler a dictator when the German’s were also living in a free country under his benevolent rule. All you had to do to not get gassed or baked in the ovens was to not be Jewish, Catholic, or gay. Now how hard is that?

  22. DdC says:

    …Or druggies or commies or in a Union. The misconception is that the US won the war when actually we were assimilated into the corporate IGFarben family. Many connections were kept during and after the war. Most of them prohibitionists. The times they aren’t a changin that much. Now we deal with the Karl Rove, Arno offspring of the Nazi’s. Raised by Nazi’s and none of it rubbed off? Same with the Cracker barrel of monkey’s down south. Hate blacks, hate Jews, hate pot smokers? Berlin Talibama!

    Italian fascism and German Nazism had their admirers within the U.S. business community and the corporate owned press. Bankers, publishers, and industrialists, including the likes of Henry Ford, traveled to Rome and Berlin to pay homage, receive medals, and strike profitable deals. Many did their utmost to advance the Nazi war effort, sharing military industrial secrets and engaging in secret transactions with the Nazi government, even after the United States entered the war. During the 1920s and early 1930s, major publications like Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, Saturday Evening Post, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and Christian Science Monitor hailed Mussolini as the man who rescued Italy from anarchy and radicalism.
    From Whom Did the Fascists Get Support?
    Michael Parenti, BlackshirtsReds

    “I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country… Corporations have bee enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
    ~ Abraham Lincoln, November 12, 1864,

    “Terrorist operatives infiltrate our communities, plotting, planning and waiting to kill again….To those who scare peace loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics only aid terrorists.”
    ~ United States Attorney General John Ashcroft

    Al Capone and Watergate were red herrings to divert the countries attention from the Fascist acts of eliminating competition. Booze/Ethanol or Ganja//Hemp.

    So then how far out is the concept of outlawing competition and legally enslaving cheap labor in private for profit prisons?

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