PTSD Pot Pen Vapor Relief For Veterans

Olympia vets want their ailing comrades to switch from pharmaceuticals to pot
The Olympian
BY ANDY HOBBS
Staff writer
July 10, 2015

The Department of Veterans Affairs reports that “PTSD has been found to be a risk factor” for suicidal thoughts, which are often triggered by combat-related guilt that “can often overpower the emotional coping capacities of veterans.”

Patrick Seifert of Rainier Xpress in Olympia has created a vapor pen 

specifically for veteran medical marijuana users. COURTESY PHOTO

Andrew Collins no longer has a cocktail of 17 prescriptions coursing through his body.

The Army combat veteran stared death in the face while serving two tours of Iraq in the 2000s. He now battles post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his wartime experiences.

The Olympia veteran has tried medications, meditation and hypnosis while adapting to the stresses of life in the civilian world. But more than any other treatment, Collins says marijuana has helped him cope with the psychological trauma he carries around — trauma that at times has filled his head with aggression and suicidal thoughts.

“I smoke a joint and the thoughts are gone,” said Collins, 30.

He said medical marijuana has replaced most of those government-approved prescriptions he had been taking. “I was overmedicated.”

Collins has launched a support group called Twenty22Many (pronounced “twenty-two too many”), which is focused on reducing suicide rates among military veterans with help from medical marijuana.
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