Minnesota PTSD Patients Get Medical Marijuana

Minnesota's medical marijuana clinics open doors to PTSD patients
Tribune Content Agency
July 9, 2017

Millions of Americans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Minnesota is the latest state to offer medical marijuana as a possible treatment option.

Marine Corps veteran Ed Erdos tried medical marijuana to ease his pain, and found that it also eased his mind.

He enrolled with the Health Department’s Office of Medical Cannabis last year in search of relief from the pain and muscle spasms caused by injuries he suffered in a helicopter crash. But along with pain relief came relief from the anxiety, intrusive thoughts and fear that haunted him for years as a result of service-related post-traumatic stress disorder.

“It works,” said Erdos, who spent five years “bunkered,” barely able to leave his home. Now, when he visits the bright, airy lobby of the LeafLine Labs patient care center in St. Paul (there is also a location in St. Cloud), he wears a big smile under the brim of his Marine Corps hat. He no longer takes any of his old anxiety meds. He has the confidence to get out and visit his buddies at the American Legion and VFW.

The cannabis prescription the pharmacist hands him each week, he said, “has improved my quality of life to the point where I can function on a daily basis.”

Minnesota runs one of the most tightly regulated medical cannabis programs in the nation. State law limits who can buy, sell and grow the drug, and in what form it can be dispensed. PTSD is the 11th condition added to the program, along with cancer, seizure disorders and intractable pain.
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