Colorado lawmakers call for adding PTSD to medical pot list
Marijuana pioneer Colorado is poised to add post-traumatic stress disorder to its medical marijuana program, joining 18 other states that consider PTSD a condition treatable by pot.
A panel of state lawmakers voted 5-0 Wednesday to endorse the addition of PTSD to Colorados 2000 medical pot law. The vote doesnt have legal effect; its just a recommendation to the full Legislature, which resumes work in January. But the vote indicates a dramatic shift for a state that has allowed medical pot for more than a decade but hasnt endorsed its use for PTSD.
Cannabis treats all the multiple issues that are going on with PTSD like no other drug, said Dr. Joseph Cohen, a physician who recommends marijuana to patients for other ailments and testified in favor of adding PTSD to the medical program.
Colorados change would put Colorado in line with 18 other states and Washington, D.C., that allow cannabis for PTSD treatment. Montana voters will decide in November whether to make the same change.
The PTSD vote came over the objections of Colorados Health Department, which has opposed the PTSD addition in the past, citing a lack of research.
The agency was absent from Wednesdays hearing and declined a request for comment on PTSD and marijuana. The Colorado Board of Health has rejected four separate applications to add PTSD to Colorados list of eight qualifying ailments, which include cancer, AIDS and glaucoma.
Medical objections were raised Wednesday by a lobbyist speaking for the Colorado Medical Society and Colorado Psychiatric Society. Theres insufficient medical evidence that marijuana is an effective treatment for PTSD, said Debbie Wagner, a lobbyist ...
