[420 Girl]

After two tours in Iraq with the Army, a 30-year-old Montezuma County man has his own reasons for obtaining a medical marijuana card. As he attempts to re-acclimate to civilian life, he suffers pain in his foot, ears, and joints and collapsed discs in his back as well as post-traumatic stress disorder. He is officially classified as 140 percent disabled.

"I used to be on 16 different medications from the VA ( Veterans Affairs health care ), and every one of them had bad side effects. Now I'm off all of them except sometimes I take a Valium," said the veteran.

He uses medical marijuana instead to ease the pain, calm him and help him sleep. He requested that his name and address not be used for publication because he fears theft of his marijuana.

"I was in the infantry ( in Iraq )," he said. "We kicked in a lot of doors, snatch and grabs, raids, convoy security. You come home desensitized. Anger and frustration and hate are the only emotions you know. With PTSD, you're constantly on guard. You're constantly vigilant, constantly scanning sectors, isolating threats for self-preservation. It wears the body down because stress is bad. When I hear a gunshot, I think about the first guy I killed ( in Iraq ). When I hear an explosion, I think of a buddy who was blown up."

The veteran said medical marijuana allows him to slow down his thought process.

"It calms me," he said. "It takes away the pain and makes me a happy person out in public. Medical marijuana is a very good thing for combat vets dealing with PTSD. When I smoke, I mellow out so I can communicate and function in society."

The veteran said he went through PTSD counseling four times.

"I had lots of problems because I drank," he said. "I don't drink any more because if a guy attacks you from behind, you're likely to lay him out. It ( PTSD ) doesn't go away, but you learn to cope."

The medical marijuana card allows the veteran to grow his own marijuana at his home, some inside a closet and some outside. The law allows six plants, three of them flowering at a time. His girlfriend, suffering from Crohn's disease, also has a medical marijuana card, so between the two of them, they have 12 plants.

He has made a science out of growing marijuana, mixing his own soil and carefully monitoring the light cycle, fertilizer, amount of water, ventilation, temperature, humidity and growth rate. Each new plant is rooted from a branch off the largest, best plant from a previous crop. Metal halide and fluorescent lights give off blue spectrum light that is good for the vegetative cycle; red spectrum lights are used for the flowering cycle.

The female plant provides the buds that will be smoked. He raises the varieties of marijuana called White Rhino, Colorado Green, Sour Diesel and Jack's Cleaner. Each affects the smoker in different ways, he said. Plants usually are harvested when two-thirds of the trichomes, small appendages that look like hairs, are amber. With this area's short growing season, he will put a tarp over the outside plants to induce fall conditions and beat the frost.

After harvest, the plant will be hung in a dark closet to cure for a week because light breaks down the tetrahydrocannabinol ( THC ), the psychoactive substance of marijuana.

Sounding just like any other plant enthusiast, the veteran said he uses all organic products because he doesn't like synthetics.

"I use lady bugs to keep the aphids down, and I release lacewings because they come out at night and clean the garden up," he said.

He estimates he spent about $1,200 getting the equipment and supplies to start growing marijuana. He figures it would cost him $200 a month to buy from a medical marijuana center.

He is allowed to possess 2 ounces of smokable marijuana at a time, which is enough to last him four months, he said.

"Hemp is one of the oldest cultivated plants in the world," he said. "I have never smoked any weed that impairs my driving ability. I'd rather see someone stoned and happy than some drunk guy with a gun. There's less crime with marijuana than with alcohol."

Marijuana should be legalized, the veteran said.

"We should be able to have marijuana for general usage," he said. "It's not right for the government to control it. It's not harmful to society."


Source: Cortez Journal, The (CO)
Copyright: 2010 The Cortez Journal
Contact: russells@cortezjournal.com
Website: Cortez Journal
Author: Melinda Green


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