Go to Korea. Go to Vietnam. Go to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Go risk life and limb defending our freedoms, security and democracy.

But, when you return home, don’t bother asking for medical cannabis to treat your post-traumatic stress disorder. And don’t ask for it to treat your injuries, chronic pain, insomnia or whatever you brought back with you.

Instead, we have prescriptions drugs, including powerful and addictive opioids.

That’s been the message of U.S. lawmakers and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for yet another Veterans Day. Thank you for your service.

As America’s most recent military conflicts in the Middle East spanned nearly two decades, 13.5% of the 2.7 million Iraq and Afghanistan veterans will experience PTSD, including a rate of 15.7% for the ones who were deployed and 10.9% for the non-deployed veterans, according to the VA. Other studies show the overall rate to be as high as 20% to 30%.

And while 83% of U.S. veterans support medical cannabis programs, according to the Veterans Cannabis Project, 0% of VA health care facilities provide medical cannabis. In fact, the VA system discourages it, citing federal law, even as state-regulated medical cannabis markets place a premium on veteran-owned businesses.

That old way of thinking comes at a time when 91% of U.S. adults support federal legalization of medical cannabis, according to an April 2021 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center.

While the majority of our elected officials on Capitol Hill have yet to see eye-to-eye with the people who put them in office when it comes to broad cannabis reform, that’s not to say certain lawmakers aren’t trying.

Last week, the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs voted, 18-11, in support of the VA Medicinal Cannabis Research Act of 2021, legislation that would require the VA to conduct clinical trials on the effects of medical-grade cannabis on the health outcomes of covered veterans diagnosed with chronic pain and those diagnosed with PTSD.

Under the bill, participation in the clinical trials does not affect a covered veteran’s eligibility or entitlement to other VA benefits. Currently, veterans who are enrolled in the VA health care system risk losing their coverage should they seek therapeutic plant medicine as a patient in a state-legal medical cannabis system.

Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif., is sponsoring the legislation.

“Veterans prefer cannabis to opioids to treat their invisible wounds they bring back from the battlefield,” Correa said while discussing a separate reform effort, the SAFE Banking Act, in September on the House floor.

The VA Medicinal Cannabis Research Act, however, was met with opposition from a top VA official during a House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Health hearing last month. The VA has a history of scientifically driven research and clinical trials, which already include medical uses of cannabis for conditions that impact veterans, VA Executive Director David Carroll said in a statement before the subcommittee.

“The proposed legislation is not consistent with VA’s practice of ensuring scientific merit as the basis for a randomized clinical trial,” said Carroll, who received his doctorate in clinical psychology from Ohio University. The VA is already dedicating resources and research expertise to study the effects of cannabis on conditions affecting veterans, he said.

“The proposed legislation is redundant to the extent that VA is already examining risks and benefits of cannabis in treating PTSD and chronic pain,” Carroll said, insisting that “smaller, early phase, controlled clinical trials with a focused set of specific aims are optimal to determine proof of concept for using cannabis to treat specific conditions.”

More specifically, Carroll’s executive directorship is in the VA’s Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention.

According to the VA’s national veteran suicide prevention annual report, the average number of veteran suicides per day was 17.6 in 2018.

The rate of suicide among veterans who received recent VA care decreased slightly to 17.2 per day.

Who knows how much that suicide rate would decrease should the VA incorporate medical cannabis as a means to treating covered veterans with PTSD or chronic pain?

What we do know is that 83% of veterans support it.

-Tony Lange, Associate Editor