By Michael L Blais CD
President & Founder Canadian Veterans Advocacy
The issue of Medical Cannabis (MC) is ever evolving, or devolving as in the case of Veterans Affairs Canada under the Liberal government.
Background: Consequential to an alarming Auditor General’s MC expenditure probe, the Liberals launched a three pronged review inclusive of providers, doctors and yes, veterans. Concerned about privacy breaches, the department requested the need for me to identify ten veterans prescribed MC who were willing to travel to Ottawa (at VAC’s expense) and meet Minister Kent Hehr to discuss the impact MC was having on their lives.
I endeavoured to ensure comprehensive participation; young, old, war veterans, UN peacekeepers, male, female, NCO, officer, representative of both mental and physical trauma. I hoped through inclusion we would collectively convince Minister Hehr of MC as an effective treatment option for harshly traumatized veterans and to assure him that the policy conforms to Veterans Affairs Canada’s mandate “to improve the quality of lives of our veterans.”
The discussions conducted at Center Block, Parliament Hill, were enlightening. Minister Hehr appeared engaged, compassionate and empathetic. However, the bureaucrats followed and it soon became clear they were more interested in mitigating MC expenditures, which were identified in the Auditor General report, and not alleviating the mental and/or physical trauma of veterans.
The new policies to follow were oblivious to our discussions, bereft of compassion or empathy, and mainly designed to curtail costs. The General Practitioner’s prescription, if over the three grams of dried cannabis flower (per day) limit, would not be fully honoured.
Opiates? No problem, but for additional cannabis referrals, and for those sustaining mental and physical trauma, referrals in both fields would be required. The time consuming, stress/pain-inducing cycle would repeat every two years. Oft times, extensive travel would be required.
Despite forcing a disabled veteran through a series of unnecessary, resource wasting “hoops”, VAC retains the right to deny/restrict, systematic exclusion without representation, contrary to the Veterans Bill of Rights which supposedly ensures he/she and third-party doctors are involved in any decisions.
Veterans seeking MC are often deemed the “Forlorn Hopes”. There are no alternatives; the best “hope” scenario is a miracle. In the interim, quality of life is dictated by mitigating pain, preferably without those addictive, soul-destroying pharmaceuticals. For many, before the availability of MC, the daily regimen included maximum doses of powerful, mind distorting opiates and/or antipsychotic medication, Codeine, Percocet, Oxycontin, Morphine, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (which can induce gastrointestinal bleeding), Lyrica for neuropathic pain, sleeping pills, and other drugs that may negate pain but often destroy the self and the family unit in the process.
Some 10,000 veterans are being prescribed medical cannabis. Around 1,700 have been granted an exemption over the three-gram per day limit. One can only wonder of the 10,000 people, how many were prescribed over the three grams per day, have been arbitrarily denied and consequentially, provided opiates or persona distorting “mind” drugs to mitigate pain.
I have been pain/mobility disabled for almost three decades. While never abused, opiates rendered me emotionless, depressed, obese, incapable of feeling true empathy or love and free falling through the cycle of despair. Medical cannabis helped me reduce the daily regimen of maximum doses of opiates, disrupted the addiction cycle, afforded reintegration without being perpetually narco-distorted, to embrace a life now cherished. This generation, bloodied of mind and body by war in Afghanistan, is professing relief not through pharmaceuticals, but medical cannabis.
Veterans can provide the scientific proof we need to curb the problem of over-prescribing pharmaceuticals. Where else in Canada is there a cadre with such a wide spectrum of the vicious mental and physical trauma inherent with war? Where else is there a controlled study group provided addictive pharmaceuticals first, then, horrified by the side effects, are now experiencing definitive, real time relief from MC?
Should we not be learning why cannabis is alleviating war induced mental and physical trauma instead of enabling the opiate crisis?
Why are we marginalizing or ignoring the very specialists VAC dictated, those physicians who, unlike VAC, have personally interviewed/examined the veteran before rendering judgment?
VAC’s current MC policy is corrupt on multiple levels, focused on cutting expenses, not providing care to veterans with the level of compassion required.
