WASHINGTON, D.C. (WSAU) — A Wisconsin Congressman supports creating a supervised medical marijuana program for veterans’ pain management. 3rd District Democrat Ron Kind says he believes it’s a better alternative for many vets with chronic pain. “I don’t have a problem with that. In fact, I’ve had a lot of veterans come up to me and say, you know, I’d rather not be prescribed this cocktail of prescription drugs, opioids, pain management. Rather, they’d like to have access under proper supervision of medicinal marijuana to deal with some of their pain needs.”
Kind is disappointed that Wisconsin hasn’t already made it possible for veterans to have this option, and the recent overprescription of opiates at the Tomah VA Medical Center has brought this issue to the forefront. “We found that marijuana use is less addicting than many of these opioid drugs. It’s not leading to a heroin or meth use somewhere down the line, and yet Wisconsin has chosen not to take any action at all.”
Kind says with no medical marijuana allowed in Wisconsin, it’s forcing veterans that want to use marijuana instead of drugs like Oxycontin, Oxycodone, Percocet, and Fentanyl to travel far away at their own expense. “Many of our veterans are traveling to places like Colorado or Washington state and purchasing the marijuana on their own, with no supervision, with no doctor involved in that, and that may not be the healthiest choice, either, so I think it’s something that we ought not (to) be afraid to raise and study and think through the ramifications of medicinal marijuana and whether that will make sense for our veterans.”
There’s no active bill at the state level at this time proposing any type of medical marijuana use. In May, the U.S. House and Senate both agreed on an amendment to the 2017 Appropriations bill that would allow veterans access to supervised medical marijuana. It’s unclear if the proposed amendment will survive the budget process at this time.
(Listen to our interview with Congressman Ron Kind about veterans health and medical marijuana at our website, here.)
