--- title: Marijuana for PTSD: Top Army Doctor Leary of Allowing description: But some vets aren’t willing to wait for its official approval canonical: https://time.com/4457392/marijuana-ptsd-veterans-military/ author: Mark Thompson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-18T15:46:25.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:02:01.423Z article:section: Politics og:title: Marijuana for PTSD: Top Army Doctor Leary of Allowing og:description: But some vets aren’t willing to wait for its official approval og:url: https://time.com/4457392/marijuana-ptsd-veterans-military/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf17eedc1ae2e9d8e/6988a28097cdff2b9b6ad747/ptsd-marijuana-pot-veterans-jose-martinez-balazs-gardi-08.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 7526 og:image:height: 4233 og:image:alt: GB_USA_16_0057 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Marijuana for PTSD: Top Army Doctor Leary of Allowing twitter:description: But some vets aren’t willing to wait for its official approval twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf17eedc1ae2e9d8e/6988a28097cdff2b9b6ad747/ptsd-marijuana-pot-veterans-jose-martinez-balazs-gardi-08.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Top Army Doctor Leery of Treating PTSD with Marijuana > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME D.C. Brief: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition D.C. Brief is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington. D.C. Brief goes beyond the Washington headlines to explain the politics, personalities and power dynamics shaping what happens next. Senior correspondent Philip Elliott brings sharp context to the issues driving the capital, connecting the decisions made in Washington to the institutions, industries and people they affect. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Watch: Inside One of New York’s First Medical Marijuana Dispensaries [Watch (HLS stream): Watch: Inside One of New York’s First Medical Marijuana Dispensaries](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/8UkmeWNa.m3u8) (2:15)  _Published 2016-01-22. Tour one of the five facilities that will provide cannabis for medical purposes_ by [Mark Thompson](https://time.com/author/mark-thompson/) ## Mark Thompson Aug 18, 2016 3:46 PM UTC  Martinez smokes medical marijuana near his home in Apple Valley, California, June 17, 2016. Martinez smokes medical marijuana near his home in Apple Valley, California, June 17, 2016. Balazs Gardi for TIME by [Mark Thompson](https://time.com/author/mark-thompson/) ## Mark Thompson Aug 18, 2016 3:46 PM UTC The Army’s top doctor is skeptical that the first-ever federally-approved study will show that marijuana can help U.S. veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. “It’s been found that using marijuana has a lot of adverse health effects,” Lieut. General Nadya West says. In April, the federal government approved a three-year study to try to determine if actual marijuana, not merely chemicals extracted from it, can help those with PTSD. Many veterans say smoking marijuana has eased their symptoms of PTSD. Like the Army, the Department of Veterans Affairs has [doubts](http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/co-occurring/marijuana%5Fuse%5Fptsd%5Fveterans.asp) about its effectiveness. Proponents, the Army surgeon general adds, too often emphasize the benefits without acknowledging the downsides. Marijuana “is more dangerous, with some of the carcinogens that are in it, than tobacco,” West says. “So to make it sound as if it’s perfectly safe, the impact that it has long-term on certain areas of the brain, especially young people developing, that’s been proven: irreversible damage to the hippocampus and things like that that can really have impacts on individuals long-term.”  Lieut. General Nadya West, the Army surgeon general U.S. Army The Army’s existing PTSD treatments ease symptoms in 80% of soldiers, the three-star officer tells TIME, and any soldiers try to self-medicate with pot will be disciplined. “The Army policy is still that \[marijuana\] is an illegal substance,” she says. But some veterans aren’t waiting for the government’s, or anyone else’s, stamp of approval. Jose Martinez knows trauma. As a U.S. Army infantryman in Afghanistan, he lost both legs, his right arm and his left index finger to a land mine in 2012\. Recovery was challenging. “In my eyes, I had pretty much failed when I stepped on a bomb and lost three limbs,” he says. “I was going insane because I did not understand why I was still alive.” Then, last December, he broke his maimed left arm, his lone remaining limb, when his car flipped over after hitting black ice in the high desert near his Apple Valley, Calif., home. It’s no surprise, then, that he also knows PTSD. Doctors plied him with pills after both calamities. “I started taking so many prescription pills,” he recalls, “I was numb to the world.” Over time, he ended up replacing those pills—up to 150 a day, he says—with marijuana. While Martinez says he smoked pot occasionally before enlisting in the Army in 2010, he obeyed the military’s prohibition against it before that bomb blast near Kandahar. He says marijuana has stayed his pain and tamed his demons. “My brain’s telling me to freak out because I’m missing my limbs, but when I’m on cannabis, it tells me to calm down, you’re O.K., you’re fine,” Martinez says. Not only does it soothe the phantom pain of his missing limbs, but it also eases a racing and apprehensive mind riven with PTSD. “It relaxes me and helps me sleep at night,” he says. “I’m so super-vigilant, and it really calms my anxiety, which can shoot up when I’m around a lot of people I don’t know.” Back home, Martinez, 28, is once again a frontline soldier, now in a new battle—to prove that the ancient herb can help veterans like him who suffer from PTSD, a signature wound of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But marijuana’s checkered legal, medical and social history make it a controversial treatment. The federal government estimates that as many as 500,000 of the 2.7 million troops who served in those countries may have some kind of PTSD. Despite her misgivings, West, the Army’s top doctor, endorses the research. “I don’t know if we need to have the full spectrum of what’s in marijuana as its typically administered, if that’s necessary, she says. But “we should always, at least, have an open mind to look at things in an evidence-based way for something that could be useful for our soldiers.” _Subscribers can read the entire story_ [_here_](http://time.com/4457122/post-traumatic-marijuana-military-veterans-embracing-drug/)_, or in the Aug 29 issue of Time Magazine._ ## Transcript It's not lost on me that every day I come to work, I'm in violation of federal law. [ SOUND ] Good afternoon, thank you for calling Vireo Health. This is Aashna. If you look around, we don't have pictures of Bob Marley, we're not playing his music. This is the setting of a doctor's office, of a neighborhood pharmacy. [ MUSIC ] The perception around marijuana And there's a stigma that's been a huge hurdle for us. Typical to New Yorker's, we were doing it in our own style. Somewhat similar to Minnesota, but a very cautious strict approach. Not every physician can recommend cannabis. Only those who have gone through a special training that is offered by the New York State Department. Of health. The dispensaries is where patients come, nd are able to purchase their medicine so long that they have a medical marijuana ID. And a recommendation from their physician. Currently there are only ten very severe debilitating diseases that we can serve patients for in New York. [ UNKNOWN ] examples would be HIV, cancer, epilepsy, sever spinal injury with spasticity, ALS. And in New York, we're allowed Three forms of these medications. The first, which most closely resembles a medication, is the capsule form. Second would be an oil form, that we are using probably most with out pediatric patients. The final form that we offer here is the vaporizer. Because cannabis is a schedule one drug Is considered federally illegal, medical cannabis products are not eligible for prescription drug coverage. That means that patients who come through our doors are paying out- of- pocket. And can pay anywhere from two to three hundred dollars a month. We're taking something that's been sold illegally for decades, and now we're creating a real market for it. 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