Pubdate: Fri, 12 Jul 2013
Source: Albuquerque Journal (NM)
Copyright: 2013 Albuquerque Journal
Contact:  http://www.abqjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/10
Author: Joline Gutierrez Krueger
Page: A1

VETERAN BATTLES FOR POT POLICY HELP

It's probably not what Army Reserve veteran Augustine Stanley imagined
might happen. But in the month since going public in this column about
losing his job as a longtime jail officer when he tested positive for
medical marijuana, the stoic, subdued Stanley has become the national
embodiment of the controversy over treating of posttraumatic stress
disorder with pot.

His story has appeared in national publications from Military Times to
Hemp News, and he's heard from public officials and the public alike.

On Tuesday, Stanley and his wife, Anetra, joined Congresswoman
Michelle Lujan Grisham, state Rep. Antonio "Moe" Maestas and members
of pro-pot and pro-vet groups to launch a campaign aimed at protecting
New Mexico's military veterans' legal access to cannabis.

The Freedom To Choose campaign, sponsored by the Drug Policy Alliance,
hopes to educate the public about medical marijuana as a legitimate
health care choice that has, at least anecdotally, proved successful
in treating veterans who come home from the battlefields with PTSD,
chronic pain and other wounds of war.

New Mexico has led the way in this treatment, becoming the first state
to implement a licensed medical marijuana production and distribution
system in 2007 and the first to recognize PTSD as a qualifying
condition two years later.

So, see, New Mexico? We're No. 1 in something.

Connecticut and Delaware also allow for the treatment of PTSD with
medical marijuana; last month lawmakers in Oregon and Maine passed
bills that would expand their medical marijuana programs to include
PTSD as a qualifying diagnosis.

About 42 percent of all medical marijuana users in New Mexico qualify
for the program under the diagnosis of PTSD, many of them military
vets.

"Now we have a medicine that works for New Mexico veterans," said
Maestas, an Albuquerque Democrat who was instrumental in passing
legislation to implement the medical marijuana program - with the
support of then state Health Secretary Lujan Grisham. "The naysayers
still say there's no medical use for marijuana. All you have to do is
speak to one veteran to see this isn't so." One veteran, like Stanley.
You may recall that Learn more Freedom To Choose campaign:
donttakeawaymymedicine.org Stanley, 32, had worked as a corrections
officer at the Metropolitan Detention Center since 1999, fresh out of
high school.

He was deployed to Iraq in 2004 as an Army Reserve convoy security
specialist and returned a year later a changed man, riddled with
anxiety, insomnia, depression and anger. He was diagnosed with PTSD in
2011, but the medications he was prescribed left him feeling like a
zombie, he said.

At the suggestion of another corrections officer with PTSD, Stanley
qualified for the state medical marijuana program in the summer of
2012. That, he and his wife said, restored his ability to function and
feel, and with no debilitating side effects.

"It has done wonders," Stanley said during Tuesday's teleconference.
"It has given me all the joys of life back."

But it also cost him his job of 13 years after a random drug test last
September came back positive for cannabis. MDC spokeswoman Nataura
Powdrell said in this column June 17 that Stanley was fired not over
medical marijuana but because he hadn't notified his supervisor about
his use of a controlled substance.

But when asked whether MDC has an employee policy on medical
marijuana, Powdrell said at the time that the jail's legal folks were
still working on that.

So, are they still working? That's unclear.

And the answer on medical marijuana use for its employees? That's
still a no.

"There is a conflict between state law and federal law which we
believe still needs to be addressed," Powdrell said. "Our policy, as
it now stands, does not allow for medical marijuana use. Also, all the
relevant case law that we have found is consistent in holding public
safety employees to a higher standard in not allowing medical
marijuana use."

Which leads one to wonder whether MDC and other like-minded employers
would prefer its employees "zombified," as Stanley described it, and
facing unknown long-term side effects with less effective prescription
drugs or unstable and unpredictable because they forgo treatment
altogether - or unemployed.

This, then, is a new kind of reefer madness, a conflict between what
works and the right to work based partly on hysteria and antiquated
misconceptions and partly on federal law that still considers
marijuana, medical or otherwise, illegal.

So far, the courts nationally have sided with employers, holding that
while medical marijuana laws may protect the user from criminal
action, they don't trump workplace drug policies.

While it is true that employees, especially those in security jobs,
must be held to a standard that keeps them clearheaded and capable, it
is also true that Stanley and many medical marijuana users are not the
stereotypical stoner dudes toking doobies in bathrooms. As Stanley has
said, he smokes before bed or off the clock when a panic attack
strikes - much like anyone might with prescription medication - and
his work production has never been compromised.

Stanley said that although there has been no progress in his efforts
to get his MDC job back, he has been heartened by the outpouring of
support.

"Knowing that we haven't been cast out by the public has been
reassuring," he said. "We just hope that the county follows suit as
well."

Lujan Grisham, at Tuesday's teleconference, said she wants to do
everything she can to promote medical marijuana as a tool to treat
military vets in all 50 states.

She might start first with MDC right in her own state.
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MAP posted-by: Matt