Operation Grow4Vets Seeks to Provide Veterans With Free Cannabis

Several Denver area businesses recently teamed up to create an event for military veterans where free cannabis was distributed. In Denver where it is legal to give away cannabis for free, hundreds of veterans lined up to enter Operation Grow4Vets largest event to date. The event was designed specifically for veterans but the gracious hosts left the event open to the public as well.

The event was planned in order to promote awareness of the medical benefits of cannabis for veterans with mental or physical pain. Many veterans take expensive (and dangerous) prescription drugs to help with anxiety, pain and other problems. Event organizers wanted to offer cannabis as an alternative to pharmaceutical drugs for veterans living with pain.

Mark Pitt, one veteran from the event, describes his problem with prescription painkillers, “I’m allergic to morphine opiates, I can’t take them, so I don’t have much choice other than [cannabis].”

“I’ve got PTSD, and yeah, I take marijuana that helps me to sleep at night,” says veteran Army nurse Stephanie Burton.

“Try to save some of the veterans who commit suicide and die from drug overdose every day in the United States,” said Roger Martin, veteran and Operation Grow4Vets Executive Director.

Martin founded Operation Grow4Vets after his life was changed by cannabis, having been addicted to OxyContin himself as a treatment for his PTSD. “I’ve got hundreds of veterans telling me, ‘I just can’t live anymore with all the pills that are being shoved down my throat,'” says Martin.

Martin plans on offering his fellow veterans cannabis as a healthier alternative to prescription drugs which can be addictive and even cause death. Martin says the mission of Operation Grow4Vets is to, “offer veterans a safe alternative to the dangerous prescription drugs that they’re prescribed to deal with PTSD, TBI, chronic pain and all sorts of other ailments”.

Despite his seemingly earnest motivations, some dissenters disagree with the way Martin is going about spreading awareness of the benefits of cannabis for veterans.

“It’s a reckless way to operate,” says Bob Doyle of the Colorado Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) Coalition. “These people are getting marijuana with varying degrees of potency and THC,” he said. “That could cause things like paranoia. Obviously things that we wouldn’t want somebody with PTSD to be experiencing.”

Operation Grow4Vets announced its new Save 1,000 Vets Project. The goal of the project is to provide 1,000 veterans with a free lifetime supply of cannabis products. More information on the project and how to donate can be found here on the organization’s website.