Answer Addiction

Tag: veterans

  • "Hedge Fund Tycoon" Helps Fund Mental Health Clinic For Vets

    "Hedge Fund Tycoon" Helps Fund Mental Health Clinic For Vets

    The Cohen Veteran’s Network in Tampa, Florida will soon add another clinic to its ranks thanks to a “hedge fund tycoon.”

    Veterans in the Tampa area will soon have another option for mental and behavioral health treatment, as the Cohen Veterans Network plans to open a new clinic by March.

    The clinic, according to The Tampa Bay Times, is funded by “hedge fund tycoon” Steven A. Cohen. This will be the network’s 12th such clinic, and the concept behind them is to fill in the areas of mental and behavioral health that the Department of Veterans Affairs doesn’t reach.

    This, according to the Times, will include services for veterans with “less than honorable” discharges as well as members of their families.

    The clinic is expected to serve about 500 patients in the first year of operation. To start, the clinic will be funded with $8 million in seed money, the Times states. The network covered the costs for the clinic buildout and the first three years of operation. By the six-year mark, clinic officials are required to have raised 50% of the operating costs.

    While both the American Veterans (AMVETS) and the Department of Veterans Affairs have expressed support, others aren’t so convinced. Marvin Southard, who was CEO of the Cohen Veterans Network’s first clinic at the University of Southern California, tells the Times that the clinics avoided treating more difficult patients for “commercial reasons.”

    “Both USC and NYU had problems with the Cohen program,” Southard said.

    Southard added that he feels “that what is required in a veteran-heavy locality like Tampa is a true convener organization or person who could bring the veterans service community together as collaborators rather than as competitors. I had hoped that the Cohen project could have served that role, but in Los Angeles, at least, they were inclined to do the opposite.”

    However, Anthony Hassan, the Cohen Veterans Network CEO and president, says the clinic’s mission is to simply fill the gaps in care. He says that since the first clinic opened in 2016, more than 8,600 patients have been treated through the network, and about half of those were non-veteran family members who were not eligible for treatment from the VA.

    According to the Times, US Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Trinity), who is the vice chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, is giving the clinics the benefit of the doubt.

    “Any entity serving the veteran community … should be held accountable for meeting the highest standard of care,” his spokesperson, Summer Robertson, told the Times via email. “If the Cohen Network helps meet an unmet need by providing mental health services in the Tampa area, that could potentially be a good option for some veterans.”

    Like the other clinics, Hassan tells the Times that the Tampa clinic will work with the VA and other local services to find patients needing care. He also says the clinics are not a method of privatizing care or profit-making.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Ben Foster’s “Leave No Trace” Tackles PTSD, Mental Health

    Ben Foster’s “Leave No Trace” Tackles PTSD, Mental Health

    In the critically-acclaimed movie, Foster plays a veteran coping with post-traumatic stress disorder.

    Ben Foster, star of X-Men: The Last Stand and 3:10 to Yuma, has received rave reviews and early Oscar buzz this year for his role Leave No Trace where he plays a veteran dealing with PTSD.

    Foster hopes the film will help reduce the public stigma around mental health, and as the actor told People, “Some wounds and illnesses are invisible to the naked eye. By sharing stories about our own unique experiences, we can allow a safe identification and hopefully a conversation. Any time we look past a bias or perceived stigma, for ourselves or others, we strengthen our own humanity. Practicing empathy is the first mighty step towards healing.”

    When Leave No Trace was coming together, Foster told Indie Wire that “the unseen scars of war” and how veterans cope with them “are things that have touched my life by having friends in the military, and I felt like I could ask these questions in an emotional way that I haven’t before, so that was exciting … Further than that, trauma is trauma, and war doesn’t get to own PTSD. Understanding that if you live long enough on this planet and you make it to a certain age we’re gonna experience things that go unresolved, leave a mark. We need to find ways to cope.”

    To prepare for the role, Foster consulted with Dr. Barbara Van Dahlen, a renowned psychologist who helps veterans. (In 2012, Van Dahlen made Time’s Most Influential People List.) Foster previously worked with Dr. Van Dahlen when he starred in the Chris Stapleton video for “Fire Away,” which also raised awareness for mental health awareness.

    Foster called Van Dahlen “one of [the] most beautiful compassionate humans I’ve had the good fortune of meeting. She helped guide us towards a more authentic expression of how depression manifests itself and affects loved ones, while at the same time suggesting hope and ways to connect.”

    Van Dahlen created a foundation for vets called Give an Hour, where therapists donate an hour of their time for free to help veterans cope after serving. (Since forming in 2005, the organization, through the work of 7,000 therapists, has reportedly given 250,000 hours of free help to vets.)

    With Leave No Trace, Van Dahlen feels it’s important “to tell authentic, accurate stories. We’ve had way too many in our history of sensationalized stories so, sadly, people think all veterans are broken, they all have post-traumatic stress. And that’s not true. ‘Leave No Trace’ is such a beautiful and compelling film … Ben really is such a student and was meticulous about getting it right and being authentic.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Black Hawk Down Hero Fights For Veterans With Addiction

    Black Hawk Down Hero Fights For Veterans With Addiction

    The retired hero discusses the turning point that led him to become an advocate for veterans with addiction in a recent interview. 

    Heroes come in many forms, and now a soldier who fought in the battle documented forever in its namesake movie—Black Hawk Down—is finding himself a different kind of hero than he once was. After serving the country as a soldier, he now helps veterans with opioid addiction.

    The famous battle began Oct 3, 1993 when then—U.S Army Master Sergeant Norm Hooten went in as Delta force team leader for the assault force in Mogadishu, Somalia. Hooten and his team flew in to Somalia to capture command members fighting for a warlord.

    “It ended up being a lot more than we thought it was going to be,” Hooten recalled in KOMO News.

    Horrifically, as the American team left the completed mission, one of the helicopters—a Blackhawk—was brought down in enemy fire. Hooten and his team returned to find and rescue the downed copter, spending 18 hours of battle fighting toward the site, and then bringing home the dead soldiers. In the end, 18 American soldiers were killed. Hooten’s squadron was hit particularly hard with more than half wounded.

    “Not only were we rushing to get there,” Hooten said. “Every other hostile militiaman in that city was doing the same thing. We were going to go in and recover every person that went in if it took us forever to do so.”

    Twenty years later, one of Hooten’s team members died. He lost his life not to enemy soldiers, but to opioid addiction. “I used to think of it [drug addiction] as a choice,” Hooten admits. “But it’s really not a choice. It’s truly a disease.”

    Hooten was grief-stricken and enraged in a new way.” It was a different feeling losing a dear friend to a drug overdose than one in combat,” Hooten said. “Both are tragic but one is a little more acceptable than the other as far as I’m concerned.”

    Hooten felt a later-in-life call to service, and at age 55 he received his doctorate of pharmacy. He is now a clinical pharmacist at the Orlando Veteran’s Association, working to support and save veterans with addiction.

    A staggering statistic that moved Hooten to action: opioid abuse has killed more Americans than the Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam wars combined. Due to PTSD and pain resulting from injuries, veterans are prescribed opioids and more at risk for opioid addiction.

    This past Veteran’s Day, vets had a rally pushing for more access to legal cannabis for the treatment of pain through the Department of Veterans Affairs.  “Use cannabis, die less,” Mike Krawitz, a 56-year-old disabled U.S. Air Force veteran told Marijuana.com.

    If you are a veteran or a service member in crisis, there are resources to help. Please call the Veterans Crisis Line at 1-800-273-8255 and Press 1.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Vets Turn To Medical Pot, Despite The VA's Policy

    Vets Turn To Medical Pot, Despite The VA's Policy

    The VA remains focused on studying the drug’s “problems of use” instead of its “therapeutic potential.”

    Once a month, the veterans’ hall in Santa Cruz, California, is home to an unlikely meeting, where dozens of former service members line up to receive a voucher for free cannabis products from local distributors. 

    “I never touched the stuff in Vietnam,” William Horne, 76, a retired firefighter, told The New York Times. “It was only a few years ago I realized how useful it could be.” 

    The VA medical system does not allow providers to discuss or prescribe medical marijuana, since the drug remained banned under federal law, which governs the VA.

    However, up to a million veterans who get healthcare through the system have taken matters into their own hands, using marijuana to relieve symptoms of PTSD, pain and other medical condition associated with combat. 

    “We have a disconnect in care,” said Marcel Bonn-Miller, a psychologist who worked for years at the veterans hospital in Palo Alto, California, and now teaches at the University of Pennsylvania medical school. “The VA has funded lots of marijuana studies, but not of therapeutic potential. All the work has been related to problems of use.” 

    This means that veterans like those in Santa Cruz can end up self-medicating with cannabis without any medical oversight. 

    A bill proposed this spring would mandate that the VA study cannabis for treating PTSD and chronic pain. 

    “I talk to so many vets who claim they get benefits, but we need research,” said Representative Tim Walz, a Democrat from Minnesota, who introduced the bill along with Phil Roe, a doctor and Republican from Tennessee. “You may be a big advocate of medical marijuana, you may feel it has no value. Either way, you should want the evidence to prove it, and there is no better system to do that research than the VA.” 

    Still, VA spokesperson Curt Cashour said the bill is not enough to change the department’s policies. 

    “The opportunities for VA to conduct marijuana research are limited because of the restrictions imposed by federal law,” he said. “If Congress wants to facilitate more federal research into Schedule 1 controlled substances such as marijuana, it can always choose to eliminate these restrictions.” 

    Former Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs David J. Shulkin said that it’s time the system looked into the potential benefits of cannabis. 

    “We have an opioid crisis, a mental health crisis, and we have limited options with how to address them, so we should be looking at everything possible,” he said. Although two small studies are currently being done at the VA, Shulkin would like to see more. 

    “In a system as big as ours, that’s not much, certainly not enough,” he said.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Veterans Hold Memorial Day Push for Medical Cannabis

    Veterans Hold Memorial Day Push for Medical Cannabis

    The veterans participating in the Veterans Rally advocated for the VA to change its medical marijuana policy.

    Veterans from across the country gathered in Washington, D.C. on Monday to advocate for better access to medical cannabis through the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

    “Use cannabis, die less,” Mike Krawitz, a 56-year-old disabled U.S. Air Force veteran told Marijuana.com. “The scientific community has confirmed that cannabis saves lives by avoiding overdoses. VA doctors know this but are obliged not to recommend cannabis for pain and PTSD. And that is unethical.”

    The motto of the 2018 Veterans Rally D.C. was “plants over pills.” The veterans who were participating were advocating for the VA to change its policy, which currently bars medical cannabis that many vets believe could help with chronic pain and issues like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). 

    Derek Cloutier, who has PTSD after serving with the Marines, said that he always found it easy to get prescription pills from the VA. He said he has seen veterans turn to selling their VA-issued pills in order to get medical cannabis, which they felt was more effective at relieving their symptoms. 

    “I’ve been told straight by a vet that I can go to a VA hospital and be prescribed opiates, Adderall—anything if they play their cards right, and then go sell the pills on the streets… just so they can buy cannabis and heal themselves,” Cloutier told Fox News.

    Many vets, he said, are hesitant to use marijuana because it is stigmatized as a street drug. He worked through his own negative perceptions about cannabis before he began using it regularly. Now, he grows his own medical cannabis legally in Massachusetts, which has both a medical and recreational cannabis program. 

    “The more I learned about it, the more I educated myself about it… the stigma came down, the stereotypes came down,” Cloutier said. “All these walls around me, that I was terrified to say I’m a cannabis user… that’s part of the problem.”

    According to The American Legion, 22% of veterans are already using medical cannabis, despite the fact that it could affect their treatment from the VA. The overwhelming majority of vets (92%) say that they support research into using cannabis to treat a variety of ailments. 

    Recently, the VA announced that it would begin to study medical marijuana. However, many veterans believe that there is unlikely to be a policy change under the current administration.  

    “VA doctors may be allowed more breathing room in a legal medical marijuana state, but they are afraid to run afoul of the federal government,” Krawitz said. 

    View the original article at thefix.com