How Federal Marijuana Policy Is Pushing Veterans into the Black Market

Alex is 34 and lives outside of Sacramento. Like many Californians, he vapes marijuana concentrate for a variety of health problems such as anxiety. But even though he lives within a half-hour drive of a legal dispensary, Alex purchases his cannabis on what he likes to call the “duty-free” market. About once a month, he drives an hour to an acquaintance’s house to purchase about an ounce of concentrate, for about half of what he would pay at a state-certified recreational dispensary.

There’s a reason Alex buys on the black market. He’s a disabled military veteran.

According to the Marijuana Policy Project just under 2 million Californians, or around 3.4 percent of the state’s population, get prescriptions for medical marijuana each year. But because of federal drug laws that still consider marijuana to be as dangerous as heroin, the Department of Veterans Affairs will not prescribe marijuana to its patients, even if they are totally disabled like Alex.

“I use cannabis for PTSD [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder], anxiety, hypervigilance,” says Alex, who is being identified by a family name for privacy reasons. Alex is a Marine who deployed twice to Iraq from 2004 to 2007. He fought in the Second Battle of Fallujah, one of the fiercest battles in the Iraq War.