Erin Silbaugh went home to Lodi after multiple tours in Iraq, but he couldn’t find peace.
Silbaugh, a 28-year-old Marine Corps veteran, returned suffering from post-traumatic stress, a sometimes debilitating anxiety disorder affecting as many as 20 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
The Veterans Administration answers PTSD with prescriptions for antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs, treatments that research indicates may be no more effective than placebos.
But in New Mexico and Delaware, the pains and symptoms associated with PTSD are being treated successfully with medical marijuana. In New Mexico, about a third of the nearly 5,000 patients with medical marijuana prescriptions are dealing with PTSD.
So Silbaugh now finds himself in another fight – this one for the legalization of medical pot in Wisconsin.
In November 2011, he joined state Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, and State Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Waunakee, to announce the reintroduction of the Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act for the 2012 legislative season.
Marijuana helps, Silbaugh said. But, he added, “I’m forced to hide within my own country to be able to use medicine that helps me.”
Written by Lisa Neff,
Staff writer
Wisconsin Gazette
