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A drug popular through the 1970s and only made illegal in the 1980s has been shown to be effective long-term in treating people with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
Confusing paperwork, inconsistent training and guidelines, and incompatible data systems have hindered the service as it tries to deal with behavioral health issues, the report said. It's a crucial issue: After a decade of war, soldier suicides outpace combat deaths. Last May, the Army commissioned a task force to conduct a sweeping review of how it evaluates soldiers for mental health problems at all its facilities. The review came under pressure from Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, of Washington, who was upset to learn that hundreds of soldiers at Madigan Army Medical Center south of Seattle had had their PTSD diagnoses reversed by a forensic psychiatry team, resulting in a potential cut to their benefits and questions about whether the changes were made to save money.
About 150 of those soldiers eventually had their diagnoses restored. "I am pleased that the Army completed this review and has vowed to make fixes over the next year, though I am disappointed it has taken more than a decade of war to get to this point," Murray said in a statement. "Many of the 24 findings and 47 recommendations in this report are not new. Creating a universal electronic health record, providing better rural health access, and standardizing the way diagnoses are made, for instance, have been lingering problems for far too long. Our service members and their families deserve better."
The report noted that the Army had made strides in some areas, including cutting how long it takes soldiers to obtain a disability evaluation and publishing a guide to the process. The task force interviewed 750 people stationed around the globe, conducted listening sessions with 6,400 others and reviewed more than 140,000 records. The Army's Medical Command reviewed diagnoses for all soldiers evaluated for behavioral health problems from October 2001 until last April. Since September 2001, the report found, 4.1 percent of all soldiers deployed wound up with a behavioral health diagnosis such as PTSD or traumatic brain injury. Many can remain on active duty.
Nationwide, the report said, 6,400 soldiers had behavioral health diagnoses "adjusted" by medical evaluation boards, with approximately equal numbers having PTSD added as a diagnosis and removed as a diagnosis. Two locations where medical evaluation boards are held had slightly higher diagnosis changes than the Army-wide average, but the report did not identify them. Cases from those locations are being reviewed to ensure no soldiers were improperly affected, the report said. Last year the Army — and the military as a whole — suffered the highest number of suicides ever recorded, prompting then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to declare it an epidemic. The Army had 183 suicides among active-duty soldiers, up from 167 in 2011, and the military as a whole had 350 suicides, up from 301 the year before.
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A Navy veteran of Afghanistan himself, White believes he's creating a memorial similar to the Vietnam Wall, for troops lost in Afghanistan. "I just set out to memorize all the names," White told ABC News. "The message I wanted to say is, you guys are not forgotten. I'm going to do my part to keep your memory alive, and so that is the message of the wall. You are not forgotten."
So last Thursday, White stood in front of a blank, black wall in Fort Worth, Texas, and began writing in white ink. The over 7,000 words took more than eight hours to complete. "I enjoyed watching him write the names," Marion Buckner, grandmother of PFC Austin Staggs, told ABC News. "It just gave me chills, really. You see how many families are affected."
White plans to continue traveling around the country and repeat his memorial wall, hoping to raise money for veterans charities such as the Wounded Warrior Project.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/ron-white-memorizes-to-memorialize-2013-3#ixzz2MyscsryY
He had just received the Medal of Honor from President Barack Obama for his courage under fire, for running into an exposed battlefield time and time again to rescue a fallen friend during the deadly Battle of Kamdesh in 2009. Hes one of only eight men to receive the award for exemplary heroism in the Afghanistan War. And hes nervous about carrying that honor. I stand here proud to represent the (many troops) faced with the impossible on Oct. 3, 2009, he said. Im nervous about living up to the responsibility of telling their story, with the honor and grace they deserve. Im also nervous about representing the 1.3 million men and women who serve our nation in the Army uniform.
On Monday, Obama lauded Carter as the finest example of the courage and sacrifice of the generation of troops who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan over the last decade. Carter, a 33-year-old father of three, was among 53 U.S. soldiers involved in the daylong battle. Eight men were killed in the fight, a brutal assault launched from surrounding mountainsides.
As enemy forces breached the walls of Combat Outpost Keating, Carter and his fellow soldiers scrambled to hold their ground and recover their fallen friends. Carter was singled out for the award for his efforts to save Spc. Stephan Mace, who was mortally wounded and stranded in the kill zone before Carter selflessly sprinted to his position. I lost some of my hearing in that fight, Carter said, but Ill hear the voice of Mace, and his pleas for help, for the rest of my life.
Carter has spoken about the guilt he still feels for the men lost in the fight Mace survived the battlefield, but died in surgery later that night. Obama tried to blunt that in his commendation of Carter. Because you helped turn back that attack, soldiers are alive today, the president said. Because you had the urge to serve others at whatever cost, so many Army families could welcome home their own sons. And because of you, Stephans mother Vanessa is able to say, Ty brought Stephan to safety.
More Latest Medal of Honor recipient to focus on PTSD - U.S. - Stripes
Ty Carter sat on the back of his camper, parked near a gas station in the remote Oregon woods, with his two dogs asleep and his kids arguing and his wife feeding the baby, waiting for a phone call he didnt really want to take. A colonel from the Pentagon had contacted him a week earlier, to ask whether he would be available that day for a call from a high-ranking military official. Carter said no. It would be in the middle of his family vacation he had promised them a trip to Crater Lake. He sounded kind of exasperated, so I could tell that was the wrong answer, Carter said, laughing. He agreed to take a detour, to stay within cell-phone range a few hours longer.
When the call came, it was the commander-in-chief, who congratulated Carter on being chosen for the Medal of Honor. Sitting on the back bumper as the occasional car sped by, the soldier thanked him, traded stories about raising children, then got back in the car to continue the drive south. Thats how Army Staff Sgt. Ty Carter learned hed be recognized as one of Americas greatest heroes. Not from a lavish White House ceremony, which comes Monday. Not from a summons to the Pentagon, or even to his base commanders office. From a cell-phone call at a remote gas station actually, across the street from the gas station because folks there were worried about him loitering so he had to move the camper.
Monday, Carter will become the fifth living Medal of Honor recipient for actions in Afghanistan. Only 12 men from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been honored with the award, singled out for conspicuous gallantry and selfless courage on the battlefield. The common thread between the survivors stories has been their humility, even compared to the proud-without-boasting heroes of the past. All of them said they were just doing their job, that any other servicemember would have done the same, that they arent inherently different than any other American who joined the military. I am an American soldier, just like thousands who have served, will serve and are continuing to serve this great nation, he said at a news conference at his home base of Joint Base Lewis-McChord just days after the White House announcement. This award is not mine alone.
Carter, 33, has spent most of the last few weeks starkly recounting battlefield chaos to reporters while privately trying to explain what the battlefield was like to his 14-year-old son, Jayden. Madison, 8, was more interested in buying a new dress for the trip to Washington. With the Medal of Honor effectively making him undeployable recipients have said Pentagon leaders are reluctant to send them back into harms way he wants to continue his service in wounded warrior units, sharing his struggles with post-traumatic stress. Hes uncomfortable facing the families of the men who died fighting alongside him, freely admitting to a mix of guilt and post-traumatic stress whenever he speaks to them. We all did what we could to keep each other alive, he said.
The battlefield
PTSD is a made up condition used to beat veterans into submission.
Any psychiatrist will admit this.
PTSD may be a real condition or not. Psychiatrists and doctors make up medical conditions all the time. What PTSD has become is a very convenient excuse to be abusive and say it's not the fault of the abuser. It's the guy who wants to take his dog into the restaurant for a 20 minute breakfast and has to be accommodated. It's the one who beats his wife and blames PTSD. It's become the excuse dejour.
The South Carolina study, performed by Dr. Michael Mithoefer and his wife, Ann, under the auspices of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS, involves the short-term use, under close psychiatric care, of the drug 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine, known medically as MDMA. If approved for psychiatric use, the treatment could offer relief for the thousands of PTSD sufferers in Houston and San Antonio, which have among the largest concentrations of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in the country. Of the 130,000 veterans registered in the Houston area, 9,695 have been treated for PTSD, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The study began in 2001 and is currently in its second phase. If a third phase is approved, the therapy almost certainly would be available in Texas in a few years. "For quite some time we've known the potential of MDMA to help with psychological problems," said Jane C. Maxwell, a senior research scientist in the school of social work at the University of Texas at Austin who studies MDMA, "We've begun to understand that some banned drugs may have special potential. I welcome the fact that we are able to go back and look at these drugs. This is a small study, but it has significant potential."
Aid for abuse victims
Most of the study's subjects were victims of child sexual abuse and rape who hadn't found relief through other therapies. They were given eight to 10 sessions of psychiatric counseling, and in two of the sessions were given a dose of MDMA. They were then allowed, of their own volition, to bring up the memories that had tormented them. In 83 percent of the 21 cases, according to Mithoefer, the subjects were found to be symptom-free for up to four years later. "It's tricky talking about a cure, but it is a sustained remission," said Mithoefer. Three subjects did suffer a relapse. In those cases, they were brought in for a "booster session" of MDMA and counseling, and they returned to a symptom-free state, said Mithoefer.
Mithoefer is now working with a second group of 24 patients who are veterans, firefighters and police officers with PTSD. Similar studies are underway in Israel, Canada, Switzerland and Colorado. Alex Vitek is a walking tale about why treatment of PTSD is so crucial. When he returned to Houston from a tour of duty as an Air Force medic in Afghanistan in 2007, he brought with him a severe case of PTSD. "To be honest, it turned my life upside down," Vitek said. He lost his wife and child and his career in the military. He fell into a deep hole of drugs and alcohol. Vitek said he tried suicide multiple times. "Left untreated, I would have landed six feet deep or in jail," Vitek said
Fortunately, he found Camp Hope, a local Christian-based residential program that uses more conventional treatment methods, such as 12-step programs, counseling and peer-mentoring. Vitek was able to stick with the program and later signed on as an intern at Camp Hope. Now he is on staff as a housing manager. He's a success story. Mithoefer does not discount other methods of treating post-traumatic stress. "They are helpful to some and not helpful to others," he said, which makes having a variety of methods important.
Feel-good transmitter
In addition to bearing all the responsibilities of soldiering, medics must calmly treat the devastating wounds of modern warfare: legs and arms mangled by roadside bombs, bodies peppered with shrapnel, arteries severed by high-velocity bullets. They are more exposed than other soldiers to seriously wounded or dead fellow servicemembers. Unlike hospital doctors or nurses, who rarely know their patients, medics have the added pressure of being close to the soldiers they are trying to keep alive. And when one dies, medics often face self-doubt — an emotion they must hide or risk losing the platoon’s confidence, said Sgt. Joshua Hetisimer, 33, a senior medic with the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, who has deployed three times.
It’s an awesome responsibility all medics embrace, said Sgt. Chad Howell, 29, of 557 Area Support Medical Company. “Guys get hurt on the battlefield,” he said, “they look to us, they scream your name.” Now, preliminary results from a study involving 800 medics — the first of its kind — suggest that medics suffer from higher rates of depression than other soldiers. Dr. Paula Chapman, a research health scientist at Tampa’s Veterans Administration hospital and the study’s lead investigator, said many of the medics talked about not being able to help when needed. “Is the depression tied to guilt-based issues?” said Chapman, who was an Army medic, now retired. “That we don’t know yet.”
Chapman’s preliminary findings showed medics were less likely than other soldiers to have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. This could indicate that medics, whose mission is to heal, and who often choose their specialty, may be more resilient when it comes to combat stress, she said. But the study looked at medics only three months and 12 months after their deployments, and symptoms of PTSD can develop over time. “The next step is to look longitudinally at the combat medic, from training through post deployment,” Chapman said. Despite the study’s results, medics say they already know — or at least strongly suspect — that the unique stressors of their job can cause mental health problems later. “There is a heightened pressure for medics on the battlefield,” Howell said. “And PTSD is definitely one of the consequences of what we do.”
Sgt. Dallas Jones, of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, who was in charge of 38 junior medics attached to various platoons in Afghanistan in 2007, said he made a point of checking on his medics weekly, just to talk and let them decompress. On his visits, he often brought along new medical gadgetry or comfort food, he said, and he joined them on patrols, or doubled with them on dangerous missions. “When you’re the medic, and the platoon loses a guy, yeah, it affects you,” Jones said. Hetisimer recalled the death of a friend, whose Humvee was struck by an improvised explosive device on a patrol in Ramadi, Iraq. Hetisimer saw him on the litter. “He was still alive,” he said, “but he knew, and we knew, what was going to happen.” Hetisimer and colleagues worked on him for 45 minutes. His friend died en route to the hospital.
Study looks at psychological effects suffered by combat medics - News - Stripes
Up to 44 percent of veterans who suffered concussions involving a loss of consciousness also meet criteria for PTSD, military researchers have found. But a new study raises the possibility that at least some of the veterans may not actually have the stress disorder but instead hormonal irregularities due to pituitary gland damage incurred during their concussions. Researchers at the University of St. Louis analyzed brain scans from dozens of military and civilian patients. Comparing patients with concussions to patients with both concussions and PTSD, the scientists found significant differences in the metabolic activity in their pituitary glands. The findings were presented Monday in Chicago at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.
Thomas Malone, who led the research, said higher levels of metabolic activity in patients with concussions and PTSD may be due to the gland working harder to produce hormones. “It’s analogous to having your car stuck in the snow and you keep flooring the gas pedal but you don’t go anywhere,” he said. Though the PET/CT scans were able to distinguish between the groups, they could not diagnose pituitary damage at the individual level. The pea-sized pituitary gland secretes nine hormones that help regulate stress response, mood and energy expenditure. It hangs from the base of the brain by a strand of neurons and blood vessels — a connection that makes it vulnerable to damage in certain kinds of trauma.
While pituitary problems have long been associated with the most serious head injuries, a growing body of evidence suggests that concussion-level forces may also be enough to damage the gland. Over the last decade, more than 200,000 U.S. service members are thought to have withstood explosions from roadside bombs and other artillery. Most patients with concussions get better in a few days. For reasons that largely remain a mystery, up to 15 percent do not recover quickly or develop new symptoms later. The Pentagon has issued guidelines to its doctors to screen for hormone irregularities when that happens.
Can PTSD symptoms be traced to concussion-induced pituitary damage - U.S. - Stripes
The payments under a little-noticed federal program represent a small fraction of the staggering nationwide toll of a nuclear weapons industry born out of the Cold War: More than 104,000 sick workers have received almost $11 billion in compensation and medical expenses. The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program was created in October 2000 to identify workers who became ill after being unknowingly exposed to hazardous materials at nuclear plants during the Cold War, like the then-named Savannah River Plant of Aiken. Many former employees of the Savannah River Plant who are sick from, or have died from diseases like cancer, beryllium disease, silicosis, asbestosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are eligible for compensation or medical expenses. In the case of a worker’s death, survivors can file a claim. “Not until the act was actually in the works back in the late nineties did they finally realize that there was a lot of exposures at these particular Department of Energy sites,” said Rachel Leiton, director of the program. “And that’s why they created the act.”
A 2007 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health study of more than 18,000 workers hired from 1950 to 1986 found that more male Savannah River Site workers died from illnesses like pleural cancer and leukemia than expected based on national averages. But to get up to $400,000 in lump sum payments, and potentially unlimited additional financial assistance for medical bills related to their condition, workers and their families have to wade through a series of complicated laws to determine whether their cancer or other illnesses were caused by their work, and if they can prove it. Some workers’ wives were not allowed to know what their husbands were doing during the Cold War, making determining exact job responsibilities, and subsequent exposure difficult. Many workers themselves don’t know what they were exposed to during their tenure at the plant.
Finding proof for claims, experts say, can be more difficult than one would expect. Because the program is still fairly new, many people are finding out they can file for compensation years after the worker’s employment, or even death, said attorney Louise Roselle, who has worked with nuclear facility workers’ cases for years. Some people are filing claims for former workers who were exposed to radiation at the Savannah River Site almost 50 years ago. Some of those workers have died. This can lead to issues with seemingly simple requirements, like documentation of a doctor’s diagnosis of cancer. But finding these medical records can be daunting, or impossible, when the hospital has gone out of business, or a health-care provider destroys records more than 20 years old.
Workers can be accepted to the program through two different types of claims: Part B, enacted in 2000, and Part E, enacted in 2004. A worker can qualify for one or the other, or both. In the month of October, 11 Part B claims, and 14 Part E claims from the Savannah River Site were paid, according to a data from the Energy Employees Claimant Assistance Project, a nonprofit. In the past couple of years it has become easier for some from the Savannah River Site to file for claims under Part B, Leiton said. Savannah River Site employees who worked during a specific time period now fall into what is called a Special Exposure Cohort. Claims that fall into cohort do not have to go through a dose reconstruction, which is a process to estimate a worker’s exposure to radiation. Other claims under part B do. Roselle said the Special Exposure Cohort has helped tremendously for Savannah River Site workers. “Without the Special Exposure Cohort it’s very hard to prove that your cancer more likely than not came from this plant,” Roselle said.
The exposure cohort for the Savannah River Site wasn’t designated until 2012. Now, more than 110 new categories have been designated for plants across the U.S., Leiton said. “If you go to any of these plants around the country,” Roselle said, “they really didn’t keep records that were adequate to reconstruct anyone’s dose.” Approval under Part E is a different story. Leiton said getting approval can be more difficult than Part B, because there are no assumptions made about exposure, and the burden of proof lies with the person filing. “We have a lot of tools to help because that burden of proof is pretty difficult,” Leiton said. The national office of the program has professionals on call to search for additional proof to help with a claim, if the person filing does not have enough information, or can’t get it, Leiton said.
On average, a little more than half of Savannah River site claims are denied, according to McClatchy’s analysis of Office of Workers’ Compensation data up to Nov. 16. Workers or their families are often frustrated when they are told they still do not qualify, even after learning the worker may have been exposed to toxic substances, Leiton said. “The ones that don’t get paid, it’s hard for them to understand,” she said. For the workers and families Roselle helps, qualifying for the program can be about more than the money. “What’s important to these workers is that the government recognizes the sacrifices that they made to their health in working there,” she said. “I think they feel that this legislation and this money is a recognition of what they went through.”
Cold War radiation exposure results in 800 million in federal payments - U.S. - Stripes
| Military.com
by xbradtc
A drug popular through the 1970s and only made illegal in the 1980s has been shown to be effective long-term in treating people with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
Oh really? Kinda blows one away. But, if it works . More @ PTSD Study Findings Reinforce Case for Ecstasy | Military.com | Bring the heat, Bring the Stupid
[And wonder how many will suddenly claim suffering from PTSD]
An experimental program for a drug treatment that uses an ingredient found in Ecstasy to treat post-traumatic stress disorder will likely begin processing applications in June, officials said. With the Food and Drug Administration's approval, a California-based nonprofit has used low doses of the drug, known as MDMA, in a series of trials in an attempt to offer a cure for PTSD. Two-thirds of the 107 patients who took part in the Phase 2 trials, which started in 2000, no longer met the criteria of having PTSD a year after their MDMA treatment was completed, officials running the study said. The much larger Phase 3 study received FDA approval late last year. Depending on the size of the trial, which is still awaiting the FDA's direction, 230 to 400 new participants will be exposed to doses of MDMA or a placebo during three in-patient sessions with medical researchers.
The trials will be conducted by the non-profit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, based in Santa Cruz, California, and will cost the organization about $25 million, said Brad Burge, a spokesman. If approved by the FDA, the drug could be available for inpatient-only prescription use as early as 2021. Critics have worried that the use of MDMA to treat PTSD or publicity about the treatment could result in higher illegal Ecstasy use and attempts to self-medicate with the street drug. Burge, however, emphasized that Ecstasy and MDMA are not the same drug. While Ecstasy sometimes includes MDMA, Ecstasy can also be found without any MDMA in the compound -- and there's no way for a casual user to tell the difference. "We really don't want to encourage people to go out and use Ecstasy and think of that as therapy," he said.
Many veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury.
Burge hopes that the Trump administration's statements of support for veterans and deregulation of the FDA will transfer to supporting the MAPS drug trials and faster approval of the treatment as a prescription drug. In the past, the Department of Veterans Affairs has not supported the MDMA studies or other research surrounding the use of marijuana to treat PTSD, but Burge says his organization sees veterans as a key demographic for the study and treatment. He said if the drug trials are successful, the ability to treat and cure PTSD could save the government millions over time. "It's just absolutely crucial for us to be able to reach veterans and military families with this," he said. "This is both a promising treatment in the form of its application where it's just a few administrations, but it’s also extremely economical."
He added, "Just look at PTSD veteran disability payments -- they're huge, and the cost savings for taking people off of their prescription opiates through just a few administrations of MDMA could save the VA and Defense Department billions of dollars." Patients wishing to take part in the drug trial can visit the MAPS website and sign up for its newsletter, Burge said. That list will be used to notify those interested when the application process for the Phase 3 trials opens.
Trial for PTSD Treatment with Ecstasy Ingredient to Open Soon | Military.com
The makers of a cannabidiol product named Epidiolex have now completed all three phases of FDA-approved clinical studies. The submission for FDA approval includes clinical data on 1,500 patients, 400 of whom had used it for more than a year. If it is approved, Epidiolex could be part of the legal arsenal for treating epilepsy within a year.
MDMA
The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is a non-profit organization focused on beneficial medical uses of psychedelics and marijuana. It funded six Phase 2 FDA-approved clinical studies of MDMA combined with therapy for treating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The only PTSD medicines currently approved by the FDA usually don’t work well, says Boulder, Colorado, psychiatrist Will Vanderveer, “and leave millions of people still symptomatic and suffering. And dying from suicide." Vanderveer worked with psychotherapist Marcela Ot’Alora, the study's principal investigator, on the three-month long protocol, which included a monthly dose of MDMA and weekly therapy sessions. There were 28 participants. When they were given MDMA, therapists stayed with them during the eight hours the drug was active, helping them recall past traumas in a more effective way.
Medical marijuana plants are the source of cannabidiol that has proven helpful as an anti-seizure medicine.
Ot’Alora says the MDMA promoted trust with the therapists, and the insights gained were profound. “It could be crying, it could be even screaming. They realize, 'wow, I was completely going away and dissociated from the experience, and now I see what was really happening.' Anger can come up, really getting in touch with the anger at what was done to them. Karen, one of the participants, was plagued by nightmares and dread after being sexually abused as a child. She says that decades of therapy and anti-depressant drugs did not help, but this protocol did. “I don't walk around just thinking I'm garbage anymore. You know, I feel like, wow, you know, I'm kind of a good person here.” James was a combat medic, and returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan with PTSD. He tried a number of different therapies, but still felt like he was in a dark cave, with no way out. Then he found the MDMA study. In an on-line documentary about the study, he describes the drug as "a kind of light," and the therapists as "guides. And I could see around the cave and figure out how to get out of there. It was really helpful."
MAPS is funding clinical trials of MDMA as a tool to assist psychotherapy for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The MDMA plus therapy protocol eliminated symptoms in nearly 70 percent of the participants previously diagnosed with treatment resistant PTSD. The final step before requesting FDA approval as a prescription medicine is Phase Three trials, which are scheduled to begin next year.
Two Illegal Drugs May Soon Be Legal Medicine in US
The landlocked South American nation had authorized the importing of cannabis oil in May, under control of the health ministry, and Tuesday's decision was celebrated by patients and their loved ones for making it more readily available. "We are very happy because this will also allow for the import of seeds for oil production," said Roberto Cabanas, vice president of Paraguay's medicinal cannabis organization. His daughter has Dravet syndrome and the family was paying $300 a month for imported cannabis oil.
A man waves a flag during a rally against drug trafficking and in favor of the legalization of self-cultivation of marijuana for medicinal and recreational purposes in Santiago, Chile, April 20, 2017. Paraguay took a step Tuesday to make medicinal marijuana more readily available.
Peru, Chile, Argentina and Colombia had already legalized marijuana for medical purposes. Uruguay has fully legalized growing and selling marijuana for any use. The bill will likely be signed into law by the executive as it was supported by the health ministry. Growing marijuana for recreational purposes in Paraguay is illegal, yet the country is a key source of illegal marijuana trafficked into Brazil and Argentina.
Paraguay Congress Legalizes Planting of Medical Marijuana
