One of the worst nights of Susan Barron’s career came a few years ago, when the artist was in Manhattan to unveil her mixed-media art series, Depicting The Invisible. Military veteran portraits adorned with paint and text comprised the collection, which Barron designed to highlight veteran struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Just before the show, Barron’s phone rang. On the other end of the line was the mother of one of her photographic subjects. “She said he had succumbed to PTSD and taken his own life,” Barron says. “It was a gut punch.”

Nearly three million service members have deployed in support of the Global War on Terror since 2001. Of those who served in Iraq or Afghanistan, between 11 and 20 percent now suffer from PTSD. These glaring statistics have left an interminable trail of suicide victims in their wake—individuals, like Barron’s friend, who quietly endure the invisible wounds of combat, personal loss or sexual assault.

22 veterans per day. The suicide statistic has circulated extensively since such data first reached the public sphere. In 2020, the Department of Veterans Affairs reported 6,146 military vets died by suicide, an astonishing 17 per day. And while that number amounted to the lowest total since 2006, any semblance of empathy would suggest it stands at 6,146 too many.

It was learning about this epidemic that inspired Barron to create “Depicting The Invisible,” an exhibit that, since its launch, has occupied the hallowed halls of the National Veterans Memorial and Museum in Columbus, OH, and the Army and Navy Club in Washington, DC. among others.

“I’m really grateful these very brave men and women shared their stories with me,” Barron says. “I wanted to shine a light on this epidemic of PTSD and suicide and help break down the stigma around issues of mental health. Every one of us needs to do whatever we can to help. As an artist, this is what I felt I could do.”

Barron’s photo series was shot using a classical black-and-white style that she says, “was intentionally in direct contrast to the brutality of their stories.”

“They’re heroic. They’re elegant,” Barron says.

The works also proved to be conversation starters, eventually becoming the subject of an NPR podcast and an award-winning short documentary of the same name.

“This project has had so many hands lift it up, and throughout all of it, I’ve been contacted by people I don’t even know telling me what a huge difference it made in their life or in their spouse’s life,” Barron says. “Sons, mothers, grandmothers—so many family members have been thankful for destigmatizing this, for honoring this as a wound of war and not a mental illness.”

Shattering stigmas has also opened the door to a more expansive network of PTSD treatment options for veterans, cannabis principal among them.

Ryan Cauley may not be one of Barron’s subjects, but his story, like the myriad of veterans enduring the trials of neurological trauma, is remarkably similar. Originally from Pendleton, Indiana, Cauley joined the Army in 2004 and served as a cavalry scout until 2007 with the service’s 1st Squadron, 32nd Cavalry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.

Life after the service proved difficult. Post-traumatic stress impacted Cauley’s ability to connect. Depression and anxiety became a viciously cyclical norm. His attitude and behavior soured, and in turn, his marriage and personal relationships eroded.

Months of anger management and cognitive behavioral therapy helped Cauley understand how to manage the condition, but it wasn’t until his 2016 foray into medical cannabis—and subsequent launch of the cannabis and PTSD advocacy company Combat Cultivators—that he’d experience a real transformation.

“I had to convince my wife about using cannabis, but almost instantly, she was able to see the change in my attitude,” Cauley says. “I was able to give more love and be more compassionate. I could focus on tasks and not be consumed by negative thoughts.”

Noticeable attitude changes eventually manifested a genuine interest in the industry, and in 2018, Cauley set out to complete his first grow. “I was such a baby,” he says, smiling at the memory. “I wanted to grow my own cannabis, because, at the time, prices were more expensive than they are now. Today, we grow our own because it’s better than anything in the dispensaries.”

Cauley’s infantile curiosity soon blossomed into a profession. He became a lead grower at a company in Michigan, learning the ins and outs of large-scale growth, environmental control and cloning. He even recruited his best friend from the Army, Carlos Ozuna, to work in the same role. Together, the duo launched the Combat Cultivators Instagram account to be a vehicle of contacting other veteran cannabis advocates struggling with PTSD.

And while the friends have since left the company, Cauley credits the knowledge the two accumulated there for the duo’s success with Combat Cultivators. More than that, however, has been the remarkable difference cannabis has made in Cauley’s personal life. “It’s given me so much of my life back,” he says. “That sense of doing something for a reason. It also gave Carlos and I the opportunity to work together again.”

The number of ways veterans are learning to confront PTSD is ever-expanding. For Barron and Cauley, using their respective platforms has injected life into a conversation about mental health that remained dormant for far too long.

The dreaded phone call Barron received that day in Manhattan is one that many of today’s veterans and military family members have endured ad nauseam. Every story is unique, but the excruciating pain of loss is undeniably similar. Preventing that from happening to anyone else, Barron says, is a calling we should all gravitate toward.

“That day was a personal low for me, but it ignited an even stronger drive to get these stories out there,” Barron says. “We all just really need to do more.”

This story was originally published in issue 47 of the print edition of Cannabis Now.

The post The Healing Art: Military Veteran Portraits Highlight PTSD & Cannabis appeared first on Cannabis Now.

Legislation proposed in Arizona would provide millions of dollars in grant funding to expand research into psilocybin––the primary psychoactive component in magic mushrooms––as a potential treatment for certain mental health conditions.

The bill, introduced by a Republican lawmaker and backed by Democrats, “would put $30 million in grants over three years toward clinical trials using whole-mushroom psilocybin to treat mental health conditions like depression and PTSD,” the Arizona Mirror reports. 

The outlet reports that one of the bill’s biggest backers is Dr. Sue Sisely, an internal medicine physician who believes that psilocybin treatment could be a boon for ailing military veterans. 

“It’s curbed their suicidality, it’s put their PTSD into remission, it’s even mitigated their pain syndromes,” Sisely said of patients she has seen benefit from psilocybin, as quoted by the Arizona Mirror. “It’s shown evidence of promoting neurogenesis (the growth and development of nerve tissue). There’s all kinds of great things that are being uncovered, but they’re not in controlled trials—they’re anecdotes from veterans and other trauma sufferers.” 

According to the Mirror, “so far the only controlled trials on psilocybin to treat medical conditions have used a synthetic, one-molecule version of the substance, which is vastly different from a whole mushroom, which contains hundreds of compounds.”

“These agricultural products are very complex, and that is what people are reporting benefit from,” Sisley told the Arizona Mirror. “Nobody in the world has access to synthetic psilocybin unless you’re in one of these big pharma trials.” 

In the last decade, psilocybin has gone from the fringes to the mainstream, as researchers and policymakers have grown more amenable to mushrooms as an effective treatment for a variety of different disorders. 

It has also become the next frontier for drug legalization advocates, as states like Arizona consider measures that would expand its usage. 

To the north of the Grand Canyon State, advocates in Utah have launched a campaign to push legislators to legalize psilocybin for clinical and academic purposes.

“Numerous robust studies have shown that psilocybin therapy is beneficial in reducing treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, addiction, trauma, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and other mental health disorders. It is more effective than synthetic pharmaceuticals by a large margin. Psilocybin has also shown effectiveness in easing fear and anxiety in people with terminal cancer. For instance, a groundbreaking study performed by John Hopkins Medicine found that psilocybin reported better moods and greater mental health after participating in a single clinical dose,” Utah Mushroom Therapy, the group behind the campaign, says in a statement.

The group is looking to gin up public support for the treatment after the state’s Republican governor, Spencer Cox, signed a bill last year establishing a task force that will study psilocybin as a mental health treatment.

Utah Mushroom Therapy says that, in the wake of the task force, “legalizing and decriminalizing Psilocybin in Utah is now very likely but still needs public support.”

“The use of mushrooms has been documented in 15 indigenous groups in America and various religious communities in Utah. This petition supports those groups who wish to use psilocybin safely, sincerely, and as a necessary part of their religion. The use of psilocybin does not contradict other Utah cultures and is protected by the first amendment as well as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This petition is to advocate Utah law to protect the religious rights of Utahns,” the group says. 

“Psilocybin is a natural, non-toxic substance. Despite this, it is currently a Schedule I substance. Scientists have demonstrated it has profound medicinal value and believe serotonergic hallucinogens assist cognitive processes and should be decriminalized. Psychedelics can change perception and mood, help people soften their perspective and outlook, and process events that may otherwise lead to substance abuse, trauma, and criminal behavior,” it continues.

The post Arizona Bill Would Provide Grants for Magic Mushroom Trials appeared first on High Times.