An amendment by Representative Sal Pace relating to medical marijuana and post-traumatic stress disorder was defeated in Colorado today. Denver's Westword Blogs reports that the Marijuana Policy Project's Steve Fox isn't happy about it.

Today the judiciary committee heard HB 1284, a bill intended to regulate the medical marijuana industry. Representative Sal Pace offered an amendment to add post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to the list of ailments that can be treated by medical marijuana.

This is a practice already underway in both Israel and Canada for veterans with PTSD.

The group that actively lobbied against his proposal?

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which has been providing legislators with a fact sheet arguing, "There is no evidence of efficacy of marijuana for treatment of PTSD in the medical literature. In fact, the published literature suggests that such use leads to addiction and abuse of other substances."

This stand frustrates Steve Fox, director of state campaigns for the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project, who not only refutes this statement but points out that New Mexico has approved medical marijuana for PTSD treatment.

"In New Mexico, there's a medical advisory board that examined PTSD as a condition for medical marijuana patients and recommended that it be added as a qualifying condition," Fox says.

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