you know this status disturbing twenty percent of soldiers returning home from iraq and afghanistan suffer from post traumatic stress disorder and some veterans say the only way they can cope is with medical marijuana but the partner the veteran affairs will not pay for this is that reversed and today the secretary of the army says that the service is reviewing all of its mental health programs john hopper said joins us now with more on the pressure that the army is getting from capitol hill john you guys are certainly feeling the pressure in the wake of the murder of sixteen afghan civilians allegedly at the hands of a j b l m soldier who may have been suffering from p t s d today even more pressure was applied by washington state senator you know it is very troubling to be here ten years after this after many many hearings and many many questions to investigation is underway to see if those diagnosis were reversed to save money i don't want to say all all of those diagnoses and changes were inappropriate because really when you have those kinds of data we want to make sure that everything is an iraq war vet who was discharged with p t s d he says he received great treatment in two thousand and three and soldiers in two thousand and twelve deserve the same someone needs services then we have a responsibility to give them services as well as long as they're willing to accept help and work for that there's been a larger focus on p t s d and multiple deployments in the aftermath of the massacre in afghanistan the suspects are robert bales was stationed at j p l and but we don't know if he seek treatment at madigan senator murray says the army needs to do a better job of handling what she calls the mental wounds of war so that's you know why i think it's really important that we really focus on this not just at madigan and what happened there but system wide army officials say they are doing that and while the investigation continues at madigan the screening team that overturn those diagnosis remains on suspension guys ok three six ni there's all the life and try to cover issues during the weeks to follow me as we're going to be looking at p t s d i think you might get p t s d listening to me no i'm just curious i hope that we get more input more things happening with people contributing ideas thoughts we're in a very unique time period where ideas and innovation are changing the world we need to lead the direction of that means of creating a better world a lot of controversy and i know that in the years we've been broadcasting going on almost ten years almost two thousand t v shows we've had done rivers on many times and i think this is a key issue i'm determined to help as much as possible to help see a better way that we can vision or envision visually pray for say that but reverend diana rivers might lead us to me rachael prayer later on the program looking forward to document i mean i think i've run out of ideas i think you need to help us find better ideas is it just an opportunity to have our viewers think about what we're about to hear from all of us maybe them to maybe our listeners can viewers can contribute but let's get some ideas on p t s d it's a big question big subject you're finding out it's more than just military it's it's a lot of people everybody it's just sitting and watching the news at night have got p senator patty murray has been a champion leading us in the area of dealing with veteran affairs and she has some areas of our already found some accomplishments that she's been very successful with i also feel that it's important that we champion this along with her or not is not leave her along i know what she did this committee meeting here in the state of washington i think was in a coma area i did see that many elected officials there and that concerns me that it's an issue that a lot of like to officials have not taken into consideration to to show up or do things so we're going to do one thing we're going to do some very positive about my panel here is done introduce themselves but we're going to talk about ways and strategies that we can help in assisting in accommodating the things that senator patty murray has has done stuff far one of the things we're going to look at is having town hall meeting primary and we're going to conclude it with the general the people that those veterans that come across in those cities very strong during the primary once we're in the general election we're going to take that those individuals and we're going to bring them along with us in a general election and we're going to champion we're going to help our champion the fact of what our veterans need to accomplishing goals in the area of post traumatic stress disorder as long as in another other areas of  and i've got myself and i'm an expert on anything and everything having to do with him including designing houses using his material i'm an expert on agriculture i'm an expert on a great many things having to do with him if you have a question about him i'm the guy to ask i can tell you about how to get free energy on my website just check out my website i got a page for him and she got a pitch for health things that you thought you knew but were actually completely wrong about that you never knew how wrong you could be about her on my website so check out my website and see how how much education how much you can benefit yourself at my expense and have been for twenty days everybody yes happy for twenty happy one of the parties or whatever all the parties should be saying anything negative against somebody wants to champion anything concerning the veterans but if you look at the moment fourteen it says it does have several topics in it but the  debt of the united states are surprised by law including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion shall not be questioned you know what i'm also including in that as far as i'm concerned the briefing whichever you want to call it and i've never in my life was able to see the military brass and at such a despair being caught red handed  not doing what they might do it all the time maybe that's the whole problem they got caught they got caught doing what they do well in india too well redeployment of those that with post traumatic stress disorder as well as other issues of medical terminology and placing them back in the war and i pacific we hurt and i want to quote the general mention his name but i will quote a statement  s we overturned some evaluations and sent them to war now come on you sending sick people to war because they're enlisted because they're signed on to a contract or agreement you send them to war and they lose their lives and fuck a comma on that let's go back to the constitution let's take a look at let's look at how it's worded now if you were in a medical facility no i would think that that would be part of your recovery part of it the while after work after you but you try to be part of your pension so to speak and if it's not supposed to be a question that also means medical coverage should not be question to tell you recovered ok hold it hold it hold it i did recover word that i'm looking at is recovery yes do you recover from this was in some you might in some you might not but this you ok and maybe i didn't connection the dots last week but what's going on with these multiple deployments is well back in vietnam korea no one ever had to serve more than eleven months in combat it's one tour that was the rule  your spinal fluid and whatnot to support your higher brain function cortisol is great but it's also inflammatory so it causes actually your brain to start shrink you know after just a few days you spend two weeks in a hot zone where there is  when they get a bottle full of these pills they treat them like gambling chips they'll dare each other see who can take the most pills before they go into combat and whatnot well when they have elevated sarah tone and in their blood while they're committing these atrocities and then they come home and don't have that sarah tone in but their body has learned that when they commit an atrocity they have it what do you suppose you're going to do furthermore when these guys go back out into the theater and they have p t s d biggest problem deeply with that trauma well you can take guys with p t s d put him back into the same situation how predictable do you suppose he's people are in combat i say the biggest threat to the military itself is the military itself ok so now  what i'm hearing is the fame type of format we have on our streets and everything in the nation is when we have young people and casa rated because of game violence or areas of criminal dysfunctional behavior they tend to continually repeat now with the famed type of format we're looking at this with posttraumatic stress how do you release people that are damaged into a normal society back into the community and give me this we're here once upon you made the determination to release them back into society cured to be honest every time i pick up something that's shaped like an m sixteen and i look down the length of the net a person that person doesn't really look like a person to me and this is from the one nine hundred eighty seven when i went away to marry that person doesn't look like a person in other words you have taken life and from one's ability to exist from a human point of view and devalued it to what a target a target is conversation is being able to relate to one another this is a fun thing that i'm not charging for this piece but i would like your vote as far as payment for letting you kno this constant communication with people that are considered to have been a war if you have a vet that's been a war in living in your community it is important that you deploy yourself to their house or their neighborhood when you see him say hi take your hand chick shake their hand and talk to him because that is some of the most positive medicine you can give someone that's pulse dramatic traumatic stress disorder in my right absolutely wow keep it simple i mean we've made it hard and complicated with all this diagnosis of all these psychologists talk about somebody else's theory and what should be done and we're taking it into deep circles of nonsense you might even make a good civil defense commander for your neighborhood valuable to the assets of america's defense his or her job either one either either individual to become a g i and the g i becomes very expensive and so that's why they did play him a lot of times even though they might be slightly injured or mentally times i'm not saying that's right well the plex spends a lot of money on the son these individuals are not they're not going to have him wandering around the neighborhoods of washington state after they spent thousands and thousands of dollars of programming these guys to do a job efficiently as possible so you don't you can't blame we can't blame the socks the generals and stuff and all that in regards to  know the training know the jobs they know what they need to be it needs to be done it's tough there's young guys now you can send young guys in there to do these jobs fresh fresh guys as they call them if you had nine vietnam or whatever they you know they're going to get themselves killed really quick you know you can you know in your right hand take it keep her and lock yourself in there put your story and there let's have the stories about what you've been through a positive or negative a shaper because when we come to these locations forest park mountlake terrace shoreline seattle and normandy park baring it and bash on island we definitely we want to let you know that we're not just doing this as a gimmick we're doing it for reality to the point of letting you know we care we're going to stand beside patty murray senator patty murray and we've got to champion this all the way until we get some healing and you know bodies about what you've been through in war i don't care if it's a book a novel or what it is we've got washington state pretty amazing never about to make history with donovan it's really point these issues on some we're just going to talk about we're going to get out and speak to the people and find answers for you really lucky to have her on the show today talking about his experiences and thanks for having me here as well a lot of people are starting to contribute to don's campaign and it's because they want change we know the other person in office is twelve times when i hear to say think bad he's an american veteran an american patriot what we're here to talk about is how can we move forward for the state of washington don has some fantastic ideas for generating economic development and a better quality of life and also having a better form of education including trades training some just to touch on is the fact that when these men come back from war what can they be trained for what is it they want to be doing now and how can we help them get there so thank you and please contribute don't dan rivers dot com don rivers for congress dot com the other thing too is on this get you need by go on the web site on the facebook if you can get on facebook look up donovan rivers on facebook and lock yourself into an invite we're going to really turn seattle about we're going in a direction with seattle has never been before we're going to entertain the veterans we let them know we love them we care and you know you know there's going to be some medical him for these guys because i think if they smoke and if they not jochen it so we're going to make sure we help them out here a little bit i've got to have a smoke and a little will know that we care about them and i had a brother in law bless his soul who was a vet and he was totally distraught because he had to kill children they came to him with a grenade  vietnam and they would come running to him with a grenade deployed ready to you know kill him for he had to kill them when he could not take any of needs his nephews running toward him and so this thing is serious very serious matter here be number three in line so i love that number three because he stopped it lot of the neighbors my neighbors in my friends grew up in my neighborhood in detroit michigan they went to war but you know what's what's unique about it all the gang members that went to war in detroit recipient women and made them police officers and they cleaned the city of detroit up and they're going to turn this thing around again with some new people in office can't just go back to the subject matter well you know we do here well you did you brought up the topic of him marijuana go back to pensions and part of the pension is medical information or medical supplies would medical marijuana be something that should not be questioned i don't believe it's going to be questioned in fact i believe it's going to be for recreational purposes to use i don't want to see cheech and chong running down a neighborhood done i don't actually marijuana popsicles stuff like that i'm not a robot and i'm sorry well if they're green with lime i mean yeah that's tried it didn't like it and moved on with my life i mean those that like it congratulations to volunteer life i think there was a sort of question though it should be questioned if that's what's necessary in any form not to smoke smoking is so p nowadays that there's so many different ways inhale in the can just with t h c that the derivatives from whatever you whatever way you find use it will be beneficial to any american russian chinese iranian whatever the whole world i don't care in the univers science and useful arts by securing for limited times of two authors and inventors this goes right to the respective writings and discoveries by the way are you about my campaign i thought we already were you my researcher right you were alluding to they might be charging a little bit too much because they do have a monopolistic created by article one section eight perspective so yeah that is one of the few monarch police that our law besides baseball is the other monopoly that's allowed but not by the constitution you know i want to help people to champion their lives too much too much of anything is intolerable of everything well then i was going to talk about substitutes in those days used to be able to go down to your local pharmacy and get opium and cocaine in things like this and they had actually two kinds of cannabis they called it well there are the mild  toothpick and that's all there was to it two different types two different kinds of pain not a whole lot of confusion on the matter how bad is it smoke this how bad is it that  know in those days we didn't do as much research as we do now so now that we're into the favor of doing the research we're going to look at some of the things that senator patty murray has championed and then we're going to run to another subject here about the fallout feel about that but i think before you you might even have it still i think was what between forty forty seven out of one thousand vets have issues with p t s d and you know seventeen or twenty  out of a thousand women have problems with that you know that that number is not small right the large number as and i think i would compare that to not an awful lot of other diseases that is one high percentage we is stuff in these people are coming back and they will be in our community and he will be needing assistance in many ways and mentally mental health is going to be one of the forefront but no washington seattle they put people in jail that's  program well that is it but that's going to have to stop because we're not going to be able to house people in that magnitude and especially when we know that they're still a ward of the military may not be able to do it that's a waste of funds and that's something that i know the city attorney peter holmes is probably looking at he's looking at if him fit to ation to because i know the taxation of it as a recreational opportunity to use it is something that's going to bring about two hundred fifty million dollars to four hundred million dollars into the state and the city and if that happens i definitely will be looking for funds from that to make sure that we deal with minority issues in other areas of violence to priority for bringing attention to the issue of faced that is faced by women veterans of african solutions and resolutions to address these issues now women issues are not just the same as men issues are when it comes to this posttraumatic stress disorder can you give us a brief statement on what you think some are ok like i said earlier about cortisol and sir tone and those are just two hormones men have over one hundred hormones in their bodies women whatever that number of hormones men have women  fifty percent more furthermore they have a mistral cycle so every day of the month they get up and they actually have a different set of hormones to deal with from the previous day and they're going to have another dip tomorrow god i can't wait to hear all these testimonies we have really get t medical researchers do know that they don't want you to know ok so we want to talk about that but we've got to move you have a statement you saw there about what  this is one of the things that senator patty murray said was challenges like p t s d or depression or natural responses to some of the most stressful events a person can experience and we will do everything possible to assure that those affected by these illnesses can get help can get better and get back can get back to their lives and when i called around to department of veteran affairs i'm not here to criticize anyone but when i get a message a recorded message hey first of all no one's picking up the phone and it says please call this number if you're suicidal i'm not sure that that's quite enough for our veterans when they're out there putting their lives on the line for us men and women putting their lives on the line for us so i think somebody has got to pick up that phone and it's got to be a trained nurse trained triology nurse to speak to that person and to will be well since great service to our country as a disabled american veteran we're very grateful to have went to her room with all your us actually served with my father in law who just passed recently of agent orange related complications but that's beside the point the point is he served honorably and we're grateful for it and we need to continue to do what we can to follow his lead in terms of what he thinks might be best for the veterans of the state and as donovan mentioned many times there's a cost effective solution or touched on it as well keith touched on it as well dorian also is well aware of the situation there are a lot of solutions out there i can tell you firsthand as a farm former pharmaceutical rep that a drug in a big pharma company there's like top five top six companies out there they're not even a look at a drug unless they can get one billion dollars in profit so i think there's plenty of solutions out there and we will continue to source anything you send to us at w w w dan rivers for congress dot com and we'll do whatever we can to help you right now thank you thank you for that and i know that all this is important to us and we're not just doing this to get in office this is how we roll we roll well row your boat gently down the stream i'm merely merely having fun congress campaign and as a congressman we will be putting together a format for filing camps and it's going to be a nationwide thing where we're going to make sure that every culture is ready kits ready you know for twenty's coming up to be prepared for that joe in job yes sir it's time for a change especially within the mormon church if you guys really believe your superiors if you believe that the constitution really is scripture on maybe it's time it's time for you guys to wake up get yourself together quick ha backbone little integrity or yeah and the suicide rate among individuals with mental health or substance use disorder diagnosed among vets who use v a health care was at six point four percent purana thousand as compared to twenty three point five among patients without these diagnosis thank you so it thank you to everybody on the show go to w w w dan rivers for congress dot com and please contribute what you can we really need a grassroots effort to get people involved to make change thank you very much for your next show ok well one more you know the status disturbing twenty percent of soldiers returning home from iraq and afghanistan suffer from post traumatic stress disorder and some veterans say they cope with medical marijuana but the partner of veteran affairs will not pay for this is that fair the legal that's the question the center of our week long special america's high the case for and against pot we've interviewed melissa etheridge who said she has medical marijuana after her diagnosis of breast cancer and also taking on a road into a raid at a national forest for mexican drug cartels are planting marijuana you know the status disturbing twenty percent of soldiers returning home from iraq and afghanistan