Dakota Blue Serna

Name: Dakota Blue Serna

Age: 30

City/State: Lansing, Michigan

Conditions: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Using Medical
Cannabis since: I’ve been using cannabis
as medicine since 2008.

 (Serna, third from left)

Why did you start using medical cannabis?

Before I joined the Marine Corps (2003-2007), I worked as a
landscaper in the mid-Michigan area. The company owner was with the 4th Infantry
Division during the Vietnam War. While working with him, he shared many stories
with me to prepare me for the military. He was very adamant that none of the
prescribed medications for his PTSD and Agent Orange exposure worked for him.
The only thing that helped him cope with living was in fact, cannabis. I could
tell after four years of taking VA prescribed medication, that the pills were
destroying my body, and causing me to literally go insane. With nothing else to
lose, I smoked a joint, and never looked back.

Did you try other methods or treatments
before cannabis?

I began using cannabis shortly after I returned from Iraq.
Upon returning to the states, I was almost immediately put on eight different
medications to deal with my PTSD, ranging from anti-psychotics, mood stabilizers,
anti-anxiety meds, high blood pressure meds and so on.

What’s the most important issue or problem
facing medical cannabis patients?

I think the problems include police, government lies, the
negative stigma on cannabis and the laws put in place that make it so very easy
for police departments all over the country to target sick individuals using
medical marijuana. Also, politicians coming up with loopholes to make it harder
for legitimate folk to safely use medical cannabis.

What do you say to folks who are skeptical
about cannabis as a medicine?

Cannabis saved my life. I would be dead, I might be in
prison, I might have hurt myself or others. Had it not been for discovering
cannabis, I would have never found something to help me cope with PTSD. The
proof may not yet be fully in black and white for some, but you can’t deny
something when it’s standing in front of you, staring you in the face.