Pubdate: Wed, 20 Apr 2016
Source: Colorado Springs Independent (CO)
Copyright: 2016 Colorado Springs Independent
Contact:  http://www.csindy.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1536
Author: Nat Stein

INSIDE VETS' FIGHT FOR MEDICAL CANNABIS AMID REEFER MADNESS POLITICS

Steve DeFino is remarkably mellow for a guy with shrapnel still 
lodged in his body and memories of war on his mind.

At the Dab Lounge on Circle Drive near Palmer Park Boulevard, a light 
haze drifts above the booths, about half of which are occupied on 
this weekday afternoon. A few dogs roam around, as do some pool balls 
on the newish table. "A year ago I couldn't do this," DeFino says, 
sitting on a stool in the back of the place where the arcade 
machines' bleeps and bloops weave into a soundtrack of '90s R&B.

DeFino is tatted, stubbled and hefty - not the type you'd expect to 
feel uncomfortable or unsafe anywhere, let alone a club on a slow day.

"I mean, I was broken. I'd shake and flip out every other day. It was 
bad," he says of the early days of his recovery.

The day that forever altered the course of his life was April 11, 2008.

He tells it like this.

World away

As part of the siege of Sadr City, a Baghdad suburb, Echo Company 
1/68 Angel Makers platoon's mission was to clear a route so another 
unit could erect a wall that would stop rocket attacks on U.S. bases.

"In the first 30 seconds, an IED (improvised explosive device) goes 
off and 20 seconds later, another," remembers DeFino, then a 
28-year-old Army sergeant. "But there are lives behind us so we just 
keep going."

His buddy in front fell back, so DeFino takes the lead. That's when a 
13-inch EFP (explosively formed penetrator) nails him in the back.

"All my lights went out, and I thought that was it," he remembers. "I 
thought I was dead. There was a lot that went through my head then, 
you know, like my family and what my life had come to and why I am 
here. It was like, this is it. Then I thought, 'I can't go out like 
this,' and just summoned it."

DeFino survived, but with a gaping hole in his back through which you 
could touch his pelvic bone. He had three blood transfusions, 11 
surgeries and more than 100 shards of concrete, copper, fiberglass, 
aluminum and explosive removed before being flown back home to the 
States, where he'd start the next phase of his battle.

Abandoned at home

"I did my job over there, and I come back and had no insurance. 
Something got messed up," DeFino says. During that time, he says, he 
underwent 80 surgeries and paid more than $2,000 a month for the 25 
medications he took daily - a daunting prospect for someone disabled, 
unemployed and with a family to support. The VA can't divulge 
specific information about insurance in this case, but a spokesman 
did comment that "the bureaucratic process can be very confusing and 
frustrating."

That pharmaceutical cocktail didn't work.

"There was a three-to five-month wait to see a therapist through the 
VA; meanwhile I'm sitting here on pills," he remembers. He secluded 
himself at home, drank heavily, gained weight, stopped showering and 
often careened into angry outbursts.

"I shut off for a good three years. I'd go to the park and see other 
guys rolling around with their kids, having a good time and here I 
was with a cane. I would try to play with my daughter and just be in 
pain," he says. "I felt worthless."

Despite his despondency, he carried on with his regimen of therapy - 
re-learning to walk, talk, read, write and do math - but gained no 
satisfaction from slow progress. If anything, it just numbed him further.

"I felt like a zombie," DeFino remembers. "I had become a hollow 
shell that just existed ... dead on the inside. I contemplated suicide daily."

Back on track

After moving to a quieter back room at the Dab Lounge, DeFino speaks 
calmly, even matter-of-factly, about those darker days - possible 
only because they're behind him. The explosion that blew his life to 
pieces was quite obviously traumatic. Those spiritual wounds made 
picking up the pieces painful, but he resolved to do it for his young daughter.

"That's what gave me my purpose then," he says.

But willingness to get better was only the first step. He also had to 
be able. And for him that meant, in part, finding a treatment that worked.

DeFino grabs his Army backpack that's stashed below the faux leather 
couch. It's full of clunky mason jars full of homegrown weed. The 
buds inside are nice - dense, crystalline and stinky (which he 
acknowledges with a devilishly proud grin).

"I never touched cannabis when I was in [the military], I followed 
the rules," DeFino says. "But then after, I'd see guys doing way 
better than me, and I asked what they were doing and found out they 
were smoking weed. I was eating opioids like candy at the time, so I 
was like, 'Why the hell not? I'll try it.' Within a couple of weeks I 
was totally off those drugs."

DeFino is on the MMJ registry to treat his severe pain and persistent 
muscle spasms. His doctor recommends 20 ounces of marijuana a month, 
which he grows himself. With an average yield of 2 ounces per plant 
every three months, that translates to 60 total plants (because only 
half can be flowering at a time). That personalized treatment plan 
comes from extensive conversations between him and his doctor in Littleton.

Unscrewing jar after jar, he smells the buds and rattles on about the 
importance of rotating strains to get different cannabinoids and 
terpenes into his system.

Home grow is the way to go, he says, to tailor the medicine to his 
specific needs - a variety of rotating strains, strictly sativa - 
and, frankly, just to afford it. (An ounce at the medical 
dispensaries in the Springs runs around $150. So for the 20 ounces a 
month his doctor recommends, DeFino would be looking at dropping 
$3,000 a month on medicine.)

DeFino's home grow is dialed to a T, though he sometimes harvests 
more cannabis than he needs. So what does he do with that surplus? He shares.

Pass it around

"We'd get together, just a group of vets, hang out, smoke weed and 
just create that positive environment," DeFino says. "This is not 
about getting stoned. This is how we heal."

What started as an informal social network turned into an 
organization called Veteran Farmers Alliance. It's not a registered 
501(c) nonprofit yet, but once it is, DeFino hopes to increase the 
donations he can distribute and maybe take other vets on fishing and 
riding trips.

The Dab Lounge was a natural partner for the Veteran Farmers 
Alliance. The club plays host to events for vets to come together, 
share medicine and educate each other about how to treat their war 
wounds with cannabis. One such event, a "Spring Bake weekend" in 
March, facilitated the distribution of more than $14,000 worth of 
donated cannabis and cannabis-related products to vets in need.

Another, more ambitious giveaway is in the works for the fall, but 
DeFino worries the event could be without a venue since the Colorado 
Springs City Council voted last month to rid the city of all clubs by 
2024. The three ordinances comprising that legislation won't go into 
effect until an ongoing petition effort reaches resolution.

Cannabis clubs are spread all over the city: the Dab Lounge in the 
east-central area; myclub420 to the west; Speakeasy and Lazy Lion 
farther out east; and Studio A64 downtown. Each has a different vibe 
and attracts a different scene. One solid unifier, however, is that 
all of these spots are heavily frequented by veterans of the U.S. 
military. Which, of course, is not unusual in a city that's home to 
nearly 54,000 vets, according to the last Census count.

But this small handful of clubs - 15 compared to 776 liquor-licensed 
establishments - has outsized value for many local veterans who want 
or need a place to consume cannabis in a private but social 
environment. One major reason for this? The regulation of legal 
marijuana use is largely tied to housing status.

Homeless vets in Colorado Springs face citation for public 
consumption, should they medicate in public. Many landlords forbid 
marijuana use, as does government-funded housing. Folks traveling 
from out of state who want to try some of our legal specialty have a 
handful of 420-friendly motels and Airbnbs to choose from, or risk 
running into cops in public parks and on street corners. Lastly, 
plenty of folks, no matter their access to housing, just want 
somewhere to get together, relax and smoke a joint (as is their right 
under the Colorado Constitution).

Cannabis clubs are the only places in the Springs, except for private 
homes, that serve all these functions for locals, and if they do end 
up shuttered, the veteran community stands to lose especially hard.

"I get guys who come to me here asking for help, and just that itself 
is a huge victory," DeFino says. "They know to find us here."

Coming conundrum

While the political battle to overturn the club ban rages on, DeFino 
is focused on another policy making its way through the procedural 
pipes that could put patients' supplies in a tight spot.

A proposed city ordinance would limit home grows to 12 plants, no 
matter the number a patient's doctor recommends. Should it become 
law, grows larger than 12 plants would be permitted only in 
industrial zones with proper licensing (no small feat, especially if 
you're disabled and/or lacking funds).

Many patients would have to choose between obeying the law or 
following a doctor's recommendation. "So I have to save up $10,000, 
$15,000 and go buy industrial land?" DeFino asks, facetiously 
contemplating the prospect. "The reality is, I can't."

He also has qualms about the process. No patients or caregivers sat 
on the city's task force, whose members (at least some of them) 
seemed to have come to the table with their minds already made up. 
Besides that, the word didn't really get out.

"Nobody knows about this. I can hardly keep track of when it's going 
to come up at Council," DeFino says. "Then you expect vets already 
with super-high anxiety to go up [to City Hall] to go speak out about 
it? Most guys can't do it. They break down."

DeFino says he doesn't have faith that the majority of City Council 
would heed vets' wishes, even if enough veterans did show up to make 
their opinions known.

"You see a lot of stickers and hear a lot of talk like, 'Oh, support 
our troops,' but that's kind of where it ends," DeFino says 
pointedly. "Council doesn't know anything about cannabis other than 
it's a scary drug. Their views don't match the views of the new 
generation that's living in the Springs now."

In the near future, DeFino is committed to helping the clubs fight 
for their continued existence and, at the same time, nip the 
plant-limit ordinance in the bud. Accomplishing those two objectives 
won't be easy, and they won't be the end of the battle. But if 
there's one thing that gets DeFino fired up, it's having a purpose. 
And right now, fighting for vets' access to cannabis is his singular purpose.

"When things sucked over there, and I mean it got really rough, all 
you care about is the guy on your right, the guy on your left and 
getting them home safe," DeFino says. "So when we get out and come 
back, that's what we need. The love, appreciation, camaraderie - 
that's what helps us heal."

And with that support system under attack, Steve DeFino is responding 
exactly how the military taught him - with unwavering intensity and 
uncompromising resolve.

In his words: "Piss off enough vets, and you'll see what happens."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom