Veterans on the front line of the incoming cannabis industry

When Amendment 2 passed in 2018 and kickstarted Missouri’s ascendant medical marijuana industry, voters approved the referendum with a provision that ensured the taxes collected from the sale of cannabis would go into a designated and newly created monetary lockbox called the Missouri Veterans’ Health and Care Fund. This money would be used to fund everything from veterans’ mental and physical health care and drug rehabilitation to services to housing and tuition assistance and job training. The intent of the referendum directly tied the well-being of the state’s veterans with the legalization of an entire industry.

Yet, veterans are much more than just the beneficiaries of the tax scheme surrounding medical cannabis. Several veteran-owned or operated companies have submitted their applications to take an active role in growing the state’s medical marijuana industry.

Men and women like Kevin Schnell (pictured, above) of Kansas City’s KC Cann Transport LLC, Marcella Povis of Natural Journey in Ellisville, Michael T. Allen of the 5th Meridian Group based out of Cape Girardeau and Debra Ahsbahs of Health and Life Missouri are just a few of the veterans eager to take the next step in their own lives as the state of Missouri itself takes a big, bold step into new territory.

Debra Ahsbahs retired from the Army in 2013 and she has primarily trained service dogs for returning military members with mental health problems and mobility issues since then to make a living. One of her clients, himself a veteran, ended up giving her a gift as a way of thanks that would indirectly lead her to start her own business: cannabis plants.

While she was initially leery of the present despite the promises of her client that it had helped him substantially, she asked other veterans if they had used cannabis to self-medicate or if it was something they might try.

“Not surprisingly, a lot of them did, or would, if it was legal,” Ahsbahs says. “Their reasons were varied, it helped with hypervigilance, helped them sleep, eased anxiety and pain. It was helping them with a lot of issues I had.

“I didn’t dive into it, again, because of its legal status, but I did dabble,” she adds. “I saw the benefits talked about almost immediately.”

The biggest difference came when she experimented with CBD, which completely alleviated nightmares she would have almost every time she went to sleep. She also found it helped with her anxiety, stabilized her mood and that even once-debilitating aches and pains became almost unnoticeable on most days.
Six years after retiring from the military, Ahsbahs founded Health and Life Missouri to connect physicians and patients via a HIPAA-approved telehealth platform, primarily for consultation on whether or not medical marijuana is an appropriate treatment option for them. These doctors also have the ability to grant physician certifications over this service.

It’s a very specific niche within Missouri’s medical cannabis environment, but one that Ahsbahs believes is necessary due to her own difficult experiences trying to find a doctor willing to offer certifications.

“I was very disappointed to find out how few and far between they were,” she said. “There were many reasons given as to why doctors wouldn’t do them, even though a lot of them knew there were benefits, but the fact was they didn’t have to and they weren’t.

“I decided out of that frustration and disappointment that I was going to create a cannabis certification clinic so people would have a safe and easily accessible way to see a doctor that was willing to help them through the process.”

Primarily, she hopes that her business will help others experience the same health benefits of cannabis that have helped her after her work in the military.

Other veterans have also decided to transition into the medical marijuana industry with entirely new companies or by modifying existing companies. Kevin Schnell and his business partner Karzan Baban of KC Protective Services, both veterans, have done the latter. They applied for a transportation license as KC Cann Transport LLC, a company that will transport highly valuable medical marijuana products across the state.

Schnell believes his company’s service set will enable them to easily move into this new industry.

“I have been providing services for the secure transportation of high-value personnel and high-value assets since long before I began my own security company,” Schnell said in a feature about his company for Greenway in October. ”My company focuses on providing these services low profile, so as not to draw attention to our clients or their assets. This makes the transition from transporting other high-value assets to the transportation of medical marijuana products easy, as many of the same procedures will be used.”

Michael T. Allen also plans on using his military experience to provide security and transportation needs for the state’s marijuana industry. Allen serves as the co-founder and CEO of the 5th Meridian Group, and served in both the Missouri and Tennessee National Guards as a helicopter pilot. He flew UH-60 Blackhawk utility helicopters in Missouri and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters in Tennessee. The staff of 5th Meridian Group is also filled with veterans with extensive military experience, and they have plans to fulfill unique security needs for their clients with individualized methods of protection, especially given the sheer number of high-value assets the industry is set to accumulate in January when Amendment 2 goes into effect.

“As you’d expect from a security-minded company, our biggest concern is for the safety of approved patients, facility staff, and management,” Allen said. “The continued media exposure of this industry in Missouri, and references to projected revenues, it places a target on facilities for potential crime. Owners should be keenly aware of the perils that face them and their employees in this business.”

Still, other veterans have entered into the field relying less directly on their military experience to inform their businesses. Dr. Patricia Coughlin is a captain in the United States Army Nurse Corps as well as a former clinical social worker and therapist. She applied for a dispensary facility in Brentwood. Good Karma Dispensary, Coughlin believes, would largely focus on the needs of elderly and aging medical marijuana patients. Coughlin herself is 83-years-old.

“As a senior, I intend to focus quite a bit on the more mature population that does not feel comfortable with many of the stereotypical associations of marijuana,” Coughlin told Missouri Greenway in September. “I see first hand every day the significant need in the aging community for a healthier alternative to dangerous prescription medications to treat: sleep problems and insomnia, loss of appetite, chronic pain from age-related conditions, depression, and the agitation and other symptoms related to Alzheimer’s.

“The aging population, in my opinion… is in dire need of alternatives,” Coughlin added.

One of the most active faces of Missouri cannabis, Vashon Ferguson, also came directly out of the military into the industry. Ferguson spent 15 years in the Army before becoming the COO of Red Tractor Holdings for nine months and subsequently landing a job in July as the Director of Operations for Harvest 360 Technologies, a veteran-led cannabis company focused on serving the veteran population.

Marcella Povis joined the Missouri National Guard when she was 27 after the military kept coming up over and over in her life. But now, she’s the owner of Natural Journey, a holistic natural health store that offers wellness consultations, detoxification courses and plans, and, yes, medical marijuana consultation.

Povis focuses on giving back at her business by guiding patients through healthier living. Like many other veterans, she sees herself as being called to serve in one way or another. And one of the ways she wants to serve is because of the health benefits she sees in medical marijuana.

Health benefits unique to vets

As Amendment 2 strictly legalizes cannabis solely for medicinal use as opposed to recreational use, and the substance thus far has shown promise treating a myriad of disorders and diseases. Marijuana can be used as treatments for chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and traumatic brain injuries, as well as glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, nausea caused by chemotherapy, and certain seizure disorders.

As a demographic more likely to suffer from PTSD than most others, veterans have long served on the frontlines not just in America’s warzones, but in the fight for legal medical marijuana. Thomas Mundell, a veteran and leading advocate for veterans’ issues in the state, testified before the Missouri General Assembly to legalize medical marijuana on many occasions in the past, and he was a major influence in convincing the state chapter of Veterans of Foreign Wars to endorse Amendment 2. For Mundell, legalization was personal; his son, also named Thomas, also a veteran, died after mixing painkillers and alcohol.

“We have to get control over the boatload of medical issues we are having,” Mundell told The Missouri Times in October of last year. “This is the right thing to do.”

For many of the veterans entering Missouri’s medical marijuana industry now, the beneficial health effects of medical marijuana play a recurring role in why they have become converts into an industry that has welcomed them with open arms.

Like Ahsbahs, Schnell was also initially reluctant about getting into the business. In an editorial for Greenway Magazine, Schnell wrote as a member of law enforcement for over a decade he strictly adhered to the illegality of marijuana, and since it was illegal, pot was bad. However, he started researching the potential medical benefits of marijuana and eventually came around in such a strong way that he applied for a transportation license, especially since it could mean helping veterans treat their PTSD in an alternative way when other methods may have failed.

“As a military veteran myself, and fortunate to not have experienced anything traumatic enough to be diagnosed with PTSD, I began thinking about all the friends, better yet, family, that have been suffering from their experiences and the conditions they were exposed to,” Schnell wrote.

Beyond PTSD, chronic pain has also been a major health issue for veterans returning from combat, especially those that suffered serious injuries. Strong, highly-addicting opioid medications were regularly prescribed as a treatment for chronic pain in the military until 2012, since the launch of the Veterans’ Administration’s Opioid Safety Initiative. Regardless, a 2019 study from Air Force Capt. Carl Beyer found 15 percent of injured warfighters in his sample experienced persistent opioid use after initial prescription and almost 7 percent outright abused opioids. In addition, soldiers in Afghanistan have had access to the world’s foremost source of illicit opium production. Some leading military and health officials, including former President Bill Clinton’s “drug czar” retired four-star general Barry McCaffrey, believe that proximity puts soldiers at risk of addiction to a crippling substance.

While marijuana has not necessarily proven effective at curing addiction to either heroin or prescription opioids, it serves as an alternative pain medication and often used to combat pain and perhaps cease the need for a glut of medications that veterans often receive. Mundell said at a 2015 hearing that he went from taking 71 pills a day to three after he started smoking marijuana. Joshua Lee, another Missouri veteran and co-founder of the Veteran’s Alliance for Compassionate Access, went viral in 2017 holding a 10-pound bag of Smarties candy that represented the thousands of pills he was prescribed in a year.

Povis, an eight-year member of the Air National Guard, has also seen veterans suffering from over-medication. She shares tales of veterans prescribed up to 60 pills a day, with many medications prescribed simply to treat the symptoms of primary prescriptions.

“Everyone serves because we love America,” Povis said. “You get a genuine appreciation for your country when you serve. In doing that, we should treat military service members the way that they deserve to be treated. They go through that experience, we should help them feel better instead of pumping them full of medication.”

Veterans leading the way

The seemingly overnight construction of the medical marijuana industry in Missouri has brought a vast number of entrepreneurs out of the woodwork. It is no surprise that a large number of those would be veterans, self-reliant and skilled and determined. But so many of them are also close to the reason why medical marijuana has been fought for so ardently by its supporters in the military community. As much or more than any other group, veterans know how mental health problems can puzzle and frustrate modern medicine. Several veterans, like Joshua Lee, Debra Ahsbahs, Thomas Mundell and others, have also experienced success in treating their own health needs with medical marijuana. Even those who have not personally self-medicated seem drawn to the potential of the drug to help their brothers and sisters in uniform.

With the passage of Amendment 2, they can not only continue to serve soldiers that still suffer from wounds, both visible and invisible, but also make a name for themselves in a broader community as pioneers in an industry set to catch fire in Missouri.