Utah in the Weeds Episode #88 – Daniel Jones, War Veteran and Medical Cannabis Patient

What to Expect in This Episode

Episode 88 of Utah in the Weeds features Daniel Jones, a war veteran who uses Medical Cannabis for PTSD. Jones says cannabis has helped him retake control of his life.

We started this episode with a discussion of Jones’ decision to join the armed forces at age 18. He says he didn’t see a future in his home town of Rock Springs, Wyoming, so he decided to join up. [02:06]

Jones says he spent about 4.5 years in the service, and he went on tours in Kosovo and Iraq. Jones shared a few memories of his time in the service, including a close call with a land mine. [05:55]

Like many people, Jones’ first experiences with cannabis happened when he was a teenager. He says he didn’t use much cannabis then, but an experience with the VA made him want to revisit cannabis. Cannabis has helped Jones retake control of his life by helping with his anxiety, panic attacks, and other PTSD symptoms. [12:07]

Jones and our host, Tim Pickett, agree that some cannabis strains can worsen symptoms like anxiety. Jone says the cannabis strain “Blue Dream” made his anxiety worse, but “Blue Cheese” gives him the mellow, calm feeling he’s after. [15:25]

The conversation then shifted to Utah’s Medical Cannabis program and Proposition 2, the 2018 ballot initiative for Medical Cannabis. Jones, like many others, is disappointed that the state didn’t pass the proposition as it was originally written. [18:45]

Jones says he wanted to join Utah’s Medical Cannabis program as soon as he could. He says he contacted a company called Truu Med to get his card. Jones says the company misled him, and he ended up paying them thousands of dollars for unnecessary monthly appointments. [20:00]

Jones buys his Medical Cannabis products at Deseret Wellness in Provo. He uses some of the cannabis flower sold there, and he also finds their gelatinous cubes useful for sleep. [30:51]

We wrapped up this episode with a few more of Jones’ insights about the VA, the US Military, and his use of cannabis to replace alcohol and other drugs. [35:32]

Podcast Transcript

Tim Pickett:
Welcome everybody out to Utah In The Weeds. This is episode 88 and I am your host, Tim Pickett. Today’s episode is a discussion with Daniel Mark Jones, a veteran. This is a heavy conversation in two regards. One, his tours… I’ll let you just listen to it. Kosovo and Iraq. This is serious trauma that these… They’re we don’t give enough credit to those in our country, I think, who are willing to do this, right? Willing to go out and serve in this way. Just always very strong and powerful to hear these stories.

Tim Pickett:
But the second piece of his story with his experience getting a medical cannabis card here in Utah and what happened to him, and how he was basically fleeced for thousands of dollars. And just the opportunity that people take, I guess, to take advantage of other people, especially veterans, come on.

Tim Pickett:
Anyway, great conversation. Very, very genuine guy. From a housekeeping perspective, I’m excited release this episode. We’ve got our own [Colin McCann 00:01:26] next week and going to record with him soon. Looking very forward to that.

Tim Pickett:
I’ve also got a product review that I’ve been doing on my own. Sprained my back over the past week and have been just debilitated and unable to walk, really. So been doing some research on my own with what’s working best, trying to just recover a little bit. So stay tuned for that. Utah In The Weeds, download and subscribe on any podcast player that you have access to. I’m Tim Pickett, again, enjoy this conversation with Daniel Mark Jones.

Tim Pickett:
First off so we can get your name right, would you mind saying your full name so we get the pronunciation, right? And tell me a little bit about you.

Daniel Jones:
My name’s Daniel Mark Jones. I was born in Salt Lake City, grew up in Wyoming for 20 years in a small miners town of Upper Reliance. That’s about three miles from Rock Springs, Wyoming. That’s where I joined the 1041st Engineers. I joined them November 13th, 1999. It was living under a bridge, it was a negative 50 and I just couldn’t do it. So I went and joined the service. I walked in the cold up towards the mountains, right over the college, right down to where the mall is and then I joined them. So I was able to join the 1041st, so it was pretty cool.

Tim Pickett:
So what was that like? How old were you at the time?

Daniel Jones:
I was 18. I was 18 working on my GED. Most of my life I was homeschooled. Mom was falling behind on her bills, everyone else was able to go to public school, and I was stuck getting my college… Up at the college to get my GED.

Tim Pickett:
Yeah. What was the service like?

Daniel Jones:
The service, it was different. But for me it was a life changer. I was able to get out and away from people that were going to bring me down. It got me away from the drug scene. It got me away from the basically just destroying my life. It was an opportunity for me to leave Rock Springs, Wyoming, and that was the chance I took.

Daniel Jones:
One of the reasons for that is Rock Springs is called rock bottom. You’re going to be stuck at the bottom of nowhere and you’re going to be stuck on either drugs or end up locked up, and that’s something I didn’t want to be. I wanted something better for my life.

Tim Pickett:
Yeah. Did you ask your parents before you joined up?

Daniel Jones:
I didn’t tell anybody I joined.

Tim Pickett:
What’d they say?

Daniel Jones:
Basically when they found out is when I was in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri training. They had us all coloring our parents to invite them to graduation. Everyone in my family thought I was dead, even my friends. They couldn’t find me, I just disappeared. When they found out I was in Fort Leonard Wood, my adopted dad, he was stoked.

Tim Pickett:
Was he?

Daniel Jones:
He was.

Tim Pickett:
Because, one, you were alive.

Daniel Jones:
Yes.

Tim Pickett:
Right? And they didn’t know where you were. How long had you been gone before you contacted them?

Daniel Jones:
It was about probably seven weeks.

Tim Pickett:
Holy cow. As an 18 year old, you’re living under the bridge. You joined the service. You’re gone for six, seven weeks. Yeah, I’ll bet they were pretty excited to hear from you.

Daniel Jones:
Yeah, he was pretty stoked. He drove three days to come to my graduation ceremony.

Tim Pickett:
That is awesome. So what was the rest of that like? Did you do tours? How long were you involved?

Daniel Jones:
I did. I did about four and a half years in that gate. That pretty much put me in two different war zones. My first tour was in Kosovo in 2002. I went with 54th Engineers Company, Bravo Company, out of Bamberg, Germany. They were short staffed on the soldiers and they were looking for volunteers and I was the first to volunteer out of my unit out of Hanau Germany. That was an interesting experience there.

Tim Pickett:
Yeah. Talk about that. So it’s interesting, I’ve been to Kosovo, I’ve seen the statue of Bill Clinton in the square. I don’t think it was there when you were there, but talk about that a little bit and what you saw.

Daniel Jones:
We were stationed in Klokot. It’s about probably 12 miles from Camp Magrath, and then about probably four or five minute drive from Camp Bondsteel. We were in charge of checkpoint 417, and that’s the longest checkpoint. You just look down the road for miles one way and one way or the other, it was all flat. It was a church in the middle. We did a lot of our searches right there, vehicle searches. Lot of our main focus was there.

Tim Pickett:
What other war zone did you go to?

Daniel Jones:
Everything around us was a war zone.

Tim Pickett:
Was it?

Daniel Jones:
Most of the people that were living in homes were destroyed by bombs. We were even protecting cemeteries. The Serbs, they would come dig up to Albanians graves and scatter their bones everywhere. They were pretty much ruthless. One race thinks they’re better than the other and needs to annihilate the other race. One of the things that we found there was a couple more massive graves where they lined them up and shoot them, and then just dumped the bodies in one big hole.

Tim Pickett:
Wow.

Daniel Jones:
Kosovo also is a minefield. About 90% of the mine fields that have been planted were never recorded. So wherever you drive, you had to be careful. My unit, we were out doing our regular drive arounds, we ended up on a back road and we ended up in the middle of a minefield. If I didn’t [inaudible 00:08:57] to ask the Sergeant and ask him what was sticking up out of the ground out there and stop the vehicle, we were probably about 10 feet from hitting that mine.

Tim Pickett:
Wow. Is this something that you still deal with? It sounds like you have some pretty vivid memories of this still.

Daniel Jones:
I do, I do. I still remember that was pretty hectic driving in a minefield. I was at the church guard guarding, and that’s when the seven bombs went off. It just constantly went off one right after the other. Sergeant Bergess, Sergeant Mcdevitt, they were injured. They were literally putting bombs on people’s homes and just blowing them up.

Tim Pickett:
So what other war zone did you go to other than in Kosovo in 2002?

Daniel Jones:
After Kosovo in 2002, three months later, my regular unit, the 54 Second Engineers, we end up going to Iraq just three months after I got back from Kosovo.

Tim Pickett:
Oh, wow.

Daniel Jones:
My unit was a combat unit, a multi unit bridge unit. We were the river wraps. We put the biggest world float bridge ever built in a war history, a 98×2 float bridge across the Tigris River there. Which is really funny because the river, it’s not a very big river. It’s like a creek. You can even probably just run across it and jump across. But Saddam’s idea was if he blew the dam that was like 30 miles up the river, his idea was to try to take out the dam. It didn’t work that way. So we ended up putting the float bridge across. From my memories from that, that was pretty hectic. One of our sergeants in the boats, the boat went under and it dragged the sergeant down. He didn’t pop up until 150 feet from the bridge.

Tim Pickett:
Wow.

Daniel Jones:
We’re facing white waters. The river itself had blood disease in it. If you go further up the river from the little town, the Tigris, you could actually see the sewer dumping into it. People fishing, people washing their clothes in this river, just five feet from where the sewage is dumping into it. You sit there and wonder, it’s like, “Wow, can’t you just dump that sewage somewhere else?” But they don’t have what we have, the cleaning facility for it.

Tim Pickett:
Wow. So when did you get out?

Daniel Jones:
I got out November 3rd, 2004.

Tim Pickett:
Let’s switch gears a little bit. When did you first get introduced to cannabis?

Daniel Jones:
Oh, probably about 17, 17 and a half. But I wasn’t a really big user of it. It’s not until about seven years ago from today is when I got really into it. One of the reasons I got into it is the VA likes to give a lot of pills out.

Tim Pickett:
I’ve heard that. I have heard that rumor.

Daniel Jones:
Oh, there’s an escalator. If you ask my old lady here where we first hooked up, she found one of my Tupperware was full of pills. They keep sending me more and more and more. There’s pills I never asked for too that they’re sending me.

Daniel Jones:
When someone with PTSD has a flashback or has a hard time trying to get under control, a pill can only work for so long. It takes 45 minutes to an hour. If you do one hit of cannabis, you’re having faster reaction of calming the person down. That’s one of the things I started using the cannabis for was to help get me back in control of my life.

Tim Pickett:
What was happening in your life that you needed to get control of?

Daniel Jones:
Panic attacks. My anxiety was taken off. I was starting to actually see shadow figures walking across my living room. I always, even to this day, I still feel like I’m being watched. I feel like I hear people walking outside around the house. There’s times where I don’t feel safe in my own home, and with the cannabis, it kind of restores my sanity back knowing nothing’s really there.

Tim Pickett:
Yeah. When you started getting into it, you’re just getting it off the black market, yeah?

Daniel Jones:
Yes, I was.

Tim Pickett:
So did you really have a choice of what you were using? Or it was kind of like, “Hey, I got this indica, I got this sativa.” Or, “Hey, I just got a bag.”

Daniel Jones:
It wasn’t really much of a choice. It was just I got a bag. You’re paying like $50 for a gram.

Tim Pickett:
Really?

Daniel Jones:
For 3.5, you get like $50, $60. But you’re still paying pretty high.

Tim Pickett:
Yeah. Did you run into flower cannabis that ended up making things worse sometimes, or was it always helpful? I guess I ask that question because now you have a little bit of choice in the process here, right? You can choose what strain you buy, who grew it. When you’re buying it off the black market, you don’t really know what you’re getting. I don’t know. I know sometimes strains like a real sativa might make people more anxious. Did you ever run into that?

Daniel Jones:
Yes. I ran into where the certain strains, I would say blue dreams, it left me with high anxiety. It got to the point where even my chest, it felt like my heart was trying to pound out on my chest. Compared to where I did something like blue cheese, which blue cheese has a different effect on me. It has more of a mellow and calmness. That’s something I’m more looking into is something to help with the calmness because I feel I have a battle going inside my own head and in my own heart. I feel like I’m always at war or being in a tug of war.

Tim Pickett:
Yeah, makes sense. What do you do for work?

Daniel Jones:
I work for Love’s Truck Stop. I am a maintenance man. I fix the pumps. I will get down in there, change hoses out, pump handles, diesels, DEF handles. The pumps go down, I go reset the pumps. I make sure the store runs. I’m basically the backbone of the store, keeping it flown.

Daniel Jones:
People have a hard time with running their cards or they can’t get their cards run, I go out and help them. If the elderly need help and they can’t go in the store, they’ll pay me. Then I’ll go in, pay it, come back with their change and their receipt and hand it to them. We show our courtesy to our customers because that’s who we need to keep going because they keep this country going. The truckers, they keep the fuel going. Our job is to make sure everyone’s taken care of and helped.

Tim Pickett:
It’s really interesting to hear your story about joining the service and being 18. You were 17 and you didn’t get caught up in drugs. You left that scene, which ended up being a good choice, but at the same time it caused you a lot of trauma. But staying would’ve caused you a lot of different trauma probably.

Daniel Jones:
It would’ve prolonged it.

Tim Pickett:
Yeah.

Daniel Jones:
That’s what I felt like. Going through two different war zones and seeing a lot of the dead laying around, it’s unnatural. For me, it’s unnatural to take another man’s life. The reason I say that is because when you take somebody’s life, you’re trying to be God or something. It’s not really our choice to take another life unless it’s to really defend your family or your country. But what Saddam did to his own people, it was wrong and he needed to go.

Tim Pickett:
Yeah. So fast forward to the program here. You’re living in Utah, 2018, we legalized medical cannabis here. What are you thinking at the time?

Daniel Jones:
I was excited. I was stoked. But I wasn’t happy with how they changed the people’s vote on the original prop two. That kind of really made me mad because then that’s taking the people both rights away and then dictating another person’s right into putting in what they wanted to believe. I think prop two was destroyed when the LDS church got involved. It’s just wrong. If somebody votes on something and that’s what we voted on, then that’s what it needs to be, not changed.

Daniel Jones:
I was really disappointed on that, but I was still stoked they still passed through the laws. Something when Truu Med came out, I jumped on it.

Tim Pickett:
Yep, yep. And that’s one of the big reasons why we wanted to talk is because this whole experience with Truu Med. Yeah, let’s talk about that. What the hell happened?

Daniel Jones:
So when Truu Med came out, they were about 90th south and I would say 13th and 14th, a hundred west or somewhere like that. That’s where they first started out, somewhere up in there. They were charging a heavy penny. So me living all the way up here, gas was expensive. You’re looking at almost $3.80, $3.75. It took almost $120 just to fill the whole tank up in the truck. The old lady, she has brain damage, so I worked on her too at the same time.

Daniel Jones:
So first appointment, I took about $800. $400 for me, $400 for her to get it going. I seen their doctor and all that. I was excited, I was stoked. I signed a letter from a medical provider. Turns out this medical provider is no longer with them. He pretty much lasted about four months and he quit on them. So they called, whenever they would call me about three weeks to a month and I’d come down and paid them another $300, $400.

Tim Pickett:
This is how many weeks after?

Daniel Jones:
About six weeks. Not six weeks.

Tim Pickett:
Six months.

Daniel Jones:
No, it wasn’t even six months. They were having us come down every month.

Tim Pickett:
And paying them again? What date is this? What’s the timeframe of this happening?

Daniel Jones:
Beginning on October 20, 2019.

Tim Pickett:
Okay. So for context, I’m going to mention what I’m doing at that point. I’m starting to look into becoming a Q&P, I’m starting to think about how I’m going to set up a business, how I’m going to start seeing people, thinking about insurance. I’m kind of looking into this because 2020, we’re going to have a pharmacy open. So Truu Med is ahead of the game so to speak, right? They’re one of the first people out there. The only other person at the time that I know was writing letters was Corey Anden in Ogden. But Truu Med was out there. So you’re going down there every month, you’re having to pay… So what total amount did you end up paying them?

Daniel Jones:
I paid about $6000. $6000 came out of my pocket. Even you got to put the gas in there too, and it gets expensive.

Tim Pickett:
Because where are you driving from?

Daniel Jones:
Salina. It’s about a two hour and a 20 minute drive to Salt Lake City.

Tim Pickett:
There’s no information anywhere else, so there’s no way really for you to get information that tells you, “Hey, this isn’t right. This is something you need to be concerned about,” because there’s no state website up really. There’s no other cannabis clinics, doctors aren’t doing this. Is that right? Am I getting that right? You’re really only getting information from them. And they’re telling you, “Hey, we need you to come back. We need you to renew your letter.”

Daniel Jones:
Yes.

Tim Pickett:
Holy shit.

Daniel Jones:
There’s times where me and the old lady showed up, me and Casey, we did show up a couple times where there was no doctors and they still took the money. He gave us back $40 for gas to get back home. That was about it.

Tim Pickett:
Who was this? Was this the guy who ended up in jail?

Daniel Jones:
It was Troy Martinez. I tried calling them last week and the week before. The number on the website doesn’t work.

Tim Pickett:
Yeah, I think the guy Ramone, he got arrested for kidnapping a woman and beating her.

Daniel Jones:
I didn’t know that. No.

Tim Pickett:
Yeah, so interestingly enough, there was a news article that… And I think this is all allegedly, I guess I should say. This is an opinion of us, right? Utah In The Weeds is a podcast, we’re talking about things that we… We’re trying to get the facts of course, but we’re just people talking. But yeah, Ramone allegedly kidnapped a woman, carved numbered in her hand and has been arrested because, yeah, it was a crazy, crazy story. But he’s the owner, or was the owner of Truu Med, one of the owners of Truu Med. There was a lot about Truu Med came out just in the past few weeks about this, essentially, predatory behavior.

Tim Pickett:
I heard about this as somebody who does medical cannabis and who has been pretty open and honest about what the fees are, what the costs are, what you get for your money, how long you get a card. That just seems reasonable, right? I don’t see how you could charge somebody and take $6000 from them and have you drive and the letters. I can see how, I guess, you would do that, but it is just crazy to me that this happened. You’re not the only person that I’ve heard something like this from. This is certainly the most money I’ve heard of. How has that affected you financially?

Daniel Jones:
I took a major hit. I’m struggling right now. That’s money I could have saved and used because right now I’m at home and I’m stuck with COVID. I’ve been with this disease for about eight days now and it’s really taken an effect on me. I wish they have done something right, something different, because I could have put this money to something, a better use.

Tim Pickett:
Right.

Daniel Jones:
For this problem now, I’m facing criminal charges.

Tim Pickett:
Okay, talk about that. What’s that?

Daniel Jones:
I got hit with two ounces because they didn’t tell me how much I could have. I didn’t get like how I got with UTTHC, I think it is. They gave me information about what I can carry, what I can have or how much I have on my possession. Well, with Truu Med, I never got anything like that.

Daniel Jones:
So when I got pulled over about 30, 40 minutes from home, I showed the cops these signed letters I got from Truu Med. They just looked at me and then they went and talked with each other. The other came back and says, “We never seen anything like this before.” I said, “What?” They said, “These signed letters from Truu Med.” I said, “This is what they sent me and said I would be safe and I would be good.” Pretty much the cop just pretty much looked at me and said, “Well, I’m thinking you pretty much got scammed out of it.”

Tim Pickett:
Wow. And then they still charged you.

Daniel Jones:
Yep. It’s my first offense with it. I don’t know what else I can do with it but talk to the judge and let them know what’s going on.

Tim Pickett:
Yeah.

Daniel Jones:
I got a court date. My first court hearing on it is on February 9th in Nephi, Utah.

Tim Pickett:
Wow. Well, we will all be in support. You got a community now, and hopefully if you need something, this gets cleared up because it sounds to me like you’re the reason, you’re literally one of the reasons why this program exists. So it seems tragic that somebody like yourself can be taken advantage of in such a horrible way financially. And then on top of that, get charged for possession in a state where you have legal product. And two ounces is under the legal limit of what you can possess. You can legally possess up to four ounces of flower and plenty of concentrates. So hopefully this works out in your favor.

Daniel Jones:
I did get my card, my cannabis card.

Tim Pickett:
Yeah, good.

Daniel Jones:
What I was really impressed with HTT was that they stayed there, made me stayed there until I got everything done and make sure it was done correctly. And that’s something that Truu Med never did. They got me all email set up with EBS and all that. So when I’m looking on the EBS, there’s no doctors that I actually met with in Truu Med. There’s not a record on it. When I looked up the BBB reports, there’s someone filed a complaint on Truu Med and that turned out to be a big mess. From what I read is that has never been resolved.

Tim Pickett:
Yeah. I don’t know that it ever will be, but I guess here’s hoping. But I don’t know whether or not we want them seeing patients anymore at all. At this point I think there’s been multiple red flags kind of come up in my opinion on that whole organization.

Daniel Jones:
I think the course really need to do a thorough investigation of these people because a lot of people, I feel like they’re taking advantage of people who really need the cannabis. There’s a lot of people who can’t afford a lot of this money. And whatever they come up with, they’re taking advantage of them and robbing them. They need to be put a stop to it.

Tim Pickett:
Yeah. Couldn’t agree more. So question on your use too, now that you have Utah product, what’s your favorite pharmacy?

Daniel Jones:
The one I’ve been going to so far is the one in Provo.

Tim Pickett:
Deseret Wellness, Josh Fitzgerald is the pharmacist down there. I like that place. Nice, easy access off the freeway, pretty cool people.

Daniel Jones:
And they were very, very helpful and they took care of us, took care of me and the old lady. It’s the best place to go.

Tim Pickett:
Cool. I’m glad they got a good recommendation from you. You’re buying mostly flower there?

Daniel Jones:
I bought the flowers, but I’m also buying the edibles for sleep.

Tim Pickett:
Yeah.

Daniel Jones:
I have sleep apnea. I got a sleep problem.

Tim Pickett:
Nice thing about cannabis is it doesn’t make you breathe worse like opioids. I think it’s safer than Ambien, too. And the gummies last all night, right? You got a favorite?

Daniel Jones:
Oh, I got a favorite. This one I bought, it’s called Calm, True North Organics.

Tim Pickett:
Yep.

Daniel Jones:
It is one of my favorites because if I need to, I could take half of it and I sleep like a baby. I don’t wake up during the night.

Tim Pickett:
Yep. And with somebody like yourself, the nice thing about edibles is they suppress dreams too. They not only make you sleep a little better, but they suppress a little dreams so you actually sleep better, especially if you suffer from PTSD or nightmares, and with sleep apnea. Do you wear a mask?

Daniel Jones:
Yes, I do.

Tim Pickett:
Yeah, so you need to shut it down at night.

Daniel Jones:
There’s times that mask gets on my way and then I feel like I got a chemical mask on. It drives me nuts.

Tim Pickett:
Yeah. I could see how that’d be hard.

Daniel Jones:
Yeah, it is.

Tim Pickett:
So what’s your favorite strain to use in… We’ll call it vaporize, right? Smoke or vaporize. You’ve got a favorite strain of flower?

Daniel Jones:
My favorite strain is probably more of sleeper. I pretty much like something that’s going to calm me and relax me down more. I already feel like I got enough hyperactive during the day, so at night when I’m wide awake and sitting there laying, I feel like I’m hyperactive because my ears are listening to everything. They hear every little creeks in the boards all the way down to hearing something walking on the gravel around the house. So it makes me get up and want to go out and look, feeling like I’m back on guard duty doing my fire watch.

Daniel Jones:
But at the same time, it’s also taking care of the pain and the joints. It’s taking care of the pain in my back. It’s been a miracle helper ever since.

Tim Pickett:
That’s cool.

Daniel Jones:
Like I said, it’s a lot better than taking the pills.

Tim Pickett:
Yeah. It sounds like you’re able to control it better, right? You’re choosing. You’re in the driver’s seat.

Daniel Jones:
Yes.

Tim Pickett:
Where before it didn’t sound like you felt like you were driving.

Daniel Jones:
But it kind of sucks because with the VA, half the VA’s for it, the other half of the VA’s against it. They’re still split on that decision. So you sit and wonder. It’s like half the doctors say, “If it’s working for you, then continue using it.” The other half says, “Well, you’re a bad person for taking it.” I’ve run into doctors like that.

Tim Pickett:
What do you say to them?

Daniel Jones:
I say, “Well, at least I’m not getting hooked on something. At least cannabis you can quit and not affect you in any form like an opiate does, or like an Ambien.” I was on Ambien for a while. Ambien hit people differently. You could take it the night before, wake up in the morning fine. Two hours later down the road, you could be sleep driving from your Ambien from the night before and not realize it.

Daniel Jones:
One of the things I think they don’t like people on cannabis is because they are losing their money in their pharmacies.

Tim Pickett:
Yeah, I hate to say it. I guess it could be. I hope that’s not true, but it certainly could be true.

Daniel Jones:
The VA has an escalator going straight to the pharmacy and home.

Tim Pickett:
Do they?

Daniel Jones:
Yeah. There’s times where I sat waiting for two hours just to pick up my medication because the pharmacy’s filled with vets waiting for their medications.

Tim Pickett:
Wow. Do a lot of vets who smoke weed?

Daniel Jones:
I know probably like 10 of them.

Tim Pickett:
Do you find that your family and friends are pretty supportive of your cannabis consumption? What’s going on with you?

Daniel Jones:
Yes. They prefer me doing the cannabis. One of the reasons for that is I’m not on opiates and I’m not a raging alcoholic. Because if you actually look at the statistics, a lot of vets are alcoholics. They drink and drink and drink. When you’re in the service, what did we do? We drink and party, drink and party.

Tim Pickett:
Yeah. And the only options are not marijuana, not cannabis, so you got alcohol.

Daniel Jones:
Yep. And they’re big supplier of alcohol, the military is.

Tim Pickett:
Are they?

Daniel Jones:
Oh, yeah. When I was in Germany, in Hanau, Germany, my wall locker, I had like six, seven cases of beer, four bottles of Jack Daniels. It was always stocked in there. We’d drink every single day, every night. One of the things I’m happy is I don’t drink.

Tim Pickett:
Congratulations.

Daniel Jones:
The cannabis helps out with that.

Tim Pickett:
Is there something else that you want to talk about, you want to bring up, you want to make sure everybody hears?

Daniel Jones:
Yeah, I just want everybody to know is that they need to stay away from Truu Med. Those who’ve gone through Truu Med and been screwed over by Truu Med, they need to come forward and put a stop to it. We do better as a group than one single person trying to take them on. If everybody who’s had a problem with them, if everybody came together as a team, we can do something about it.

Tim Pickett:
Well, absolutely.

Daniel Jones:
That’s what I really need to let people know.

Tim Pickett:
Well, if you’re listening to this podcast on Utah In The Weeds and you you want to make a comment or you want to share an experience about Truu Med or another clinic that took advantage of you in the system in Utah, let’s do this. Let’s go to YouTube, our YouTube channel. It’s called Discover Marijuana. This podcast is posted on that YouTube channel. Make a comment there on this episode and we’ll start a little group of people there. If there’s people who have stories, make a comment. Again, Discover Marijuana. This podcast with Daniel Jones. Daniel Mark Jones, this has been a great… I am glad to get to know you, man.

Daniel Jones:
Same here, Tim. It’s really good to be seeing you, to meet you this time.

Tim Pickett:
Yeah. If we can do anything for you and help you in any way, you reach out to us. Shout out to Deseret Wellness who’s helping you get your medicine. I love those guys down there. Stop in next door. We’ve got an office right there and we’ll hook you up a sweatshirt, Utah In The Weeds sweatshirt, next time you’re up there in Provo.

Daniel Jones:
Sweet.

Tim Pickett:
All right, everybody. Exciting times in Utah as the legislation gets kind of underway, and appreciate you listening. This has been great. Stay safe out there.

 

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By UtahMarijuana.org
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Published February 11, 2022

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