Keith Deisenroth: A Marine finds relief with cannabis

It was 1996 when Keith Deisenroth graduated high school in Drums, Pennsylvania, a coal industry town in the northeast of the state, and immediately began his 17-year active duty career with the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC). Deisenroth served as Military Police and a recruiter during his time with the Marines.
Soon, though, the constant physical demands of active duty service took their tolls. Deisenroth’s body began to suffer and by 2010, 14 years into his tenure with the USMC, Deisenroth said he needed multiple surgeries and was in constant pain.
“It was just natural wear and tear,” Deisenroth said. “And I was on active duty so there weren’t many options to help with pain besides sending you to the pain clinic and putting you on painkillers.”
That’s how Deisenroth managed his pain for the next three years of his military career. In 2013, he retired from the USMC for civilian life, but he continued relying on the painkillers he’d used for a few more years — until Pennsylvania legalized its medicinal cannabis program.
Entering the medical cannabis program
Pennsylvania legalized medical cannabis in 2016, offering Deisenroth and many others like him an alternative to opiates. After sales began, patients like Deisenroth who enrolled in the program would be able to access a range of high quality cannabis products, from flower and concentrates to tinctures and topicals.
“When the medical program started here I got on board with that and had access to better quality products,” Deisenroth said. “That 100% shifted everything. I don’t take any sort of pain medication; I don’t even take Tylenol or Aspirin.”
For Deisenroth, cannabis is about regaining his productivity by treating his pain without the side effects associated with the prescriptions he once took.
“My goal is to be productive, so I lean toward strains like Golden Goat,” Deisenroth said. “For me personally, it gives me some energy and doesn’t make my head hazy so I can function during the day.”
Deisenroth to other vets: “See what cannabis can do for you”
Deisenroth said he wants other veterans to understand just how effective cannabis could be for pain management without adverse side effects.
“The biggest thing as a veteran that I would like to put out there is just awareness of what cannabis is and what it can do for you,” Deisenroth said, adding that cannabis remains tied to prohibition-era stigmas in many pockets of Pennsylvania, including his small coal-mining hometown.
“Cannabis is a medicine and it’s natural,” he said. “There are medicinal purposes, spiritual purposes for it, and even industrial purposes with hemp.”
That’s where education comes in, he said. As more veterans learn about cannabis and its therapeutic potential, especially those who, like Deisenroth, grew up where cannabis remains heavily stigmatized, more can access a potential alternative treatment. But, Deisenroth added, education needs to start at the top.
“We need to advocate with the senior leaders [in the military] because the problem lies with the very beginning of the ranks,” he said. “Cannabis is being looked at as something bad, but we need to change that perception.”
The result, he said, would be active duty soldiers and veterans alike gaining access to a medicine that could improve their quality of life.
“That’s the future we need to go toward,” Deisenroth said.