Commentary: This Veterans Day, give veterans more than thanks

I’m a retired Marine pilot with two Combat Action Ribbons. Today, I live in Northern Virginia and fly a Boeing 777 between New York and Europe as a commercial airline captain. My passengers trust that the training and procedures I rely on have been tested. 

Veterans deserve the same rigor when they ask their primary care providers at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) whether a treatment option they seek can help them. They also deserve a government willing to listen when they describe what has helped them live with the consequences of their service.

That matters here. Virginia is home to more than 600,000 veterans, one of the highest shares of any state.

This Veterans Day, Congress faces a choice. Legislators could support research and responsible access to hemp-derived CBD and other hemp-derived products that are federally legal under the 2018 Farm Bill. 

Or they could allow a sweeping restriction to take effect on December 11 that will remove nonintoxicating hemp products that thousands of veterans already use as alternatives to highly addictive VA-prescribed opioids.

As of July 2026, the VA has dispensed more than 2.18 million naloxone (Narcan) prescriptions to more than 820,000 veterans, according to its own website. The VA points to this as evidence that it is saving lives, while failing to adequately confront the role prescription opioids have played in creating the very addiction crisis that makes this lifesaving medication necessary.

I joined the military in 1981, and later, in college, I relied on VA health care because it was the only care I could afford. VA health care is remarkable in many ways. Still, many of the Vietnam veterans I met told me it had gaps.

Some lived with persistent pain and found the side effects of prescribed medications unbearable. Some turned to marijuana bought on the street while trying to cut back on opioids. Those conversations challenged my assumptions.

In 2018, the late veterans advocate Boone Cutler, one of my closest friends, and I pressed Congress to support VA cannabis research. That same year, the 2018 Farm Bill created a federal distinction between hemp and marijuana, opening a path for hemp-derived CBD products.

Veterans’ accounts of relief deserve attention, and they do not replace clinical evidence. But that evidence continues to grow, and the VA has already shown a willingness to investigate new approaches, including a recently announced psilocybin trial for veterans with treatment-resistant depression. 

Instead of supporting that same openness on cannabis, the December 11 restriction threatens hemp products containing even trace amounts of THC far below an intoxicating level.

Virginia shows there is a better way. This year the commonwealth tightened its own rules, capping hemp products at 2 milligrams of THC per package on top of existing requirements for lab testing, labeling and child-resistant packaging. Reasonable people can debate where Virginia drew that line. But the federal restriction would override it with a limit five times stricter.

Congress should address unsafe products, misleading labels, and sales to children. But it should do so through enforceable standards that distinguish products by their contents and effects. 

Independent testing, accurate labeling, appropriate age restrictions, and sensible limits per serving and package would serve consumers better than a threshold that sweeps nonintoxicating CBD and other hemp products into the same prohibition.

Through my work with Spartan Sword on suicide prevention, I have heard veterans describe what it feels like to run out of options. I am not claiming that CBD prevents suicide. I am saying that people living with pain and trauma deserve to be heard, deserve credible research, and deserve a voice in decisions that could take away something they believe helps them.

Congress can act before December 11. Virginia’s U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine and Virginia’s House delegation could lead the way in protecting responsible access while funding the research veterans and their clinicians need. 

Pew Research Center’s 2024 survey found that 88% of Americans supported marijuana legalization for medical use. That is not a verdict on every hemp product, but it is a clear rejection of blanket prohibition.

If we really want to do more for our veterans than give them a free cup of coffee and a banal “Thank you for your service” this Veterans Day, let’s give them the opportunity, and the right, to heal however they wish after returning home. I believe they have earned that right.

Will Virginia’s members of Congress agree?