@abcnewsaus: When Steve Johnstone was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, his doctors were shocked by the amount of medicinal cannabis he was consuming — all paid for by the government. "They just couldn't understand how I was functioning," he said. For years, Steve suffered chronic back pain after serving in Afghanistan. The Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) accepted it was linked to his service, making him eligible for DVA-funded treatment. After seeing an ad on his phone for "free natural health", Steve started using medicinal cannabis. "It wasn't gonna cost me any money. It was free, delivered," he said. In the last three years, the amount the DVA has spent on medicinal cannabis has more than tripled. Steve was prescribed huge amounts of cannabis, at times as high as 1220 milligrams daily, without ever needing a face-to-face consultation with a doctor. Steve said by the end of last year, he was addicted to THC gummies, paranoid and suicidal, causing him to be hospitalised for months. The day Steve was admitted, his provider lodged an application to the DVA for more medicinal cannabis, stating his mental health had been "stable throughout treatment". The DVA said it was a funder of clinical treatment, not a regulator, and that it was up to doctors to appropriately prescribe drugs. To discover more about for-profit companies providing taxpayer-funded care to veterans, watch Defenceless on ABC iView. #Veterans#THC#4Corners

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Thursday 08 October 2026 02:00:00 GMT