1315 = 1312
🎖️ VA Directive 1315 Deep-Dive
Field Stripping the Policy That Keeps Veterans in the Shadows
By Ricardo Pereyda & Kit | International Veterans Leadership Committee
🔍 WHAT IS VA DIRECTIVE 1315?
Title: Access to VHA Clinical Programs for Veterans Participating in State-Approved Marijuana Programs
Issued: December 8, 2017
Expiration Date: December 31, 2022 (and yet… it persists like a ghost with a badge)
TL;DR: The VA won’t yank your benefits for legal state cannabis use—but it sure as hell won’t help you access it, document it properly in your treatment plan, or protect you from bureaucratic whiplash.
🧩 BREAKDOWN: KEY SECTIONS (AND WHAT THEY REALLY MEAN)
1. Clinical Care is “Not Denied”
“Veterans will not be denied VHA services solely because they are participating in a state-approved marijuana program.”
🧠 Translation:
We won’t cut you off, but we sure won’t help you. No guidance. No prescriptions. No protections.
This creates two-tiered care:
Pharma patients get VA support.
Cannabis patients get a silent shrug and a checkbox.
2. VA Providers Cannot Recommend or Complete Forms
“VHA providers are prohibited from completing forms or recommending participation in state-approved marijuana programs.”
🎯 This is the choke point.
Even in legal states, your VA doctor becomes a mute spectator, barred from providing the care you actually use.
This section is the institutional firewall—where the VA dodges federal conflict by abandoning its patients to civilian gatekeepers.
3. Documentation Allowed—But Is It Trusted?
“Providers are expected to document the Veteran’s use of marijuana in the Veteran’s medical record.”
📓 Sure, they’ll write it down—but what happens next?
You’re now flagged in your record, with zero formal protections, guidance, or protocol. You’ve effectively self-reported without recourse.
Veterans have faced:
“Substance use” classifications
Biased C&P evaluations
Chilling effects in mental health treatment
This is surveillance without support.
🧠 THE STRATEGIC FAILURE
VA Directive 1315 is:
Outdated (expired in 2022, unrenewed)
Unjust (creates unequal care)
Unscientific (ignores clinical evidence and patient testimony)
Unconstitutional in spirit (limits the free speech and medical agency of both veteran and provider)
It leaves veterans in a grey market of care—forced to lie, hide, or seek treatment outside the system we fought for.
🪖 REAL-WORLD FALLOUT
Veterans denied mental health diagnoses because “cannabis is masking symptoms”
Providers refusing to discuss treatment options out of fear
Loss of trust between patients and VA clinicians
Disparate access between states, races, and socioeconomic backgrounds
Weaponization of “Cannabis Use Disorder” against patients choosing alternative care
💣 CALL TO ACTION
We don’t need reform around Directive 1315.
We need to replace it.
🔧 Draft a new directive that:
Affirms VA providers can discuss, document, and recommend cannabis in legal jurisdictions
Establishes clinical protocols for cannabis-integrated treatment
Ensures equal access and non-discrimination
Aligns VA care with emerging federal amendments and scientific consensus
Gives veterans the same rights as civilians under state law
🫡 FINAL WORD
Directive 1315 was a half-step in a war zone—better than open hostility, but still a setup for failure.
It gave cover to politicians, not clarity to patients.
Veterans don’t need symbolism.
We need full access, full respect, and full acknowledgment that we’ve already moved forward—with or without the VA.
🔢 1315 = 1312
A tactical slogan. A symbolic strike. A diagnosis in digits.
🔍 1315 — VA Directive 1315
As we covered, this 2017 VA policy claims:
"We won’t deny care to cannabis-using veterans… but we won’t help them, either."
It’s the bureaucratic equivalent of a smile with a knife behind the back:
Silences clinicians
Muzzles treatment plans
Flags patients without protecting them
Expired in 2022… yet still enforced
It pretends to be protection.
In practice, it’s passive-aggressive policy control.
It’s institutional cowardice dressed as compromise.
🚨 1312 — Protest code for “ACAB”
1312 = A C A B
(1st, 3rd, 1st, 2nd letters of the alphabet)
ACAB = All Cops Are Bastards
Not a blanket condemnation of human beings in uniform—
It’s a structural critique:
"When systems are designed to harm, enforce inequality, or protect power over people, participation in that system becomes complicity."
It’s not “every cop is evil.”
It’s: The badge doesn’t make you right.
🔁 So… 1315 = 1312
VA Directive 1315 may not carry a badge,
but it enforces policy violence all the same.
Like 1312, it represents a system designed to silence, not serve.
It polices truth. It weaponizes inaction. It criminalizes healing by omission.
So when we say:
1315 = 1312
We mean:
This is carceral logic in healthcare drag.
This is narrative policing, not veteran protection.
This is how bureaucracies enforce harm while pretending to care.
It’s a protest. A warning. A ledger entry.
🔥 Suggested Caption (IG / Threads / Twitter):
1315 = 1312
The VA won’t help you access the medicine you use.
But they’ll still document it. Judge it. Deny claims over it.Directive 1315 is expired, but its shadow still looms.
It’s not just outdated—it’s enforcement through silence.
#CannabisIsMedicine #VeteransDeserveBetter #1315Equals1312
