War is not normal. It is full of anguish, pain, violence, and shocking terror. Though the Armed Services' brave members risk their lives for the freedoms of America, they are never truly prepared for the things that they witness and experience. In turn, when they come home, society and the medical field have no real clue about how we should help them begin rebuilding. In his thought-provoking feature film debut, Unprescribed, director and military veteran Steve Ellmore examines the often hellish post-war recovery of military vets and the one unsuspecting "drug" that might be the key to providing them with a balm.
There has been a spotlight on the mental health of service members returning home from war for some years. The outlook was and still is rather bleak. In the mid-2000s, veterans were dying by suicide at an astounding rate of 22 per day. Buzzwords like PTSD flew across the media in the immediate aftermath of the War and the War on Terror. Something still needs to be done; the question is what.
In Unprescribed, Ellmore sits down with several veterans including, Joshua James Frey, Fabian Henry, and Boone Cutler. Each man speaks vividly about their time in the service while unraveling the layers and textures of what they endured while trying to recover from the physical and mental wounds they brought home. By choosing just a handful of service members and the people close to them to center the film, Ellmore invites his audience to truly lean in and empathize, even if we cannot imagine the paths these people have taken.
Without directly bashing Veterans Affairs or the country's ties with Big Pharma, we learn that many of these recovering veterans are given copious amounts of pills to soothe their pain, nightmares, or exhaustion. However, instead of helping them, the drugs numb them completely or cause a "combat cocktail" that can often lead to suicide.
For Frey, Henry, and Cutler, who experienced various side effects from these prescribed medications, using a different type of "drug" would become their salvation. Marijuana, weed, or even pot as it's sometimes called, certainly has quite the reputation. Though it shares none of the same side effects of hard drugs like cocaine, meth, or heroin, in many parts of the world, it's been categorized and criminalized in the same way.
Though we are slowly rethinking our opinions on marijuana here in the US, decriminalizing it in many states, and making legal in others, the slow acceptance of a plant that may have the ability to soothe many of the pains of our service members isn't quick enough. As the veterans in Unprescribed revealed, marijuana has been a godsend and salvation to many of them. It has become a tool that they've used to ease back into some semblance of the lives they once left behind.
In addition to hearing from the soldiers, Ellmore brilliantly unpacks the history of marijuana criminalization and how archaic laws about the drug can further harm veterans if they are caught with it. More than that, Unprescribed gives a platform to medical and law professionals who are working closely with the government and vets to examine our relationship with marijuana today.
As Ellmore makes plain, "drug" or not, it is our collective responsibility to the service members who protect us every day to all of the extensive research and work needed to ensure that they can find some peace well-being in the years following their service. To criminalize them for possessing something that has not been proved to cause harm is a massive disservice. A compelling a tightly done film, Unprescribed, gives us all something we should be thinking long and hard about.
The film is available for streaming at urbanflixtv.com/unprescribed and on DVD via allegiancefilm.com.