Broken healthcare, cannabis prosecutions, and billion-dollar privatization schemes are pushing veterans toward alternatives the federal government still punishes them for using.
Rico walked into the VA pharmacy in Tucson with a joint and a lighter and no camera, because he wasn’t there to perform.
“I went to catch a case,” he told me. Flat. Like he was reading off a grocery list. “A federal case.”
Ricardo “Rico” Pereyda. U.S. Army. Over 300 combat missions in Baghdad. Medically retired at 23, 100% permanently disabled, combat-related. He spent years doing everything the machine asked before the machine decided he was the problem.
They burned him down faster than a Seattle pinner.
Fellowship programs, community leadership roles, civic engagements, all gone. His prospects evaporated. And the institution legally obligated to keep him alive watched every bit of it happen with an impressive sense of antipathy.
His dogs kept wandering over as we talked, pushing their heads into his hands. He’d scratch behind an ear without breaking the thought.
“This kept a bullet out of my mouth.”
Ricardo “Rico” Pereyda, U.S. Army veteran, 300+ combat missions, medically retired at 23
“I’m telling them,” he said. “This kept a bullet out of my mouth. You were excited to put me in front of cameras, have me on panels, run your dog and pony show. But the second I start sharing my experience and the experiences of others, you shut us down. Stigmatized us. After telling us nothing was off the table and that you were so goddamn concerned about the suicide rate.”
So he walked into the pharmacy and lit it.
Nobody in that building could reconcile the rulebook with the man standing in front of them. All they could do was stand there while the smoke curled toward the fluorescent lights. Pereyda engineered that …
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Author: Lucas Indrikovs / High Times
