Military veteran and industry advocate Derek Pyrah says he has voluntarily stopped driving rather than abandon the medicine he credits with transforming his life following a positive roadside THC test in New South Wales last month.
Pyrah, who has not been charged and is awaiting laboratory analysis, remains legally entitled to drive in the meantime.
But the Iraq War veteran has taken himself off the road amid concerns another roadside detection could damage his position should the original matter end up before a court.
Pyrah said he effectively faced three choices: return to psychiatric medication, stop taking medication altogether, or continue using medicinal cannabis and give up driving.
The founder of campaign groups Safer Veterans Australia and No More Zombie Veterans said the psychiatric drugs, which he took for 17 years and could legally drive on, left him in hospital “a hundred days a year” and ultimately homeless.
He said he “chose life and the medicine that works”.
“I had a choice of going back onto polypharmacy psych meds so I could continue driving, although they basically ruined my life and wrecked me mentally and physically,” he said.
“My best option at the moment is to remain stable on my existing medicinal cannabis medical regime and I am choosing to get around on a legal e-bike and the train network.”
The decision has forced him to step back from gym and yoga, volunteer work with marine wildlife rescue organisation ORRCA and the Veteran Surf Project, a peer-support program for veterans and first responders.
His lawyer Eidan Havas – also founder of The Entourage Effect – said Pyrah’s case highlighted the injustice facing medicinal cannabis patients under NSW drug-driving laws.
“The hardest part of this work is watching someone realise that doing everything right will not protect them,” he said.
“A veteran on morphine has a defence written into the same section of the Act. A veteran on cannabis has nothing.
“I have to explain that difference to people whose injuries came from serving this country, and there is no version of that explanation that sounds reasonable.”
Pyrah has previously detailed his battle with PTSD after serving in Iraq, turning to black-market cannabis in 2015 before obtaining a legal medicinal cannabis prescription in 2020.
The case comes as Pyrah continues his long-running campaign for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) to fund the medicine for veterans with treatment-resistant PTSD and traumatic brain injury.
Last week marked two years since the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide delivered its final report examining veteran suicide and wellbeing, with Pyrah using the anniversary to renew pressure on the DVA.
Pyrah said research in the commission suggested long-term use of multiple psychoactive medications was associated with a 2.83-times higher risk of suicide.
He said Safer Veterans Australia lodged a formal complaint with the Commonwealth Ombudsman in May and expected a response around the end of the year.
Pyrah argued veterans were being caught between two government policies, with the DVA refusing to subsidise his treatment, while NSW law exposes him to the loss of his licence for having THC in his system.
“The Commonwealth tells me to pay for it myself, and the state may take my licence for having it in my system,” he said. “Both are government policy at the same time.”
The group is aiming to collect 70,000 petition signatures by Remembrance Day on November 11, with more than 35,000 people having already signed.
“Two years on from the Royal Commission, DVA still funds the medication that put me in hospital and still will not fund the one that keeps me out of it,” Pyrah added.
His roadside detection comes as NSW considers reforms designed to protect unimpaired patients from drug-driving prosecution.
Legislation passed the lower house last month and will now be considered by the upper house.