Arizona veteran faces jail time for treating cluster headache with DMT

Damon Laetzsch (pronounced letch, like fetch) was arrested while having breakfast at his home in Chandler, Arizona, on August 11, 2021, when police searched his home and found psilocybin mushrooms, DMT, and a bottle of naphtha, a chemical used to extract DMT, found. At the time of publication, he faces six-and-a-half years in prison if convicted of possession and manufacture of dangerous drugs.

Laetzsch, 44, says he uses tryptamines like psilocybin and DMT to treat cluster headaches, which are widely considered to be one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. DMT and psilocybin are extremely illegal in the state of Arizona, so Laetzsch faces several years in prison as he believes it’s the only way to maintain his quality of life.

“It’s the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life,” Laetzsch said. “Nothing works better for headaches than DMT when I actually suffer from it. This will get rid of the headache immediately. A small tap relieves the headache for about one to one and a half hours. If I take a bigger puff it can last longer, but some of the headaches last a few hours so I would need to take a few puffs during this episode. But I would be pain free. It wasn’t even a psychoactive amount that I smoked to relieve the headache.”

According to Laetzsch, an angry ex-girlfriend tipped off police that he was growing a fungus in the house. That, along with his previous arrest history, was all it took to trigger a full-scale raid. The highlight is that the ex-girlfriend who reported Laetzsch to the police was apparently weeks later at his house when the police marched in.

“I had no idea man. My ex girlfriend and I broke up because she started getting into cheating and stuff like that. I found out so I kicked her out and she got mad when I kicked her out. The next time she got into trouble, she said, ‘I have information about so and so,'” Laetzsch said. “I didn’t know she’d told me, so she stopped by every once in a while.”

The cruel irony notwithstanding, Laetzsch represents a very real problem in the criminal justice system. He is a US Army veteran who came home from two deployments with very real medical problems for which he used cannabis. Almost immediately after returning home, years before the raid in question, he was charged with a felony.

“That first case, me [got] “Got caught in 2001, so I wasn’t even back from the military for a year when they f***ing tried to send me to jail for a usable amount of marijuana,” Laetzsch said, also stating that he was at the time had a firearm with him. “I know it doesn’t matter to them, but my doctor told me they tried to put me on loads of Xanax and painkillers for my chronic pain, anxiety and PT, and I told them I didn’t I’m really into pills, and he said so.” I’m like, ‘Well, you can just smoke marijuana, but it’s illegal.'”

Laetzsch served two and a half years in prison for that, and if anyone is wondering why such a harsh sentence was handed down to a military member who just got home, I just have to remind you that this was Arizona in 2001, and like Laetzsch, kindly remembered For me, people struggled to find evidence as reckless as cannabis seeds.

As a journalist, it’s my job to provide all the necessary perspectives, and while I personally agree with this case, Laetzsch is not the portrait of an innocent freedom fighter wrongly accused of crimes he didn’t commit, and I want that clarify . This man has made questionable decisions throughout his life. He later served another four-and-a-half years in prison for running a chop shop, not to mention being arrested for drunk driving with his son in the car in 2013, and that would look awful to any jury in any state. It’s also important to note here that I’ve been friends with her entire family for a long time, so I’m more than a little biased here. I’ve heard stories about the guy for years, each a little weirder and messier than the last. However, I personally do not believe that Laetzsch deserves to spend more time in a cell than the seven years he already has, simply because he has used the means at his disposal to treat his symptoms, as documented by Expert-reviewed scientific studies show.

According to a report from the National Library of Medicine regarding cluster headaches, “These patients are in a desperate and vulnerable situation, and illicit psychoactive substances are often viewed as a last resort.” The psychoactive effects themselves seemed to be little or nonexistent no interest in persisting as these were more likely to be tolerated or avoided through the use of sub-psychoactive doses. In particular, psilocybin, lysergic acid diethylamide, and related psychedelic tryptamines have been reported to be effective for both prophylactic and acute treatment of cluster headache and migraine.”

Several other studies have been published on the subject, all coming to the same general conclusion: people who suffer from cluster headaches (about 1 in 1,000 Americans, according to one of the above studies) will do virtually anything to relieve it or to avoid, and so far psychedelics seem to be an effective means of doing so. Of course, since this is America and the vast majority of the country is still fighting Nixon’s drug war, people like Laetzsch are faced with two equally unthinkable options: endure months of excruciating pain year after year, or take drugs and risk jail time.

Laetzsch is currently negotiating settlement agreements and the like, but it looks like his past history means he could potentially face a six-and-a-half-year sentence under a settlement agreement, or face trial later this fall, where the consequences could be far more serious if the The judge decides to convict him. Reasonable people can have different opinions as to whether or not Damon Laetzsch is an upstanding member of the community. However, sane people cannot deny that Laetzsch came home from the army, was incarcerated for a personal stash of cannabis, and his life from that point on has been derailed by the criminal justice system like so many others, which is common in 38 of the 50 states of the world Fall has since been legalized in some form. Aside from cannabis, psychedelics like the ones Laetzsch was caught with are already being touted as miracle drugs by big pharmaceutical companies. Is it reasonable to say that maybe we should just give the guy a break at this point? This humble journalist says fuck yeah please leave him alone and thank him for his services on the way out.

Those who agree with this case and wish to speak up on behalf of Laetzsch can send letters to:

Alcock & Associates PC Attn: Vernon Lorenz
2.N Central Ave
26th floor
Phoenix, AZ 85004