Society should honor and assist veterans — not drug them into stupors of artificial wellness.

Colorado is blessed by most of 371,000 military vets who comprise more than 6% of our population. They are mostly stable, above-average citizens — each having devoted years to selflessly serve this country.

Freedom isn’t free, veterans paid the price, and we owe them gratitude and more. We don’t owe them phony, feel-good, artificial trips that can quickly go bad.

Because veterans collectively make up a respected and hard-earned reputation, we see shameless opportunists co-opting their brand.

Activists said we needed to legalize “medicinal” and recreational marijuana, in large part, because veterans purportedly need it. Five years after voters legalized pot for “recreation,” the Legislature passed a purposeless bill protecting the right to use it for post-traumatic stress disorder — just to associate pot with vets.

We are constantly told to tolerate street-level homelessness because of vets, who make up less than 10% of Colorado’s homeless population. By cleverly borrowing veteran valor, activists could sell the Fried Twinkies and Skittles Diet as a healthy means for veterans to cope.

The disingenuous leveraging of veteran concerns is far from harmless. Veterans with PTSD need genuine professional help. They need family, friends, neighbors and colleagues to understand, listen and care. Those needs can be masked when pot profiteers sell struggling veterans a phony escape so they can ignore and mask symptoms.

The latest in veteran appropriation involves the hallucinogenic drug psilocybin (aka “magic mushrooms” or “shrooms”). Officials in Colorado Springs — home to 90,000 vets — will enforce strict regulations surrounding Colorado’s statewide legalization of shrooms. Drug dealers can apply for sales licenses beginning this week.

Predictably, opponents of the city’s regulatory efforts are boldly playing the veteran card.

Those who believe this drug is a good idea should remember 44-year-old Alaska Airlines pilot Joseph Emerson. He tried to medicate a mental health disorder with shrooms — two full days before he hallucinated badly and shut down a commercial jet midflight.

While hearing the benefits of shrooms, know that a 17-year-old girl jumped to her death from an Amsterdam bridge while hallucinating on the drug. An 18-year-old Netherlands man, high on shrooms, jumped to his death from a hotel room.

Amsterdam’s experiment with legalized shrooms, enacted in the late 20th century, caused so many bad trips that the government recriminalized the drug in 2007.

“The powerful psychological effects of psilocybin can, even in moderate doses, cause adverse reactions that can include anxiety, disorientation, fear, grief, paranoia and panic attacks,” explains the summary of a recent study by the University of Virginia Health system.

“Psilocybin-induced impairments in judgment and perception can contribute to dangerous behavior, accidents, self-harming and even a risk of suicide. There are reports of deaths from falls or jumps from tall buildings attributed to psilocybin use.”

Research confirms that psilocybin can cause lasting hallucinations, long-term harm and death by confusion.

The mental health of veterans is everyone’s business. Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the dead suspect in the New Year’s Day New Orleans pickup massacre, was by all accounts an upstanding and friendly Army veteran.

The deceased Matthew Livelsberger, suspected in the New Year’s Las Vegas car bombing, was a decorated special operations combat soldier from Colorado Springs with at least 20 medals of commendation. Tim McVeigh, a former top-scoring Army infantryman, bombed the Oklahoma City building.

Military service can lead to mental and physical conditions that require professional care — not hallucinogens handed out by newly licensed quacks. Stop exploiting veterans’ valor to normalize another illicit, psychotomimetic drug with no recognized medical use.

The Gazette Editorial Board