A transgender Iraq War veteran who served in the military during the dark "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" years makes a case for legalizing cannabis and explains how the plant helped her transition in a new interview with Vice.

"[Weed] saved my life," Zooey Zachow (above right), a legal weed farmer from Washington told the site. "I absolutely wouldn't have survived the years [after the army] without cannabis."

Zachow said she was first introduced to cannabis after returning home from Iraq. She was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and didn't like the side effects of the drugs prescribed to her by VA doctors, so she decided to learn more about the plant by attending a PTSD support group.

Many veterans claim cannabis helps curb PTSD, but the drug isn't available through The Department of Veterans Affairs because the government says it has "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse."

Zachow disagrees. "It provided me better symptom relief with less side effects," she said.

Not only did the plant help with her PTSD, Zachow says it helped with her "gender and sexual awakening."

She volunteered at a cannabis dispensary when she first started using cannabis to get the drug for free, but says she hated the "cis white men" who ran it because "they didn't show the plant respect."

Now, on the weed farm she operates in Washington, Zachow says she performs "an important ritual when we kill the male [part of the plant]."

"We are queer folk," added Zachow's boyfriend, Michael Buchert. "We can't be a cannabis brand and not acknowledge that cannabis is a very political issue."