“Growing Hope: The Fight for Medical Marijuana for Epileptic Kids”
Over a six month period, NBC News correspondent Harry Smith reports on the potential lifesaving benefits of medicinal marijuana and the emotional journey three Virginia families must take to help their children who suffer from life threatening seizures.
And here are highlights from the NBC News piece:
Joel Stanley, a medicinal marijuana grower[,] and his five brothers grow medicinal marijuana in Colorado, where it is legal. Together, Paige and Joel [Figgi] made an oil from a cannabis plant that Stanley says is low in THC — the compound that gets someone high — and high in CBD, the compound some believe helps treat the seizures. Charlotte had been having 300 seizures a week. Paige says they stopped when she gave her daughter the CBD oil. To this day, all Charlotte (or “Charlie,” as her family calls her) takes is two doses a day of the oil.
The Stanley brothers have now built a lab and are making the CBD oil on a large scale in Colorado. They call the CBD oil “Charlotte’s Web,” named for its first user. The Stanley brothers maintain their plant is not actually cannabis, but rather hemp. A botanist would tell you the plants are the same, but the federal government said in the Federal Farm Bill of 2014 that a plant with less than .3% THC is hemp.
The Stanleys insist that what they are doing is legal in Colorado, and even on the federal level, because they say they are making a hemp supplement. Several federal agencies, including the DEA and the FDA, maintain that marijuana and hemp for consumption are still illegal on the federal level.
Because of stories like Charlotte’s, people with profoundly ill children, mostly with these extreme cases of epilepsy, have flocked to Colorado for treatments. In many ways, Colorado has become something of a “new Lourdes” for people looking for a “miracle.” The Stanley brothers helped to form Realm of Caring, an organization that assists people who move to Colorado and provides support services and resources for those using Cannabinoid products….
As striking as [many] stories are [about the benefits of CBD oils], they remain anecdotal stories. The safety and effectiveness of these oils has not been established by clinical research in this country, according to doctors. Some researchers say that’s largely because marijuana in all forms remains illegal at the federal level, making it difficult for scientists to obtain the plant for clinical trials.
One scientist who is intrigued by the potential of marijuana treatments is Dr. Amy Brooks-Kayal, a neurologist specializing in epilepsy in Denver, who is also the president of the American Epilepsy Society. She urges caution, saying there just isn’t enough known about these oils to say they are safe or how they may ultimately affect patients. “There’s no question that based on the science, there is potential there for a component of marijuana and possibly Cannabidiol to be an effective treatment, but we don’t know that yet, and most importantly we don’t know the potential side effects. We don’t want to make their seizures better and make their lives worse.” Dr. Brooks-Kayal welcomes more research on medical marijuana….
Dr. Brooks-Kayal, and the organization she heads, do support changing federal laws to make research on marijuana easier. Other experts Harry Smith spoke to believe there is potential to alleviate other neurodegenerative conditions with cannabis-based treatments .