Parents advocate for kids at medical marijuana panel VIRGINIA - You can smoke it, vaporize it and eat it, but you probably didn’t know marijuana can thwart seizures and comfort those with epilepsy. On Monday night, members of the community joined at the Harrisonburg City Council Chambers for a public hearing on medical marijuana. Specifically, the hearing’s presentation centered on methods of treating Dravet Syndrome — a rare form of epilepsy affecting more than 5,400 people in the United States. Melissa Rhoden, a member of Virginia Parents for Medical Marijuana, has a 7-year-old daughter named Lucy who suffers from the rare disorder and has been frequently hospitalized and heavily medicated as a result. Rhoden gave a presentation during the hearing about her own experiences with Dravet Syndrome, as well as the stories of patients like Jennifer Collins and Tommy Elder. “Jennifer was losing her hair, she had gained a significant amount of weight,” Rhoden said. “She was also having suicidal thoughts and very severe mood swings. She was having a really hard time maintaining her relationships with friends and her family.” Jennifer Collins, a 14-year-old from Fairfax, Va., was diagnosed with juvenile absence epilepsy in 2008 when she suffered from short seizures, roughly 10 seconds in duration, that left her incapacitated throughout the day. With doctors unable to find a medication suitable for Jennifer’s condition, she was consequently subjected to a cocktail of 14 pills a day, which left her catatonic and prone to developmental delays. Even with these prescriptions, her symptoms weren’t alleviated and Jennifer was still suffering from 300 absence seizures a day. In December 2013, desperate for a solution to her frequent seizures, Jennifer and her mother, Beth, left her father and brother in Virginia and moved to Colorado to try an experimental strain of medical marijuana labeled “Charlotte’s Web.” The name comes from a specific patient, Charlotte Figi, a 7-year-old who suffers from Dravet Syndrome and relies on this particular strain of cannabis to effectively mitigate her symptoms. The Charlotte’s Web strain was developed by Joel, Jesse, Jon, Jordan, Jared and Josh Stanley, commonly referred to as the Stanley Brothers, in Colorado with the help of nonprofit organization, Realm of Caring. Charlotte’s Web is unlike the marijuana used recreationally today. Instead of having high levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive component in marijuana that gives the user a high, the plant has been engineered to instead contain high levels of cannabidiol (CBD) — another active component in marijuana that has applicable success in reducing seizures. “It is processed into an oil extract,” Rhoden said. “We’re not asking that our kids smoke marijuana. I’m not asking that a 3-year-old smoke marijuana. I can’t even imagine how that would happen.” The medication, which is infused into an oil and administered orally, was hugely effective for Figi — her number of weekly seizures sharply declined from 300 a week to two or three. Unfortunately for Jennifer, however, the Charlotte’s Web strain wasn’t effective for her particular condition, and she was instead given tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA) — a biosynthetic of THC that has no psychoactive properties and displays large neuroprotective effects. Since being administered this type of medical marijuana, Jennifer’s seizures have reduced in frequency and duration. Her experience compelled her to write to the Virginia legislature about the current state laws on medical marijuana and how it has forced her family to be apart. More - breezejmu.org/news/article_2810174a-3974-11e4-af7e-0017a43b2370.html
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 13:26:39 +0000
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