Although cannabis has been known for its therapeutic and medicinal functions for thousands of years, the United States seems to be slow to the learning curve. In a previous New Mind Journal article, the benefits of marijuana treatment for cancer were discussed, this article will focus on the use of the plant for another devastating disorder. Epilepsy.
Epilepsy is defined as a disorder in which nerve cell activity in the brain is disturbed, thus causing seizures. A person suffering from epilepsy is usually treated with a variety of drugs, but not all forms of epilepsy can be treated with such pharmaceutical drugs thus leaving their seizures uncontrollable.
Individuals that endure such untreatable seizures are often children suffering from pediatric epilepsy disorders, such as Doose, Lennox-Gastaut, and Dravet syndromes. Since marijuana began being legalized for medicinal use, floods of stories have been told of parents who have risked it all and even relocated so that their children can legally use cannabis oil to treat their epilepsy and have a normal life.
What is most commonly prescribed is a treatment called Charlotte’s Web, named after a young girl suffering from Dravet syndrome to the point that her multiple seizures that lasted for hours at a time were causing serious cognitive problems as well as delaying her developmental growth. Her name was Charlotte Figi.
Charlotte’s Web is cannabis oil extracted from a strain that is high in Cannabidiol (CBD) and low in Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) which is the chemical that gets people “high”.
“The biggest misconception about treating a child-like little Charlotte is most people think that we're getting her high, most people think she's getting stoned," Josh Stanley, one of the owners of the dispensary that originally grew this strain.
Yet this treatment is still considered controversial. The Epilepsy Foundation does not endorse nor discourage this treatment, but instead states that each individual should follow their physician's recommendations in congruence with the law.
The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus is currently engaging in a study on Dravet with epilepsy patients who have tried Charlotte's Web. The genetics of the subjects who have seen a drastic change after using Charlotte’s Web will be compared with those who have not. The findings could be highly significant for the use of the treatment. Only time will tell.
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