I met Charlotte Figi the same way a lot of people might have met her. CNN and Dr. Sanjay Gupta's reported on a little girl who was severely suffering from seizure's from the beginning of her life, and had to find an alternative to all of the drugs that were not working to keep her from having any less than 300 seizures per day.
When the family made their way to a Colorado dispensary that had a grade of marijuana high in CBD (cannabidiol)- considered the medicinal part of marijuana- but low in THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the element that makes you high, the Figi's had found an option that they hoped would work.
It did.
Within no time at all, Charlotte's seizures were reduced to one per week and her brain functions slowly but surely began to improve- not degrade as is typically believed of marijuana, especially with young brains. Charlotte's update on the CNN special has my eyes clean of all dust and pollen in the air. Not tears just from the improvement she enjoyed, but because the little girl that seizures were totally hiding has been revealed to two loving parents who are joyfully getting to know the daughter they were only hoping to save from the damage of seizures and typical seizure medicine.
Eventually, Charlotte ran that local shop out of the strain that they couldn't sell very well anyway since it doesn't get you high, so the Figi's had to research another answer for little Charlotte. Enter the RoC (Realm of Caring) marijuana foundation in Colorado. RoC, run by the Stanley family, had been growing a breed of high CBD marijuana that took YEARS to develop because of the generation it took to master the process of cross breeding, and the time it took to cross breed THC out of the plant.
Mostly, the cross breeding stuff has created a bunch of really high THC weed. However, research into the effects of marijuana has also uncovered that CBD is not only medicinal, it is the activator of THC, thus nearly every plant has some percentage (usually very low) of the CBD which produces the euphoric effect of the drug. Without getting you high- researcher's have discovered something believed to improve crippling medical conditions that run the gamut.
Domestic research might be in its infancy , but American doctors have discovered that Israel has been researching weed for years and are currently prescribing it for a wide list of conditions, with some excellent results in the area of PTSD. The expansive list of people who are able to rid themselves of a deadly pharmaceuticals in exchange of marijuana is something that any person who takes a cocktail of drugs, or loves someone who does, should look into.
Research has found a way to remove the psychoactive elements from marijuana, yet, the federal government still maintains a federal ban on marijuana, while simultaneously holding patent number 6630507, the trump card for turning marijuana into the medicine minus the puff that its become for so many. Marijuana might be known to have many medicinal benefits, but it can't be patented as a plant, since all plants are natural and can be grown by anyone. Extracting the valuable aspects of marijuana into a pill that would replace so many other pills comes with the risk of replacing so many other pills and the billions of dollars they generate.
To the credit of research, medicinal edible marijuana products are advancing rapidly, but without the support of the federal lead. Families desperate for answers for epileptic children or other medical challenges have to find high CBD weed and process it into oil all by themselves or move to medical marijuana states like Colorado and hope for help from Charlotte. (Recent laws have allowed for Charlotte's Web to be transported across certain state lines).
My oldest brother grew up with seizures, and hated the medication that was supposed to fix the problem too much to take it on the regular. Over time, he seemed to get a little control over the seizures, but I remember him squirming and moving at times in a way that I can now connect back to the condition he suffered from. Nobody knew of very many meds to deal with seizures during the 70' and 80's, but they damn sure knew weed. How many epileptic people unknowingly found relief in marijuana is worthy of research? Absent a consent from my big brother, I can only say that I think I know how he occasionally avoided the medication that he was supposed to take more often than he did.
What the 80's and street weed doesn't offer is a great way to determine species or grade, so some relief becomes a lucky shake of the dice. With today's deliberate selling of known species of marijuana, even recreational smokers who shake uncontrollably from time to time, can choose a species of marijuana that deals with the shake and the gloom all in one puff.
DOES IT REALLY WORK?
If you need to really know what the government thinks about the potential for medical marijuana, read the details (below) of the patent that WE've owned since 2003, which describes something clearly valuable, justifying the worthiness of a patent.
God Bless you RoC and the Figi family for seeking an answer for Charlotte, and helping to spread her sticky icky web across the land. Maybe one day this patent will be used to save lives and not to insure corporate stability in the pharmaceutical industry.
| United States Patent | 6,630,507 |
| Hampson , et al. | October 7, 2003 |
| **Please see images for: ( Certificate of Correction ) ** |
Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants
| Inventors: | Hampson; Aidan J. (Irvine, CA), Axelrod; Julius (Rockville, MD), Grimaldi; Maurizio (Bethesda, MD) |
|---|---|
| Assignee: | The United States of America as represented by the Department of Health and Human Services (Washington, DC) |
| Family ID: | 26767641 |
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