The Case for Legalizing Medical Cannabis for Kids

 

Hemp oil, used to treat neurological disorders, comes from the cannabis plant. But don't call it medical marijuana.

"People associate medical and recreational marijuana with THC, with a street drug, and with getting high," Paige Figi says on a recent phone call. "This has none of those things."

"There is an urgency to this because individuals are dying."

Figi, specifically, is talking about an oil derived from "Charlotte's Web"—a strain of cannabis that saved her daughter, Charlotte, and now bears her name. Unlike common strains of marijuana, Charlotte's Web contains very little (less than .3 percent) THC—the psychoactive substance that brings about marijuana's distinctive high. Instead, the plant produces a higher concentration of cannabidiol (hereafter referred to as CBD), a chemical that has shown promise treating the most debilitating epilepsy in children. Charlotte, who has Dravet syndrome—a form of epilepsy with no cure—was suffering through 300 seizures a week...

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URL: 
http://www.nationaljournal.com/health-care/the-case-for-legalizing-medical-cannabis-for-kids-20150423