For a little girl in Calgary suffering from epilepsy, medical marijuana has been a miracle drug.
A year and a half ago, a doctor at Alberta Children’s Hospital signed a permission form which allowed the (then) seven-year-old girl to begin using medical marijuana as a treatment of her seizures.
Doctors and the girl’s mother chose an oil based THC supplement to be the form of the medicine given to young Mia Wilkinson orally. At the time that she started the treatment she was also on several other pharmaceutical drugs to control her symptoms of epilepsy.
Since starting the medical marijuana treatment, she has been completely seizure free for a year and a half. Not only is she seizure free, but she has also been taken off of every other drug that she had previously been prescribed. The only medication she now takes is the medical marijuana.
Her mother Sarah describes the THC treatment as a “miracle drug” that saved her daughter’s life.
Prior to starting the treatment, her daughter was having over 100 seizures a day—some life threatening. Now, she is able to go to the local park with her brother and enjoy the life that a child should be able to.
Recently Mia’s doctor sent this email to Sarah, regarding the recent EEG scan that they completed saying, “Just reviewed the EEG. Completely normal awake—miracles happen!”
However, all that is about to change.
Doctors at Alberta Health Services in Calgary have sent a letter to Sarah Wilkinson, saying that the medical marijuana license for young Mia’s treatment will not be renewed.
This news is devastating to Sarah, as she is certain her daughter will relapse back into severe seizures, and will also lose the quality of life that she has since been able to enjoy.
Alberta Health Services have stated that they don’t endorse any medical marijuana treatment, because it hasn’t been researched and studied with clinical trials.
Mia’s mother Sarah has tried appeals, and she is determined to not let her daughter’s health improvements have a permanent set back. She has even vowed to go to jail if necessary—and has promised that she will continue to provide her daughter with the best treatment for her condition, regardless of the personal costs of her decision.
Mia is not the only young epilepsy patient to have experienced miracles while on medical marijuana.
Addyson Benton from Ohio has had the same experience. Her parents have fought hard to have medical marijuana shipped to their home in the Midwest so that she could start treatment there. However, because of state laws, that was determined to be impossible.
Instead, her parents chose to move their entire family 2,000 miles away to Castle Rock, Colorado so that she might be able to begin treatment for her seizures (she experiences over 1,000 every day).
Since legalizing marijuana for recreational and medical use, Colorado has seen an influx of people either visiting or permanently moving to the rocky mountain state.
Unfortunately, not everyone has the financial means necessary to move their family across the country in order to have the best medical care available.
The issue here isn’t just the availability of medical marijuana—there’s also the entire stigma attached to marijuana being seen as a harmful drug.
It seems so many of us are forgetting that this is a plant that grows naturally, and it has been utilized for thousands of years for its agricultural and medical uses.
Additionally, hemp is an extremely valuable commodity, used for clothing, alternative fuel sources, medical purposes and food.
As a society, we are waking up to a higher level of consciousness. We are now starting to embrace the need to take action locally, and initiate larger scales of change in the world view. We’ve begun by tackling important issues—like foreign fuel dependency and environmental change.
Changing society’s negative view of marijuana is just as necessary.
Only once we are able to bury any preconceptions about marijuana being seen as a harmful drug—and instead see if for the wealth of possibilities that it possesses—will we be able to fully utilize the many benefits of this plant.
And this is vital for many people, like Mia Wilkinson and Addyson Benton, so they have the means to improve their quality of life.
Sources:
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Relephant:
Medical Marijuana & Cancer: Fellow Warriors, let your Voices be Heard.
The Need for Weed.
Author: Kate Rose
Editor: Yoli Ramazzina
Photo: Flickr/David Trawin
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