I was interviewed last week by NORML’s “A Different View” crew: http://www.facebook.com/ADifferentView420. The show will air tomorrow at 8:00pm and includes a brief discussion with myself and two other parents who have made the decision to use cannabis on their child.
Cash was diagnosed with brain cancer prior to his second birthday, and had to undergo major chemotherapy. Cash’s condition became very serious. He hadn’t eaten in 40 days and was very near death. His father tried medical marijuana, which allowed Cash to eat, fight, and endure the chemotherapy, and he was even declared cancer-free for a little while. It sounds like the tumor has come back now, sadly, but at least Cash has cannabis as an option right from the start this time. Read more here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1383240/Boy-brain-cancer-cured-secretly-fed-medical-marijuana-father.html.
Storm was diagnosed with Multiple Synostosis Syndrome, which causes his bones to slowly fuse. It’s a terminal condition and very painful. Georgia, his mother, tried medical marijuana when he was 15 to ease his incredible suffering. Without marijuana, her son’s pain was so bad that he would literally scream for hours. Read more here: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/796638.
I feel I failed in getting my main point across, but I think it applies in all three of our cases: prohibition is failing our children, and medical laws only barely help.
Marijuana is clearly able to ease the suffering of many serious ailments, but as long as it’s even partially illegal, we won’t know exactly how best to administer it as a medication. For Storm, it works well when smoked, but he’s forced to the black market to get a strain that’s actually useful. This of course becomes costly and potentially risky, but the Canadian government has very limited medical marijuana laws (though they are better than ours in the United Stated, from what I’m gathering).
Mike, Cash’s father, lives in the U.S. and has to deal with the same problems I deal with. Though states have legalized medical marijuana, it’s still federally illegal. There’s very little research into the medical value of cannabis, how different strains affect different problems, which methods of ingestion work best, and so forth. And now that the Obama administration is attacking the dispensaries and growers, our children may not have any access to cannabis outside of the black market.
Tune in to the show tomorrow at 8pm: http://live.norml.org