Marijuana And Epilepsy

Alexis Poche
Anatomy
Lewis
5/12/14

In the recent years there has been a large increase in research and study about
the medical uses of marijuana. Marijuana is frowned in the american society upon
because it an illegal drug since the 60s and gets people high. The chemical that gets
people high is delta 9- Tetrahydrocannabinol or, THC. One of the reasons it has been
started to come to a positive light is because its experimental use on epileptic children
to stop severe and life threatening seizures. The chemical in the plant that helps with
stopping recurrent seizures is cannabidiol, or CBD. It really got an abundance of
positive attention when a family with a five year old daughter, diagnosed with a rare
form of epilepsy in which the medication given to the family did not work used it. They
formerly were against using it but when they first realized that they had no other options,
they turned to it. With its success more and more people have tried to use this medicine
to help their own children. However, people have been very skeptical about using
marijuana however because of concerns of addiction, damage in brain cells, and the
fact that there are so many unknown side effects that could occur.

What is epilepsy? One might ask. According to the Epilepsy Association,
epilepsy occurs when the electrical signals in the brain become disrupted. This
disruption in the brain causes seizures, also known as convulsions. A convulsion occurs
when the body shakes rapidly and uncontrollably. There are different types of seizures
but only the ones which are started in the brain are considered to be part of epilepsy.
Because epilepsy is rooted in the brain, it affects the nervous system and is a
neurological disorder. Because seizures affect voluntary muscles, the muscular system
is also affected by the disease.

Because the research is so new, there is no real evidence and scientific proof as
to how or why the marijuana helps with seizures. Therefore it is difficult to give proper
significant proof other than what was already stated.

My opinion on the subject is that the marijuana should be nationally legal on all
levels, especially for medical purposes. The research on epilepsy and marijuana can
help thousands of families and many lives can benefit from the use of this drug as
medication. Many people have heard on the news that the states like Colorado and
California were allowing the use of recreational marijuana and other states were
allowing the use of medical marijuana including Georgia. The availability of the drugs
should not be limited to just one state because that will cause many domino effect
problems, (cost of living in the state rises, over population, etc.)

The legislation is named Carlys Law, after 3-year-old Carly Chandler who
suffers from epilepsy as a result of a rare genetic disorder. Now, UAB will be able to
prescribe the oil to patients like Carly to treat epilepsy. The House of Representatives
amended the law to allow doctors at Children's of Alabama, which is affiliated with UAB,
to use CBD oil if they work with the UAB Department of Neurology.(1)

In Alabama,Carlys law is trying to get passed to help the epileptic children get
more access to the marijuana that does not get you high but instead relaxes the
muscles to reduce and/or prevent the seizures from happening. This is another
example of the realization that the marijuana needs to be legalized to to help the
children that need to get better from their epilepcy and genetic disorders.

Suffering from a rare genetic disorder, she had as many as 300 grand mal
seizures a week, used a wheelchair, went into repeated cardiac arrest and could barely
speak. As a last resort, her mother began calling medical marijuana shops. Two years
later, Charlotte is largely seizure-free and able to walk, talk and feed herself after taking
oil infused with a special pot strain. (2)

There has been no official scientific evidence that it works but it has been
working for all of the children and more than 100 of the parents that have moved to
places where the strains of marijuana called Charlotte's Web , named after the young
girl from the excerpt, which had been specifically for these patients with epilepsy, is low
in THC and high in CBD have not reported any side effects. After taking the marijuana
based medicine, the patient has not had an epileptic seizure and has improved their
living and is returning to living a normal life. Not many people want to have this
medication legalized because the unknown side effects scare them. However, like
previously stated, there have been no side effects reported and everyone who has
used this medication has been more the satisfied that their lives are returning to normal.
To conclude, the use for marijuana as a medicine, just like many other plants,
can be used and should be used. The demand for this medicine is high and increasing
everyday. Congress needs to take into consideration all the children suffering and all
the money wasted on drugs that will end up harming the children more than the
cannabis.