Kid Stuff: Parents push for more uses of legal pot
Parents promote benefits of medical marijuana for children
PITTSBURGH » One family’s journey helped inspire a Netflix documentary and spawned new life-saving research at the University of Pennsylvania. Another family has a child that has begun to no longer need medication for her severe illness because cannabis oils changed her life. Still another successfully challenged the Mexican Department of Health in court over its laws against medical marijuana.
All three were on hand for the Cannabis and Children panel discussion at the first-ever World Medical Cannabis Conference in Pittsburgh.
Three parents with children with special needs talked about how giving daily doses of cannabis oils to their children helped improve their quality of life.
“Children, yes, use cannabis,” said Andrew Hard, CEO of CMW Media, who moderated the hour-long panel. “It’s great for them and it’s great for their health. Yes, that may be a controversial thing to say, but yes, it also very much is the right thing.”
The following stories are examples of the powerful effects of medical marijuana on those who needed it the most.
Harper Howard
Harper Howard was born April 12, 2010, with a rare non-hereditary, lifethreatening genetic disorder called CDKL5, which causes difficult to control seizures.
Her mother, Penny Howard, of suburban Dallas, described the nightmare of watching their 19-month old-daughter have 40 seizures a day and feeling helpless. When Harper wasn’t having a seizure, she was emotionless and didn’t respond to any stimulation.
“It threw us into a whirlwind,” said Howard.
For three years the family lived in hell. They tried 10 different kinds of medications on Harper but none of them helped. The therapists at her school threatened to remove her because she wasn’t showing signs of improvement.
Howard documented the struggle online, so others experiencing the same circumstance could know they were not alone.
In 2013, the family saw a documentary that showed how cannabis oils can help stop seizures. Desperate to try them on Harper, they agreed to risk purchasing the online drug RSHO, or Real Scientific Hemp Oil, and add it to Harper’s regular medical routine.
Immediately they noticed a difference.
“Upon the first dose, her seizures were cut in half,” Howard said. “The second week she was verbalizing to us. She never did that. She looked us in the eyes. We never had eye contact. They didn’t kick her out of therapy. She began to have a life.”
Soon Harper and her sister Lilly were fighting over what movie to watch and the family learned Harper’s favorite color, her favorite number — she had broken out of her shell.
By documenting the transformation online, Katiele Fischer, of Brazil, whose daughter Annie also had CDKL5, saw Harper’s success. She began importing the cannabis oils and Annie started to have the same results as Harper.
Then the Brazilian government stepped in and stopped the imports from coming. Fischer sued the government saying it could not take away these life improving drugs. She won