Girl won’t be apprehended over medical-pot treatment

LEDUC, Alta. — Alberta appears to have stepped back from a fight to stop a four-year-old girl from receiving a marijuana-derived treatment for her seizures.

Brian Fish, lawyer for the girl’s mother, said Friday that the Crown has withdrawn a request for an order that would have forced his client to stop giving her daughter cannabidiol and submit her to conventional treatment.

The mother says traditional drugs were ineffective against the girl’s seizures and doctors were suggesting brain surgery as an alternative.

The Canadian Press is not identifying the girl or her mother because of provisions in Alberta’s Child, Youth and Family Enhancement Act.

Cannabidiol is a non-intoxicating part of hemp that the girl was taking in pill form.

The mother said it significantly reduces her daughter’s seizures and that forcing her to stop taking it would be cruel.

“Somebody believed that cannabidiol is illegal and that is a basis for apprehending the child. That is not a basis under the Child, Youth and Family Enhancement Act,” Fish said outside a courtroom in Leduc, south of Edmonton, after the application was withdrawn.

Fish said it appeared that someone reported the family to child welfare. Workers met with the mother, he said, but she was unwilling to cease her daughter’s treatment with cannabidiol, so the province applied for a supervision order.

The mother is seeking a medical-marijuana exemption for the girl, something that was already in the works before child welfare became involved, Fish said.

Cannabidiol has been widely touted as a potential therapy for hard-to-treat forms of epilepsy. But many doctors say there’s little medical evidence to show if the compound is effective or safe.