Get Active Subscribe Support Us

HERSHEY 3-YEAR-OLD'S CONDITION MAKES A CASE FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA

If Pennsylvania legislators would heed the plight of 3-year-old Hershey resident Garrett Brann, they would agree to take a more rational approach toward the medical use of marijuana.

Garrett has Dravet Syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy that starts in infancy.  The disease wracks his body with seizures, as if random jolts of electricity are repeatedly shooting through him.

With his debilitating condition, Garrett frequently falls and can't feed himself.  His family has tried roughly 10 different types of anti-seizure drugs.

One treatment might help, but it is illegal in Pennsylvania.

"Charlotte's Web" is an oil derived from marijuana plants.  It comes from a benign strain of marijuana, one that has almost no THC, the chemical that gives users the euphoric "high." Patients take the oil with food, not by smoking.

Other families whose children suffer serious seizures have used the oil extract, with good results.  Dr.  Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, documented how marijuana is helping treat a child with chronic seizures in Colorado, where medical marijuana is legal.

Garrett's mother told WITF's Radio SmartTalk Monday she didn't know if the marijuana oil extract will help her son.  But the family would like to give it a try and is considering a move to Colorado.

Garrett, his family and others facing similar medical challenges deserve to have every possible tool that might help them, right here in Pennsylvania.

Garrett's story has helped make a believer of conservative Republican Sen.  Mike Folmer, of Lebanon.  He is co-sponsoring legislation to be introduced this week, allowing limited uses of marijuana for medical purposes, like treating Garrett, under strict regulation.

Folmer, a cancer survivor himself, spoke eloquently on WITF's SmartTalk about how important it is for patients and their doctors to have every possible weapon in their fight against debilitating or incurable diseases.

He is working with Democratic Sen.  Daylin Leach on details of the bill.  It looks as if the final version will make sure the marijuana is non-hallucinogenic and subject to strict controls to prevent abuse.  ( Folmer noted on SmartTalk that industrial hemp has a higher THC content than the strains that supply the medicinal oil.  )

It's not yet clear how the Leach-Folmer bill will treat other medical uses of smokable marijuana.  Chemotherapy patients have reported that it helps combat the nausea and loss of appetite that are common side effects.

Skeptics note that the federal Food and Drug Administration has not approved marijuana for any medical use.  In part, that's because the War-on-Drugs mentality has inhibited research on potentially beneficial uses.  For reasons that defy common sense, marijuana remains classified as the worst kind of illegal drug under federal law, in the same class as heroin and LSD.  Marijuana is considered even more harmful than cocaine and OxyContin.

The federal government has said that it will not crack down on legitimate medical use of marijuana in states where it is legal.  But if states are lax with their rules or enforcement, and they don't do enough to keep the drug away from minors and drug traffickers, the feds will swoop in, as happened last week in Colorado.

Those raids show how important it is for Pennsylvania to set - and enforce - super-tight controls over medical marijuana use.  That's no easy task.  But society has found a way to balance the risks and benefits of allowing patients to take medically useful, but addictive and easily-abused drugs like morphine and OxyContin.  Surely, Pennsylvania can do likewise with the medicine that offers hope to patients like Garrett.