Pubdate: Thu, 17 Jul 2014
Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
Copyright: 2014 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/letters.html
Website: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326
Author: Marie-Danielle Smith
Page: A4

CANNABIS OIL HELPS TYKE THRIVE - ILLEGALLY

Boy went from 67 epileptic seizures a day to 10 days seizure-free
following treatment using a liquid form of medical marijuana

Liam McKnight signed his medical marijuana licence when he was just
five years old.

The boy from Constance Bay suffers from Dravet syndrome, a rare and
severe form of epilepsy. It can cause nearly constant seizures that
last three to four minutes each. His condition led him to miss time
during kindergarten.

Liam had 67 seizures the day before starting cannabis oil treatment.
The first 10 days he used cannabis oil, he was seizure-free, his
mother says.

"He had new words," said Liam's mother, Mandy. "He was horseback
riding. He was in a boat, he went tubing. He was so happy. We had a
little glimpse of what life could be like."

Now six years old, Liam is registered to start Grade 1 in September at
St. Michael school in Fitzroy Harbour, with the help of an educational
assistant and full-time nurse.

On Wednesday, he was counting characters in a children's book from the
world of Teletubbies, and seemingly having a pretty good day. "I went
to the park," he said shyly. "I read a book."

He suffered a small seizure while speaking to the Citizen.

Even though Liam is licensed to use medical marijuana, taking it in
extracted oil form violates Health Canada's new Marihuana for Medical
Purposes Regulations, which came into effect April 1.

Under the regulations, the strains of marijuana that producers can
sell are no longer restricted, making it easier to find strains high
in CBD, the chemical that treats Liam's condition the best, but low in
THC, a psychoactive component associated with pain relief.

However, licensed producers can only sell dried marijuana. They can't
sell any derivative products, such as oils or foods made with marijuana.

The McKnights receive a boxed shipment of 150 grams of dried marijuana
from Bedrocan, one of 13 licensed marijuana producers in Canada, each
month. Turning it into the oil that Liam consumes - about a quarter of
a cup each day - is not a straightforward task.

"Health Canada says Liam has to smoke it or he has to vaporize it,"
said McKnight. "Those are our two options, that's it. So although they
give him a licence, the form of delivery is ridiculous."

The major problem with vaporizing it, McKnight said, is managing the
dosage. They want to build up the CBD in his system and keep him
stable. With vapour it's instantaneous, the effects are immediate and
you can't keep track of amount of CBD entering system the way you can
with oil that has had its chemical contents analyzed in a lab.

So, instead, they ship the dry buds to the Montreal-based Medical
Cannabis Access Society, where it is processed and extracted into
coconut oil. Then, it is shipped back to them. McKnight sends a sample
of the batch to a laboratory in British Columbia that analyzes the
oil's CBD and THC content so she can give Liam precise doses.

Technically, this process goes against Health Canada regulations. It
is expensive, too. Cannabis is $7.50 per gram. Extraction costs money;
shipping costs money; lab work costs money. Liam also undergoes
occupational, physical, speech and listening therapy. He has a live-in
caregiver, along with the full-time nurse.

"Financially, it's draining," said McKnight. "If we were getting an
extraction from a licensed producer, it wouldn't cost nearly this
much. I don't even know how long we're going to be able to sustain
this."

Adam Greenblatt, the executive director of the cannabis access
society, said he believes that as many as 60 or 70 per cent of medical
marijuana users would use derivative products if they could legally
buy them.

"There's a huge need for these derivative products in the patient
population, a huge desire in this new medical marijuana economy to
produce and sell and standardize them," he said, adding there could
even be special prescriptions for these products. "It's up to Health
Canada to get with the times."

Apart from oils, these include hashish, baked products such as
brownies, capsules and tinctures, which are liquid suspensions of
cannabis in alcohol or glycerine. Not everyone can vaporize or smoke
cannabis.

Greenblatt makes cannabis brownies for his own father, Michael
Greenblatt, 65, who has suffered from multiple sclerosis for nearly 30
years and uses medical marijuana to help alleviate his systems.
Because of the MS and asthma, his lungs are too weak to handle smoking
or vaporizing marijuana.

Greenblatt helps the McKnight family, along with five or six others,
to process dried cannabis into oils to treat Dravet syndrome. But he
said there is a huge range of uses for products such as these.

Along with epilepsy and MS sufferers, a growing number of cancer
patients use cannabis extracts as treatment. Children and elderly
patients, especially, would benefit from an option that does not
require inhaling smoke or vapour, Greenblatt said.

"It would be cheaper for producers to be able to make it themselves
and sell it that way," he said. "From an economic and business
perspective, it makes sense."

Isaac Oommen, who works at British Columbia's Compassion Club Society,
a cannabis advocacy organization, said that of their roughly 9,700
members, at least 30 per cent use derivative products such as edibles,
oils or tinctures.

He said about 60 per cent of incoming members are patients over the
age of 65, and among them, at least 80 or 90 per cent are interested
in using those types of products.

In 2012, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that people should be allowed to
make their own oils, butters, baked goods and lotions using cannabis,
and that designated producers should be able to provide patients with
the same. But the new regulations that came into effect in April mean
the case is going back to court.

If the court ruling is found to still stand up under the new
regulations, the government would be essentially forced to rewrite
those rules, said Greenblatt. But, "these are expensive court battles
when really they should just give up the fight," he said.

For McKnight, who runs a Facebook page to raise awareness about Liam's
condition, it's a matter of common sense.

"I really hope that somebody at Health Canada or somebody in this
government just finally stands up and says, 'OK, this is ridiculous.
We need to help these kids'."

Health Canada did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
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MAP posted-by: Matt