Marijuana: Excellent Against Seizures

Hundreds of doctors agree.

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(PORTLAND, OR) - I was astonished to read in The New York Times the Op-Ed article regarding epilepsy, We Need Proof on Marijuana, Feb 12, 2014, written by two physicians specializing in epilepsy therapy at New York University's Comprehensive Epilepsy Center. Their article was based upon a CNN article reported by Sanjay Gupta about a child with Dravets Syndrome, in which the victim has hundreds of seizures a day. With the cannabis chemical cannibidiol or CBD, her seizures were reduced to two or three per month.

These professors of neurology were askance and thoroughly disbelieving that the cannabis plant could produce an anti-epilepsy drug. I would like to offer a bit of education to these doctors --- cannabis has most likely been used in India to prevent seizures for at least 1,000 years.

This knowledge was brought to England about 1840 by a British physician, O'Shaughnessy. The drugs used at that time (until now in some places), were horrible. They were sodium bromide, phenobarbital, Dilantin, Tegretol, and Neurontin. The side effects of these drugs are about as disabling and bad as epilepsy itself. In the United States, after 1840, the use of medical cannabis soon traveled far and wide through the country. Incidentally, there are about 30 or more anti-seizure drugs, most of them either don't work or have bad side effects.

[Bureau of Narcotics files, -- National Archives, College Park, Md.]

In America we have about 50k new epilepsy cases per year. All of the standard medications work about the same, depressing the brain, but the cannibinoid (CBD) works by a completely different mechanism without the depression of the brain.

In my state of Oregon, we have about 1600 epileptic patients controlling epilepsy very successfully with cannabis. The derivative CBD by itself, has just recently appeared on the scene and it does work better than cannabis itself. The adverse side effects are minimal and the patients and parents are extremely pleased with the relief.

At the present time, hundreds of parents with epileptic children are moving to Colorado where they can buy cannabis literally over the counter.

I am really bewildered that a couple of "epilepsy doctors" have not even researched "Marijuana for seizures) epilepsy drugs online. I found about two million, 600 thousand returns online and even The New York Times, which printed this article, We Need Proof on Marijuana, has many other articles on the subject.

These epilepsy doctors belabored the fact that "scientific studies have yet to bear out the hopes of these desperate families." THIS IS NOT A FACT. Thousands of studies have been pursued across the globe. They blather about the efficacy and safety of marijuana. Ten minutes of online research will satisfy their ignorance.

They state that cannabis contains about 400 compounds. OK, only about five have any medical significance.

Congratulations are due them on their getting approval from the FDA etc. for controlled studies. They will be astonished at their good results.

Comments and letters to the editor, numbering 401, have chopped these two epilepsy doctors into mincemeat. Let's hope they read some of the comments. It appears the non doctors know much more than they do.

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claygooding February 15, 2014 8:36 pm (Pacific time)

What part of if the extract form the plant is medicine then we have the right tho grow it in our homes and gardens,,the worst possible harms do not outweigh the benefits,,the same demands of any medicine approved,,cannabis is non-toxic and the continued ignorance of legislators and bureaucrats to think they can control a plant that grows anywhere has destroyed enough of our society with draconian laws enacted because the plant is so therapeutic.

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