Family Moves to Colorado to Cure Daughter's Epilepsy with Marijuana

With their daughter’s life on the line, they decided to leave.  They moved to Colorado where the highest profile success story for the treatment of epilepsy with marijuana had recently taken place.  Once skeptical of medical marijuana themselves, they left their home, friends and family behind to pursue a possible treatment for their daughter, who had been suffering nearly 300 spasms a day – with episodes lasting up to half an hour – since she was six months old.  They’d had no success with any other treatments.

The marijuana is administered in oil which Piper eats, and her seizures have now reduced in severity and frequency to a handful of single spasms per day.  The results so far have been life changing for Piper and multiple children in her same situation.  Organizations in Washington have had similar success using a tincture of marijuana with the THC removed.

Medical marijuana has also had unprecedented success in treating pain from cancer, fibromyalgia and other chronic diseases and conditions.  Unlike opiates – which are made from the same plants as heroin – it shows no real signs of being addictive, especially with the THC removed.  Unlike acetaminophen, it doesn’t pose a risk to the liver.  Though medical marijuana is a controversial for some, many people find relief from the substance they can find nowhere else.

People abuse prescription painkillers already.  Narcotics are already opium based, and retain much more of their psychoactive power than marijuana does with its THC reduced or removed, and opiates are much more dangerous drugs than marijuana.  Even cocaine is legal for some medicinal purposes.  The potential for abuse of marijuana is further reduced by the ability to eliminate THC, so even states skeptical of people’s motivations for seeking medicinal marijuana, or skeptical of the legalization of recreational marijuana, can simply regulate the amount of THC allowed in marijuana-based medications.

Benswann.com’s Joshua Cook asked Koozer how the treatment has helped his daughter so far.

“The frequency of spasms has been reduced, but the overall intensity has decreased,” Koozer said.

“Here is a medication that is plant derived. It doesn’t show any side effects. We are having extremely good success. We are looking at the original 35 kids who were on it. The research results show that 80 percent of those kids showed a 50 percent reduction without harmful side effects,” Koozer said.

Koozer said, “those who are skeptical wonder why I don’t resort to a pharmaceutical option. What people don’t think about is that every epileptic drug on the market has severe side effects: sleeplessness, increased seizures, liver and kidney failure, unexplained death, and vision loss is one of the major ones.”

Koozer believes that the natural properties derived from cannabis have a lot to offer compared to the harmful side effects of other pharmaceutical drugs.

Though people may be skeptical of legalizing marijuana for recreational use, there should be no question about legalizing it for medicinal purposes.  It doesn’t make sense that the least stigmatized drug for recreational use should be the most stigmatized for medical purposes.  This is a substance which has the power to save the lives of children, cancer patients, fibromyalgia sufferers and more.  Furthermore, the psychoactive component can be removed using a variety of methods, not only reducing those effects in young children and other users, but also reducing the motivation for abuse of the system or the drug.

Source: BenSwann

Medical marijuana to be available in Canada on open market

TORONTO, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- Ailing Canadians were only hours away from being able to legally buy marijuana for medical purposes on the free market, officials said Monday.

As of Tuesday, Health Canada will phase out a system of homegrown marijuana for a factory-style operation that will grow, package and distribute a variety of marijuana, the Toronto Star reported Sunday.

About 37,400 patients use medical marijuana, Health Canada says. That number is expected to rise to as many as 450,000 by 2024.

The sanctioned growers are required to raise the plants indoors and have vaults and security systems to prevent thefts of their products, which could be sold on the black market. One firm plans to initially produce 20 strains.

Recreational use of marijuana will still be banned.

Since June, 156 companies have applied for licenses. The first two were awarded last week.

Under the system being phased out, about 4,200 people were licensed to grow marijuana on their property for no more than two patients each. That type of cottage industry will now be banned. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has charged such operations were fronts for illegal activity.

The price of legal weed is expected to soon undercut the stuff sold on the streets, where it goes for about $10 a gram, or about $280 an ounce. Health Canada projects the factory-grown marijuana will retail next year for about $7.60 a gram, or $215 an ounce. Within 10 years, industry revenues are projected to reach $1.3 billion a year.

Sophie Galarneau, a senior Health Canada official, said she expects competition to eventually get the price down to $3 a gram, or about $85 an ounce.

Source: www.upi.com/

"We feed our daughter cannabis to stop her thousands of seizures each week"

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Parents say toddler can now walk and talk for the first time thanks to treatment.


Charlotte Figi has Dravet syndrome - a rare and severe form of epilepsy
She suffered from thousands of seizures every week and couldn't walk
In desperation, her parents tried treating her with medical marijuana
After just a few months she started walking and talking for the first time
Her seizures have also almost completely stopped

Doctors told Paige and Matt Figi that their daughter, Charlotte, would not survive much longer after she was diagnosed with a rare form of epilepsy.

But after years of researching possible cures, her desperate parents have resorted to feeding her marijuana - after stumbling across the controversial treatment online.

‘But we were desperate and Matt practically begged me to try it. We had tried everything else and nothing was able to help our daughter.

‘But after just one treatment, we were astounded - I couldn't believe the effect it had on Charlotte.

‘She's like a totally different girl. We never thought that marijuana would help us give our daughter a chance at life.’

Six-year-old Charlotte had her first seizures when she was just three-months-old, she had a normal birth and has a twin sister.

Within a week, she had started to suffer from violent seizures several times a day. 

She was eventually diagnosed with Dravet syndrome - a rare and catastrophic form of epilepsy that begins in infancy.

Children with the condition tend to develop normally as babies but progress starts to plateau in the second year of life.

There is currently no cure and treatment options are limited - they mainly involve using anti-epilepsy drugs to treat the seizures.

Little is known about the long term prognosis of people with Dravet syndrome.

Mrs Figi, from Denver, Colorado, said: ‘We tried every medication possible to help stop the seizures and Charlotte was having thousands of small seizures a day.

‘Matt was serving in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan, so I was struggling to look after our children alone.

‘By the age of five, Charlotte was having a 300 seizures a week and had lost the ability to walk, talk and eat.

‘Matt was back and forth from Afghanistan throughout Charlotte's life, he had to eventually leave the military because he couldn't keep flying back during missions and training.

‘The doctors told us to prepare for her death - they told us that she wouldn't pull through.’

At this point, Mr Figi stumbled across an article online that claimed a child with the same condition as Charlotte had been treated effectively with cannabis.

Mrs Figi said: ‘We were so desperate, Matt had heard of another child with the same condition who had used cannabis to help dramatically reduce the child's seizures.

‘When we first gave her the cannabis oil she went from having hundreds of seizures a day to none. 

‘She went for seven days without a twitch. It was unbelievable.

‘She now only has a few seizures a week.

The oil is extracted from the cannabis leaf using alcohol. This is then diluted to a precise dosage.

‘Charlotte receives cannabis oil under her tongue, twice a day. The exact dosage is carefully measured and strictly controlled.’

Mrs Figi has been in contact with the Stanley brothers who run a non-profit organisation, called the Realm of Caring Foundation, which provides cannabis to adults and children suffering from epilepsy, cancer, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's, who cannot afford it.

The six brothers have been working for years cross-breeding a strain of marijuana that has medicinal properties but does not trigger psychoactivity or induce a 'high'.

According to CNN, the strain is low in tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the compound in marijuana that is s psychoactive. 

It is also high in cannabidiol, or CBD, which has medicinal properties but no psychoactivity. Scientists think the CBD quiets the excessive electrical and chemical activity in the brain that causes seizures.

Mrs Figi recalls: ‘Joe and his family were really nervous and apprehensive to treat Charlotte as she was the youngest patient they had ever had.

‘I had to assure them that it would be okay and that I had already had to sign a do not resuscitate order.

‘After a month of success they changed the name of the strain to Charlotte's Web, which I think is a great name for it.

‘The Stanley brothers do it for very little money and sell the cannabis for pennies.’

Parents all over the U.S. have been inundating Mrs Figi with phone calls and emails expressing their hope for a possible remedy to the syndrome.

She said: ‘Over 200 paediatric patients will be trying Charlotte's Web in the next few weeks, we expect there will be thousands soon.

‘I don't have a political agenda, I just want parents to be able to treat and help their children.

‘Parents need access to this medicine as soon as possible.’

Medical marijuana is currently legal in 20 U.S. states

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2391207/We-feed-daughter-CANNABIS-stop-having-thousands-seizures-week-Parents-say-toddler-say-walk-talk-time-thanks-treatment.html#ixzz2eGqeGjLO

Study finds a new application for marijuana: treating diabetes

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It seems that every week there is a new study being published on the positive health effects of marijuana and THC. In the latest study conducted between 2005 to 2010 on 4657 subjects, marijuana consumption was shown to improve people's health that were suffering from diabetes.

Image: http://www.hamppu.net/

The subjects of the study that used marijuana had better control over the blood sugar than non-users had. Remarkably, marijuana users were also shown to have a smaller waist line than non-users despite having a higher caloric intake. The finding is this study are making waves in the scientific community as more and more states move to decriminalize cannabis.

The federal government is still insisting that marijuana is a "dangerous drug" and mainstream media outlets are still towing the establishment talking point claiming that marijuana is a "gateway drug". However,  evidence proving that is is a false claim and even more evidence from countries that have seen drug use rates lower after decriminalizing all drugs bring to light the real agenda behind marijuana prohibition: Big Pharma, Big Food, and Big Government do not wan't this miracle drug out in the open for people to see it's wide ranging medical and industrial uses.

Will A GMO Ban Lead To Cannabis Raids?

- by Andrew Walden
http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/ID/9027/US-Patent-Pending-for-Genetically-Modified-Marijuana.aspx

Medical marijuana advocates would do well to question anti-genetic protests. These initiatives are a back-door way of re-prohibiting medical marijuana under the guise of banning GM plants.
Ironically, just as marijuana is approaching legalization, anti-GM initiatives give a weapon to drug enforcement agents who could use GM bans to justify raids against marijuana cultivators--even small growers within the “medical marijuana” limits. What protesters have missed is that today’s potent varieties of marijuana were developed by genetic modification.  The University of Central Florida even has a pending US Patent for a cannabis sativa genetic modification technique.
In 2011, the genome of cannabis sativa was sequenced and published by British companyMedicinal Genomics.
GM marijuana is so widespread it was written up by AFP, June 24, 2011:  

Greenhouses lined with genetically modified marijuana sit on a mountainside just an hour ride from Cali, Colombia, where farmers say the enhanced plants are more powerful and profitable.
One greenhouse owner said she can sell the modified marijuana for 100,000 pesos ($54) per kilo (2.2 pounds), which is nearly 10 times more than the price she can get for ordinary marijuana.
Local authorities said the arrival of genetically modified seeds, which are imported from Europe and the United States have allowed "a bigger production and better quality at the same time".
A police commander in the Cauca region where Cali is located, Carlos Rodriguez, said one of the modified varieties goes by the name, "Creepy".
Another seed modified in The Netherlands is fetching a good price in the area, said a foreign researcher, who asked to remain anonymous. That version, well-known in Europe as "La Cominera", is named for the Colombian village where it grows.
"La Cominera's" higher value is due to its increased concentration of THC, the plant's principal active ingredient, and the modified plant verges on an 18 percent concentration level, compared to a normal marijuana plant's two to seven percent, said the researcher.

An August 16, 2011 UK Guardian article was titled: “New improved cannabis, now with genetic modifications”:

“Times change and cannabis is no exception, with the arrival of genetically modified grass.  An all-natural product with a low tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content is a thing of the past. ‘In just a few years we have moved from 3% or 4% THC contained in natural cannabis to concentrations closer to 10%, sometimes even 30%, with GM plants,’ Thierry explains. These substances bear no relation to what people were smoking in the 1970s.”

After being attacked by British medical marijuana activists fearful of a backlash from anti-GM campaigners, the article was edited with the following note attached:

“The first paragraph of the original article, as translated from the French, referred to "genetically modified" cannabis. The Guardian understands the cultivation of stronger forms of cannabis as described in the article would be the result of methods such as selective breeding. The reference to genetically modified cannabis in the article, as well as in our headline, has therefore been removed. A quote by Superintendent François Thierry in the third paragraph has been replaced with reported speech to convey his main point about an increase in the potency of cannabis — this is to avoid an ambiguity in the original quote that referred also to synthetic cannabis (though rendered by the Guardian as GM cannabis), which contains no THC. The sentence on how the Dutch may consider reclassifying cannabis has been amended to clarify that this relates to the strongest concentrations of cannabis.”

Unless one wants to believe that nobody at the Guardian is a competent French-English translator, the most logical conclusion is that the Guardian did not want to be unwittingly responsible for a dust-up between medical marijuana activists and anti-GM activists.  Their rather absurd retraction holds that their reporting is based not on what French officials said, but on what the Guardian staff thinks they should have said.  
Maybe somebody should tell the US Patent office to ask the Guardian's permission before it gives final approval to the University of Central Florida patent application which describes:   

1. A method of producing a transgenic plant with Bgl overexpression relative to a wild-type plant, said method comprising: (a) introducing into a plant cell an expression cassette that comprises a Bgl gene to thereby produce a transformed plant cell; and (b) producing a transgenic plant from the transformed plant cell, wherein the transgenic plant has increased biomass, increased height, increased trichome density or increased seed production relative to a wild type plant….
9. A transgenic plant that overexpresses Bgl1 relative to a corresponding wild-type plant, wherein said transgenic plant has increased biomass, increased height,increased trichome density or increased seed production relative to a wild type plant….
15. The transgenic plant of claim 9, wherein said transgenic plant is Cannabis sativa, Papaver somniferum or Erythorxylum coca….

The three species mentioned in line 15 are marijuana and two varieties of opium poppy.  Contrary to anti-GMO activist claims, GMO developers do not patent seeds, they patent the method for producing GMO seed lines, just as traditional plant breeders patent their hybridization techniques.  How do the University of Central Florida techniques affect THC production?  “Trichome” refers to the hairs on a plant.  In Cannabis, this is where globules of THC resin accumulate.  “Bgl overexpression” increases the plants’ resistance to parasites but also may aid in the release of THC resin from plant cells onto the trichomes.
The UK Guardian is not the only example of censorship.  The website of Allan Frankel, MD, a Santa Monica, California medical marijuana doctor who specializes in high Cannabinoid, low THC varieties, screams “There Is No GMO Cannabis!”  Judging from the rambling letter on his website, it appears he has been harassed by other medical marijuana providers using anti-GMO rhetoric to snatch away ‘patients’.  Santa Monica is populated by wealthy, idle, ‘politically correct’ people which of course means corresponding levels of anti-GMO sentiment.
The story of Santa Monica’s high Cannabinoid doctor leads us around the world to--where else--Amsterdam.
By treating cannabis seeds with the powerful, readily available, mutagen colchicine, genetically modified “polyploid” marijuana, with higher levels of marijuana’s active ingredient THC, is created. Simple genetic testing of confiscated marijuana by police laboratories can easily determine if plants are polyploid (have more than the usual two sets of chromosomes) and therefore illegal under any GM crop ban. 
Unlike the heavily regulated laboratory genetic modification work of companies and universities improving legal crops, marijuana is modified in unregulated underground labs without oversight. For instance:

• The online marijuana growers guide (section 18-7) explains: “Polyploid Cannabis plants were produced by treatment with the alkaloid colchicine. Colchicine interferes with normal mitosis, the process in which cells are replicated. During replication, the normal doubling of chromosomes occurs, but colchicine prevents normal separation of the chromosomes into two cells. The cell then is left twice (or more then) the normal chromosome count. … experiments concluded that polyploids contained higher concentrations of the ‘active ingredient’. …Polyploid Cannabis has been found to be larger, with larger leaves and flowers.”
• A 95-page 2009 paper by Sam R. Zwenger is titled, “The Biotechnology of Cannabis sativa.”  Zwenger gives complete instructions for marijuana tissue culture and genetic modification.
• Robert C. Clarke, in his book Marijuana Botany: The propagation and breeding of distinctive cannabis, explains, “Many clandestine cultivators have started polyploid strains with colchicine….  (Colchicine) treated plants showed a 166-250% increase in THC…possibly colchicine or the resulting polyploidy interferes with cannabinoid biogenesis to favor THC.”

Robert C Clarke is the co-founder and lead botanist of Netherlands-based Hortapharm. 
Hortpharm research is behind “Project CBD”, dedicated to developing the high Cannabinoid, low THC varieties favored by the doctor in Santa Monica.  The Project CBD website explains:

“In the spring of 1998, the British government licensed a company called GW Pharmaceuticals to grow Cannabis and develop a precisely consistent plant extract for use in clinical trials. GW's co-founder Geoffrey Guy, MD, was convinced —and had convinced the Home Office— that by using CBD-rich plants, GW could produce a Cannabis-based medicine with little or no psychoactive effect. That summer Guy described his approach at a meeting of the International Cannabinoid Research Society…. It was assumed that generations of breeding for maximum THC had reduced CBD in California cannabis to trace levels. GW had gotten its CBD-rich strains by acquiring the genetic library of HortaPharm, a Dutch seed company run by American ex-pat naturalists, David Watson and Robert Clarke…..”

In other words, Project CBD got its genetic library from the guy who literally wrote the book on genetically modified marijuana.
GW Pharmaceuticals—the company behind Project CBD-- is producing Sativex, approved in Canada and several European countries allegedly for the treatment of seizures related to Multiple Sclerosis.  But this is not the same as “synthetic marijuana.”  TheFix.com explains: “Sativex is a proprietary extract of the marijuana plant, while Spice, K2 and the other cannabis substitutes are synthetic versions of various molecules found in marijuana.”  Synthetic cannabinoids used in K2 and Spice are derived from the published results of mid-1990s  experiments at Clemson University. 
This writer first pointed to online descriptions of techniques to create Genetically Modified Marijuana back in 2004.

FIRST MARIJUANA COMMERCIAL AIRS ON TV!

The Health Benefits of Smoking Marijuana

http://www.naturalcuresnotmedicine.com/2013/04/the-health-benefits-of-smoking-marijuana.html

Smoking marijuana has numerous health benefits and they are: 

A lot of people say cannabis has no medicinal value when it is smoked. Let's finally put this myth to bed.