Arizona recreational marijuana use initiative launched

A north Phoenix man has launched an initiative to legalize marijuana for recreational use in Arizona.

Dennis Bohlke, the 59-year-old computer programmer who is leading the effort, said the Safer Arizona initiative is modeled after Colorado’s newly enacted law, which taxes and regulates marijuana.

“The intent of the initiative is to legalize marijuana in Arizona and to treat it as we treat alcohol,” said Bohlke.

The effort would amend the state Constitution to allow people 18 and older “to consume or possess limited amounts” of marijuana. The initiative would allow state officials to license grow facilities, marijuana stores and other facilities.

The initiative needs 259,213 valid signatures by July 3, 2014, to qualify for the November 2014 ballot.

Bohlke said he has no major financial backing to fund signature gathering. He said he has spoken with Republican, “tea party” and Democratic lawmakers about his effort and that while they would not support him, they “were very receptive” of his effort.

Bohlke acknowledged it will be challenging to gather the signatures necessary to place the initiative on the ballot without major funding.

In addition, law enforcement and prosecutors would likely mount a strong opposition campaign.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, who has made the fight against medical marijuana a signature issue, said any effort to legalize pot “even through the initiative process, would run afoul of the same supremacy clause issues that Arizona’s medical-marijuana program faces.”

But Karen O’Keefe of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C., a national legalization-advocacy group, said the proposed initiative “makes sure the state wouldn’t waste any more money arresting people for using a substance that’s objectively safer than alcohol and tobacco.

“It would also allow the state to regulate and control the industry and to generate substantial revenue” that would benefit Arizona residents “instead of drug dealers,” she said.

Bohlke said he is motivated by his pot-related brushes with the law. He was arrested twice in Scottsdale in 2010 on drug-related charges. Bohlke was stopped in February 2010 on suspicion of crossing the white line with his car, according to police records, and when the officer walked up to the vehicle he claimed he could smell marijuana. A search of the car turned up a small amount of marijuana stored in a mint box and a package of rolling papers, according to police. The case was dismissed last year after Bohlke’s defense raised questions about when the arresting officer gave Bohlke his Miranda warning.

“That is part of the motivation for doing this,” said Bohlke, who said he was stopped and searched by police without cause.

Bohlke was arrested again in July 2010 after a Scottsdale police officer said he failed to stop at a red light and initiated a DUI investigation, according to police records. Lab test results showed the presence of the metabolite associated with marijuana and Bohlke was convicted of being impaired to the slightest degree and driving under the influence of drugs, according to court records. The conviction is on appeal.

“It’s a very bad thing for people to get arrested for marijuana — especially for young people going to college and going to school,” he said. “It has a very bad impact on their life and I just think it’s time that we do something about it.”

Arizona voters approved the use of medicinal marijuana in 2010 for conditions such as chronic pain and cancer. More than 35,000 Arizonans participate in the program, which is overseen by the Department of Health Services.

Colorado and Washington are the only states to have legalized marijuana for recreational use. Lawmakers in 10 states have introduced bills to legalize marijuana for recreational use. All of those efforts have failed, O’Keefe said.

An April Pew Research Center poll found that for the first time since the 1960s, most Americans favor legalizing marijuana. The national survey found that 52 percent say marijuana should be made legal while 45 percent say it should not. Pew reported that support for legalizing marijuana has risen 11 points since 2010.

Republic reporter JJ Hensley contributed to this article.

Source -- http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/20130612personal-experience-spurs-effort-legalize-pot-recreational-use.html?nclick_check=1

Medical marijuana law passed by Jackson City Council prohibits dispensaries, allows for home use

JACKSON, MI – Jackson residents can again grow and use medical marijuana legally within the city – as long as they do so within their homes, and only 20 percent of their homes at that.

Jackson City Council members approved a new medical marijuana ordinance Tuesday, June 11, that allows for the growing and use of medical marijuana in only the primary residence of the qualifying patient or caregiver.

Under the ordinance, not more than 20 percent of the floor area in a home can be used for "medical marijuana home use."

Council members voted in favor of the ordinance after voting to repeal the city's temporary medical marijuana moratorium, which they extended for six months in December 2012.

Dispensaries are not permitted under the new regulation.

"I'm actually in favor of dispensaries," City Councilwoman Laura Dwyer Schlecte, 4th Ward, said before voting in favor of the ordinance. "But I'm not the State Supreme Court."

In February, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that dispensaries in the state that handle patient-to-patient sales of medicinal pot could be shut down as public nuisances. Shortly after the ruling, Jackson County Prosecutor Jerry Jarzynka ordered all 18 dispensaries in the county.

Schlecte headed a work group charged with drafting the ordinance.

The repealing of the moratorium and the establishment of the new ordinance both passed by a 5-2 margin. City Councilmen Daniel Greer, 3rd Ward, and Andrew Frounfelker, 5th Ward, voted against both measures.

Greer refused to comment on his decision. Frounfelker could not be reached for comment.

Roger Maufort is the president of the Jackson County Compassion Club, located within the city. The JCCC is a legal organization that provides patients a resource to understanding new marijuana laws and regulations.

Maufort said the city's ordinance is among other things "sloppy" and "unenforceable."

"There are a number of provisions within the ordinance that don't mesh with state law," he said. "I don't feel as though (council members and city attorneys) fully understand state law and subsequent cases."

Maufort took issue with a section of the ordinance that allows for tenants to grow and use medical marijuana as long as they have a notarized statement from their landlord approving the use.

"By asking your landlord to use medical marijuana, you're admitting you have a medical condition, which goes against a person's privacy rights," he said.

Maufort also takes issue with a provision that calls for "no highly explosive or combustible material" stored within the home of someone growing or using medical marijuana.

"What about gas for your lawnmower," he asked. "Why was that included at all? I don't get it. I'm pretty sure medical marijuana users also mow their lawns."

City Councilman Derek Dobies, 6th Ward, agrees with Maufort to a certain extent, and said the ordinance will be hard to enforce.

"That's why we created provisions like the '20 percent of a unit,'" he said. "We think it provides for a safe home, and directs people to not fill their house to the brim with marijuana plants."

The councilman worked with Schlecte on the city's medical marijuana work group.

Dobies said the new ordinance will likely have a grace period for residents to learn about the provisions in the law.

"Like the non-owner occupied registry, we'll be lenient initially," he said.

Any person found in violation of the ordinance could be punished with a fine of no more than $500 and the possibility of no more than 90 days of imprisonment. Each day that violation occurs constitutes a separate offense, according to the ordinance.

Source -http://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/index.ssf/2013/06/medical_marijuana_law_passed_b.html

Marijuana Stocks: How to Legally Invest in the Ultimate Cash Crop

The medical marijuana movement is the strongest it's ever been, with successful decriminalization in several states and strong progress in dozens of others.

With these changes has come greater public awareness of just how huge the medical marijuana business really is. In fact, it's so big that if the crop were grouped with other big-time agribusinesses, it would easily be the most valuable cash crop in the country -- worth more than corn and wheat combined.

With the cultivation and ongoing decriminalization of pot come new -- and legal! -- ways to invest in the trend.

But before you try to cash in on the ultimate cash crop, there are a few things you need to know.

Growing like a Weed

Over the past few decades (think back to the Reagan anti-drug days), cannabis has come out of the basement and all the way into the Oval Office. As the country has gained substantial momentum on other social issues, such as gay marriage, there is an enormous force behind legitimizing marijuana once and for all.

Supporters include an increasing number of politicians, such as Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), who is pressing Washington to stay away from states' individual marijuana policies.

A cannabis leaf graced the cover of a recent edition of Barron's, a leading, historically conservative financial magazine, which argued in favor of legalization of marijuana, stating that "Legalizing marijuana will hurt drug lords, help cash-strapped states, and ease burdens on police and prisons."

Such arguments in favor of legalization aren't new -- many have touted these arguments for decades -- but what's important is that legalization has become a bipartisan issue. Our country is fighting a war that seemingly nobody except the alcohol and tobacco lobbies (and Michael Bloomberg) believes in.

On a macro level, this would suggest that the business of marijuana is on the brink of a full-scale breakout. So, what's an opportunistic cannabis investor to do?

Your Guide to Pot Players

Before determining whether you should invest or not, let's identify the available publicly traded players.

For what's called a "pure play," there are the companies that actually make cannabinoid products, including Cannabis Science (CBIS), and Medical Marijuana (MJNA). The former is an early-stage company that uses cannabinoids for pharmaceuticals that treat autism, cancer, HIV, and other illnesses. Medical Marijuana makes cannabinoid-based products as well, in addition to servicing the industrial hemp market (an industry that goes well beyond marijuana and pharmaceutical purposes).

These stocks, both microcaps, have had periods of strong gains. But with those gains comes extreme volatility.

If you're looking for a more established, big player in the industry, you'll find it in Medbox (MDBX). Its $400 million market cap makes it the largest company in this space. Medbox does not cultivate or sell cannabis, but it builds the machines that dispensaries use to store the drug. The automated vending machines are specifically designed for "sensitive" drugs, keeping the drugs in tight control and sanitized up until delivery to the patient. They can either be used to diffuse medicine directly to a walk-up patient (with biometric ID), or in assisted living facilities, pharmacies, and other points of distribution.

Besides being the largest player by market cap, Medbox is also one of the few market darlings.
When MarketWatch.com recently recommended the company for investors looking for a pot play, the stock shot up nearly 400 percent almost instantly.

Please Read the Warning Label Before You Inhale

Regardless of the new momentum behind decriminalization (and in some places, recreational legalization) and the equity options available to investors, it's important to recognize that pot stocks are still highly speculative.

Let's start with Medbox's meteoric rise after the MarketWatch mention.

While the run-up might make pot-related stocks even more tempting to investors, what it actually illustrates is the volatility that plagues them. Even Medbox's CEO addressed the outrageous price spike, saying that the economics of his business had not materially changed from one moment to the next. Since Medbox's rocket to more than $200 per share, the stock has settled back down to around the $26 mark.

As for Cannabis Science and Medical Marijuana, both businesses are valued under $150 million (we're talking "penny stock" territory), making their stocks particularly susceptible to market-manipulating hype.

Medical Marijuana has, in the past 12 months, traded anywhere from 2 cents per share to 50 cents If you were to have bought the stock at the beginning of the year, your position would have gained 40 percent in value. But if you had added shares to your portfolio in the last three months, you'd be down 50 percent. Similarly, Cannabis Science is down nearly 30 percent year to date.

Another check mark in the "speculation" category is that there is still strong resistance to letting these companies integrate into the mainstream business world.

President Obama originally campaigned on more progressive laws regarding the drug. But he's adopted a more conservative stance on marijuana businesses. He reappointed Michele Leonhart as head of the DEA, who has used tactics that go as far as threatening criminal prosecution of state employees for implementing dispensary regulations. According to an article in Rolling Stone about the administration's war on pot, federal prosecutors in Washington state sent a letter to Gov. Christine Gregoire "warning that state employees 'would not be immune from liability under the Controlled Substances Act.'"

In Colorado, mainstream banks like Bank of America (BAC), Chase (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC) are shunning business from state-licensed dispensaries out of fear of federal prosecution for crimes like money laundering.

Politics aside, on a strict financial basis, the valuations for these companies are out of whack.

Medbox trades at a trailing P/E well over 1,000. Using management's projections for fiscal 2016's EBITDA, the stock's enterprise value trades at a premium of nearly 20 times. If all stays rosy for Medbox, that's not an unheard-of premium for a high-growth company, but "rosy" is not how one would describe the state of the industry.

And then there's the regulatory risk, which is simply tremendous.

The Smoke Hasn't Cleared Yet

In short, we just don't know enough about these businesses yet to make a low-risk investment. Does this mean you shouldn't look into Medbox or Cannabis Science? Not necessarily. But investors would need to treat the position as money taken to the casino -- speculative and expendable.

As time goes on, and politicians continue to be influenced by the more than 70 percent of our nation's population who believe pot should be legal for medical purposes, the marijuana industry will be seen more and more as a "legitimate" business. For opportunistic investors, there will be some incredible investing opportunities.

Pot stocks may someday be the new 3-D printing stocks. For now, though, just chill, dude.


source -- http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/06/12/marijuana-stocks-legally-invest/

Why Marijuana Stories Put Reporters in a Joking Mood

Read enough about marijuana legalization and you'll notice that journalists break out the reefer puns in full force.

Maybe it's that the old marijuana laws have gone "up in smoke." Or that pot is becoming a "budding" economic force. Or that law enforcement agencies are trying to "weed out" small-scale cannabis producers. There's no shortage of jokey one-liners when reporters are writing about herb.

It's not just high school newspapers that are doing the clowning. It's places like CBS News, CNN, New York Magazine and lots of others.

Pot jokes are not exactly a new news phenomenon -- Mediaite wrote about them in 2010 -- but they don't seem to be going away anytime soon.

So what's really behind the media's bud punning? I asked Ryan Vandrey, an associate professor at the John Hopkins University School of Medicine who studies the use of marijuana and nicotine. Here are some of the reasons we came up with:

A Lot of People Smoke It

Nearly half of Americans have tried smoking marijuana at one point or another, according to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press.

That means that if you slip a pot reference into a story, there's a pretty good chance your readers are going to know what you're talking about.

Even If You Don't Smoke It, You See It

Beyond firsthand experience, you're likely to come across the drug inmusic, movies and art.

That all contributes to the shared knowledge that we have about pot.

"Marijuana is so prevalent and ingrained in our culture and you have so many of those alternative terms that there is almost a language built around it," Vandrey said.

Journalists Have Strong Opinions About It

It doesn't matter who the reporters are or what outlets they work for -- stories still come tinged with the viewpoint of the people who write them. And Vandrey says that most of the journalism on marijuana seems to take a strong position over the value of the drug.

"You have people who think that marijuana is great and you have people who think it's awful, harmful stuff," he said. "And the truth of the matter is that it's somewhere in the middle."

Puns can be a way to belittle one side of the argument. And because reporters already come to the story with a strong angle, they might deploy language that comes across as less than neutral.

What's the Impact of All the Jokes?

Pot puns aren't necessarily a bad thing, according to Vandrey. It just depends on the intent of the writer.

"If they're using it to kind of make fun of or trivialize things, then that's not good," he said. "But if you're doing it just to catch a headline or just to kind of draw people's attention, and then you have a serious piece that follows it, I don't know, I could go either way on that."

Source -- http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/News/stories-marijuana-legalization-bring-bad-puns/story?id=19361689#.UbcC6ecwpSA

Medicinal use of cannabis legalised in France!

This announcement should create waves throughout Europe and the rest of the world: France, one of the most repressive countries in Europe in regard to cannabis, has just legalized the medicinal use of the substance! We will however have to wait for the sanctioned publication of this decree before officially celebrating this historical event.

Today, Friday 7th of June 2013, Decree n° 2013-473 of June 5th 2013 was published, modifying the dispositions of article R. 5132-86 of the Public Health Code related to the prohibition of operations linked to cannabis and its derivatives. Basically, article R. 5132-86 prohibited all non-industrial use of the cannabis plant. Exemptions to this needed to be granted by the General Director of the National Security Agency for Medicines and Health Products, which vary rarely happened.

The implementation of the law is left as the responsibility of the Minister of Social Affairs and Health Marisol Touraine, who will be ratifying the decree in the coming weeks. It is therefore not yet possible to determine the exact consequences of this decree for French patients who could enjoy the benefits of therapeutic cannabis.
Vigilance is however required, due to the mention of necessary authorisation before bringing a (cannabis) product onto the market so as not to be in violation of the law. This clause suggests that it will be difficult for organizations and patients themselves to produce their own medicinal cannabis despite the low costs related to its cultivation and processing.
It is above all a huge step forward for French patients already using cannabis to relieve the symptoms linked to their illnesses: to witness their drug of choice finally become legal in the eyes of the government.

Sensi Seeds has supported the development of medical marijuana across the world for many years and this news can be considered a victory for all activists who support a legislative change concerning cannabis.

A more detailed article will follow when the execution of the decree is officially published, to better understand and explore the impact of its implementation.

The cannabis plant, removed from the official pharmacopeia in 1953, is making its official comeback, 60 years later.

Source --

http://sensiseeds.com/en/blog/newsflash-medicinal-use-of-cannabis-legalised-in-france/

Best News post for today!!

Medicinal marijuana stops seizures, brings hope to a little Black Forest girl

Six-year-old Charlotte Figi, a picture of precious in her "Gatsby"-style bob and blue toenails, stands patiently as her mother reaches up her dress to change her out of her soiled Pull-Ups. - Charlotte never says a word. She hasn't in the past hour, and won't for at least another 30 minutes, when she finally whispers the name of a visitor who is about to leave.

In the Figi household, these are signs of progress: Charlotte saying something. Charlotte eating and drinking. Charlotte standing and walking.

Charlotte breathing.



About 18 months ago, in the winter of 2011, Paige and Matt Figi signed a "do not resuscitate" order telling medical personnel to forgo life-saving measures for their daughter and let fate take its course.

They'd done all they could to control the seemingly endless, violent seizures that hit Charlotte 20, 40, 60 times a day. They put her on an extreme diet. They tried at least a dozen medications, many with harmful side effects. Despite some promising starts, nothing worked. And the rescue medications they were giving her to stop the seizures in fact stopped her breathing. CPR brought her back to life more than once.

After years of watching a cruel, incurable genetic disorder called Dravet Syndome rob their daughter of her basic bodily functions and send her into convulsions that caused head injuries and broken teeth, they had reached the end.

"We really thought, this is a horrible existence; she's not going to live much longer." Paige says. "This is not a life for her. This is torture. She is suffering all day. I'm not OK with this. She wasn't even human anymore. She'd lie in my arms drooling, seizing, screaming and crying."

Then, in an act of desperation, or inspiration - or maybe both - Matt called Paige from overseas, where he was working, and suggested a radical approach to Charlotte's treatment.

"We need to try cannabis for Charlotte," he told Paige. "We live in a compassionate state."

Fifteen months later, the little girl with the DNR order is standing in the kitchen of their Black Forest home with her mother getting her Pull-Ups changed, cuddling in the arms of a visitor, playing with toys and strategically pushing the buttons on her "talker," an electronic device that communicates when Charlotte can't.

Her seizures have dropped from 1,200 a month to three, and the ones she has are shorter in duration and less severe. She's off all the other medications with their troubling side effects. And, as one of the youngest medical marijuana patients in Colorado, her dramatic turnaround is starting to draw national attention, with a CNN report on the horizon.

"Charlotte, when I first saw her more than a year ago, she was listless, really lying in her mother's arms. She did not speak, she could not walk," says Dr. Alan Shackelford of Denver, one of the two doctors who recommended medical marijuana for her. "And when I compare that child to the little girl who bounded into my office when I last saw her, and laughed and danced, it was a different human being who was there."

To Paige, there is no other explanation for the stunning reversal in Charlotte's condition than the marijuana.

"That plant is worth everything to me," Paige says.

Dozens of pediatric patients using 'Charlotte's Web' marijuana

"That plant" is a special strain of marijuana, cultivated at a Teller County grow business owned by six brothers who have been featured on the National Geographic Channel show "American Weed." The Stanley brothers breed the marijuana so it's super low in THC, the psychoactive component of pot that gets people high, but full of cannabidiol, or CBD, a component believed to be a key to the medicinal properties of marijuana.

The brothers named their low-THC, high-CBD strain "Charlotte's Web," a tribute to the success of their first pediatric patient.

"In six years, this is the only thing that has given us this type of success with no side effects," Paige says.

Charlotte doesn't smoke her medicine. The Stanley brothers harvest the plant, extract its cannabidoils, then have it lab-tested to confirm its THC and CBD levels. Then they mix the CBD into an olive oil solution, and Paige gives it to Charlotte two times a day, squirting a measured amount under her tongue with a syringe.

Since starting with Charlotte, the Stanleys have added about 40 more pediatric epileptic patients to their list of Charlotte's Web recipients, giving each a tailor-made tincture for just pennies.

"All of them responded well," says Joel Stanley. "Out of nearly 40, only one didn't see such a success that they weren't weaned from pharmaceutical medications, but the others are all off entirely, or are weaning off of them."

Despite Charlotte's turnaround, Paige, the Stanley brothers and Shackelford have one major frustration: No one who lives outside Colorado can get Charlotte's Web because of federal drug laws.

"I have phone calls from desperate parents in Georgia, Indiana, Norway, Sweden, a number of states in the U.S., from parents of children with severe, intractable seizure disorders who have basically run out of options," says Shackelford, who graduated from the University of Heidleburg in Germany and did his post-graduate medical training at Harvard. "They don't know where to turn now. They desperately want to be able to use marijuana to treat their children's seizures. 'How can I get it? Can you mail it?' Of course, all of that is impossible. It's highly illegal. It's frustrating."

'End of the line for medications'

Dravet Syndrome is the most severe form of a rare group of epilepsies tied to a mutation of the SCN1A gene. It typically starts in infancy, with seizures that seem to go on forever. Around age 2, Dravet patients start getting other types of seizures and regressing in their development, losing skills such as walking and talking.

Paige knows all that now, but she and her husband were in the dark when Charlotte - one half of a set of fraternal twins - had her first seizure in 2007 at the age of 3 months. She'd just had a bath, and her dad was changing her diaper.

"She was blue; she was seizing," Paige recalls.

Charlotte was taken to the ER, where she was intubated, but tests revealed nothing. Two weeks later, she had another "status" seizure, a term for one that lasts longer than 30 minutes. It was back to the ER, where doctors wanted to put her on medication. The Figis resisted and tried a few other things, but nothing worked. Every two weeks, always in the late morning, Charlotte would have another status seizure, including one that lasted four hours.

When Charlotte was 6 months old, the Figis put her on prescription medication, but figured it would be a short-term treatment. Doctors said Charlotte would likely grow out of the seizures.

"Everyone thought they were just going to go away, because she was progressing normally. She was a happy, normal kid," says Paige.

But the seizures continued, and the rescue medications used to stifle them also made Charlotte to stop breathing.

Then, at age 2 - right on target - the other types of seizures kicked in. To make matters worse, the Figis realized that while Charlotte's twin, Chase, was tooling along just fine on her developmental path, Charlotte was losing her ability to walk and talk, eat and drink. Paige had to use a syringe to get water into her mouth, and nurse her for sustenance - the only self-feeding Charlotte could still do.

"We started realizing that she wasn't just losing skills because she had a two-hour seizure," Paige recalls. "She had brain damage."

In her research, Paige learned about Dravet, but wasn't sure Charlotte had it. A trip to Chicago with Charlotte to see a specialist confirmed what Paige suspected.

"I think it was probably one of the worst answers, but I was relieved: We know what to work with."

Paige pushed for Charlotte to get the appropriate medications, and insisted on putting her on a strict high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet that required Paige to precisely weigh and measure foods and keep an Excel spreadsheet of data.

"So a meal would be like mayonnaise and oil, and a slice of grape and a hot dog," Paige says.

For awhile, the diet controlled the seizures, and Charlotte was even able to go drug-free for about three months. But there was a cost. The diet put Charlotte's body into an acidic state that caused bone loss and made her osteopenic. She was riddled with respiratory infections, ear infections, bladder infections.

And then, the seizures returned with a vengeance when Charlotte was 5. Adjusting the diet didn't work. The drug she'd been taking didn't work, even when doctors doubled the recommended dose. She was having 1,200 grand mal seizures a month, plus innumerable other types of seizures. Rescue meds were not an option.

"The doctor said, 'we've nearly reached the end of the line for medications," Paige says.

Charlotte was given some last-resort drugs, but those were hard on her liver, and they didn't stop the seizures.

It was about that time that Matt suggested medical marijuana.

Seizure-free with first dose of marijuana

Paige knew little about medical marijuana, and wasn't in the mood to learn more. She was essentially a single parent to Charlotte, Chase and son Max while Matt was overseas, and she was exhausted. She told him she didn't have time to battle the social stigma and line up the two doctors she needed to recommend marijuana for their daughter.

"It was like a mountain I didn't have the time or energy to climb," she says.

She wanted to wait for Matt to come home, but then "things got so scary, I decided it wasn't a choice."

Paige called every dispensary and grower she could find. She called doctors friendly to medical marijuana, but few wanted to take a chance treating a 5-year-old when there is little science behind its use on children. Only 35 of the 108,483 medical marijuana cardholders in Colorado are minors, and just five are under 10 years old.

"People were terrified to treat her," Paige says. "I kept pushing. I called everyone and said, 'Give me five more contacts.' I wouldn't get off the phone until they gave me more. And I eventually found what I was looking for: I found two doctors to sign for her and agree to treat her."

One was Dr. Margaret Gedde, a Stanford-educated doctor with a practice in Colorado Springs. The other was Shackelford.

Shackelford is an advocate of the medical properties of marijuana, and his knowledge of the topic is encyclopedic. Still, he says, he didn't blithely recommend it for Charlotte.

"When you ask, did I have any reluctance: Yes, clearly," he says. "In medicine - and I think this is important to mention - we physicians have to weigh potential benefits against potential risks. But we really don't know a lot about the effects of cannabis on children."

So he looked at Charlotte's case history, talked to her neurologist at Colorado Children's Hospital in Aurora. The prescription medications were apparently doing more harm than good. In doing his usual risk-benefit analysis of recommending any treatment, he fell on the side of marijuana.

"She'd had cardiac arrest, using the medications that had been prescribed for her to interrupt intractable seizures," Shackelford says. "In her case, it seemed worth a try."

Paige found a dispensary that sold a high-CBD, low-THC product. And it was lab-tested to gauge levels of CBC, THC, toxins and pesticides. She liked that.

"Most medical marijuana is not tested," she says.

That day, she bought $800 worth of cannabis, had a friend extract the CBD and mix it in olive oil, then had it retested at the lab.

In February 2012, Charlotte received her first dose of marijuana as the olive oil was placed under her tongue.

"She had seven days seizure-free, on just that first time." Paige says. "I was giving it to her three times a day. I was very scientific and methodical, and very conservative."

The seizures showed up again, and Paige increased the dose. It helped, but the marijuana was expensive. About two months after starting Charlotte on marijuana, she got a call from one of the people she had contacted a few months earlier in her frantic search for help.

"You really need to meet Joel Stanley," the contact told her.

Marijuana growers breed out THC

Coincidentally, the Stanleys had been working on a project to breed the psychoactive component of marijuana - THC - out of the plant to see how effective CBD might be without it. They weren't focusing on pediatric patients, but had read research that showed CBD's promise in treating medical problems that included muscle spasticity and cancer.

"There was a real good reason to be pursuing not just THC, but also CBD," Joel Stanley said, whose business also grows marijuana with higher levels of THC.

Paige contacted him, and liked him immediately.

"He's not a recreational user," she says. "He's very intelligent. He knew all the science behind it. He's the first person I met who knew what I was looking for."

The Stanleys began growing more of the plant, which tests at about 20 percent CBD and 0.5 percent THC - apparently the highest CBD marijuana in the world, Stanley believes.

In April 2012, the Stanleys also started the nonprofit Realm of Caring to promote medical marijuana research and make their products more accessible, especially to people who can't afford it. Now, low-THC, high-CBD marijuana makes up about 75 percent of the Stanleys' crop.

"We're not pharmacists," says Stanley, who graduated from Colorado Springs Christian Schools and started growing medical marijuana as a business venture with five of his brothers. "We don't have medical backgrounds, but we do work with more than 10 doctors on a regular basis for tracking and to understand what is happening. It is legitimate and viable in every way."

Paige began getting Charlotte's medication through the Realm of Caring network the same month it started, and she's become a convert to marijuana's power over Dravet. Charlotte is no longer on prescription medications, and the strain named after her has had no apparent side effects.

"The drugs that ever worked for her, the dose was so high. It was toxic on the liver," Paige says. "You might see some seizure control for some time, but she can't move, or walk or talk. It's amazing to me that this, with no negative side effects, is working."

Federal law means no clinical research

Paige, Stanley and Shackelford would love to see other children afflicted with Dravet or other pediatric epileptic disorders have access to Charlotte's Web.

But federal drug laws make it impossible, so desperate parents have been moving to Colorado - a pioneer state in the use of medical marijuana and where recreational marijuana use is now legal - to establish residency and get treatment for their sick kids.

"We have some people who have uprooted everything they know to move to Colorado, but not everyone can do that," Stanley says. "We get phone calls every day from people who are crying, asking if there is possibly any legal way to get this to them where they're at. They're at the end of their pharmaceutical rope."

Federal law categorizes marijuana as a Schedule I controlled substance, in the same category as heroin, LSD and methaqualone - substances deemed to have no acceptable medical use and a high potential for abuse. This bars any possibility of distributing Charlotte's Web beyond state lines, makes it nearly impossible for it to be tested in the type of large-scale clinical research that brings traditional prescription drugs to market, and even hampers a thorough understanding of how medical marijuana reduces seizures.

"It's kind of sad, but right now, when it comes to clinical trials and FDA-approved studies in the U.S., the government is not in a place where it's going to allow that to happen," Stanley says. "That's very frustrating. We wish we could grow it in the fields like we grow corn, and if we could, we could supply it to everybody who needs it."

So they have to rely on their own testing.

"It's not through an FDA-approved program, but does that make it less legitimate?" Stanley says. "We're doing everything we can scientifically to understand what this is, what it's doing, and every last compound in our medicine."

Catherine Jacobson, a Stanford University researcher and mother of a severely epileptic son, teamed with Brenda Porter on a small study of parents whose children are being treated with Charlotte's Web. According to their unpublished findings, 84 percent of the 19 parents who responded reported a reduction in the frequency of their children's seizures. More objective testing is needed, they conclude, but Jacobson would be willing to try Charlotte's Web now.

"While I think the drug might help my son, I don't have access to it here in California. So he continues to seize uncontrollably," she says in an email. "This is why Charlotte and all the other kids in Colorado are so lucky. No one else has access to that and these children continue to suffer despite there being a possible solution for them."

Life much calmer for the Figis now

Charlotte will always have Dravet, and with little in-depth research behind Charlottes' Web, there's no way to tell whether it will be effective in the long run, or what, if any, issues it may cause.

"That's why we're pushing for studies," Paige says.

But given how Charlotte was doing before, Paige and Matt Figi took the risk, and they're ecstatic with what the plant has done for their child and the other kids who are taking it. And Paige will take on anyone who raises an eyebrow about this unconventional treatment.

"Look, it's just factual what's happening with her," Paige says. "This is a working therapy. She's eating, drinking, sleeping all night - that's unheard of with these kids."



Charlotte's autism-like symptoms, most likely from the prescriptions she took, also have cleared.

"She used to just slam her head against the glass, rip her fingernails off, like there was pain inside of her," Paige says. "Now, she's just calm."

In fact, life is much calmer for the Figis since Charlotte started on her namesake medication. Her twin, Chase, struggled the worst with the upheaval in her home, Paige says.

"They were best friends; Chase lost her sister," Paige says. "When Charlotte was having seizures, they were loud and violent. Chase would come in, give her a kiss and say, 'OK, don't die tonight. Sweet dreams.' This is what is going through this little 5-year-old's head."

Now, Chase is more like a big sister who helps care for Charlotte. Max knows what to do if Charlotte seizes.

"They've had to grow up," Paige says.

As Paige recounts Charlotte's tale, the girl fiddles with her "talker." She gets it to say her name. She touches the screen again, and a song starts playing. It's "Amazing Grace."


Source -- http://gazette.com/gallery/articleid/1502070/1/pictures/216880

Picture -- Charlotte Figi scoops dirt from the medical marijuana plant that was named for her. Charlotte suffers from Dravet Syndrome and is using MMJ to control her seizures. Monday, May 27, 2013 Photo by Nichole Montanez, The Gazette