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from the smoking-stopped-son's-seizures-so-son-siezed dept.
They Let Their 15-Year-Old Son Smoke Pot to Stop His Seizures. Georgia Took Him Away. (archive)
The pharmaceuticals weren't working. The 15-year-old boy was having several seizures per day, and his parents were concerned his life was in danger. So Suzeanna and Matthew Brill, of Macon, Ga., decided in February to let their son try smoking marijuana — and his seizures stopped for 71 days, they say.
The Brills' decision led to the boy, David, being taken away from his parents, who face possible fines and jail time after being charged with reckless conduct for giving him the drug. David has now been in a group home for 30 days, and his seizures have returned. He is separated from the service dog that sniffed out his seizures, and he is able to communicate with his parents only during short visitations and phone calls.
They maintain they made the right decision for their son's health, despite their current predicament. "Even with the ramifications with the law, I don't care," said Mr. Brill, his stepfather. "For 71 days he was able to ride a bike, go play, lift weights. We were able to achieve that with David medicated not from Big Pharma, but David medicated with marijuana."
The Brill parents were jailed on April 20, and posted bond on April 25.
Since The New York Times published the article, Twiggs County Sheriff Darren Mitchum has received media attention and threatening phone calls, one of which he played back for reporters at a press conference.
(Score: 4, Touché) by takyon on Friday June 01 2018, @10:23PM (17 children)
Why? It's better than alcohol, heroin, jenkem, sniffing glue, etc. Maybe get that heart condition checked out.
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(Score: 3, Funny) by RandomFactor on Friday June 01 2018, @11:58PM (1 child)
Damn you...I had to go Google and read about jenkem. That's just nasty.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by leftover on Sunday June 03 2018, @01:07AM
Holy shit!!!
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 2) by digitalaudiorock on Saturday June 02 2018, @12:33AM (5 children)
Exactly...and I'm getting pretty tired of the decades-old myth that marijuana is addictive. Bull-fucking-shit. There's simply no such thing as a physical dependency to it, and I'd argue that you can only say it's "addictive" to the same degree that anything can be, including chocolate cake.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday June 02 2018, @05:12AM (4 children)
Err, chocolate cake is actually physically addicting, at least if made with real cocoa. Chocolate is similar to caffeine, including being physically addicting and legal though there was a movement to illegalize it at the end of the 19th century and it has been bred for weakness ever since the Catholics showed up in Central America.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday June 02 2018, @09:25AM (3 children)
Since you brought this up, do you know if there is any successful effort to cultivate the more addictive/stronger varieties of the cocoa bean?
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(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday June 02 2018, @04:18PM (2 children)
Interesting question that I wish I could answer but I've never heard of a breeding program to make stronger cocoa.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday June 02 2018, @04:25PM (1 child)
Or alternatively, locate the seeds of the lost varieties. They could remain viable even after centuries, or contain enough DNA to be copied.
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(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday June 02 2018, @06:12PM
Not very likely to be viable. Not many seeds stay viable even for decades (buttercup seeds in the seed bank (soil) can be viable for 30 years) unless under perfect conditions. DNA perhaps.
Quickly searching, it seems some old strains still exist in Trinidad and are being cloned, sequenced and such. See https://sta.uwi.edu/cru/wbdm_ancientcocoa.asp [uwi.edu]
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Saturday June 02 2018, @04:30AM (4 children)
Why do people start using drugs? In high school lots of people tried to push it on me but I never had any desire. One of two people in my graduating class to never do anything (alcohol/tobacco/etc) during my time in school. Never really understood the whole thing. I am not and was not religious or told not to by my parents, just never saw the desire to affect my ability to think or mess with my brain chemistry.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday June 02 2018, @04:39AM
Been wondering the exact same thing for as long as you have. I'll drink once or twice a year, usually on Lunar New Year and my birthday, but never to excess. It's somewhere between mystifying and frightening that people want to mess their heads up like that...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday June 02 2018, @04:43AM
Not all drugs are created equal...
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by dry on Saturday June 02 2018, @05:15AM
Because life is shitty and they want to escape. Most animals are the same, when the stress is too high, they'll self medicate if given the chance.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday June 02 2018, @04:47PM
For many people, their inhibitions reduce their ability to enjoy themselves. Alcohol reduces inhibitions, thus allowing people to have more fun.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by mobydisk on Tuesday June 05 2018, @09:59PM
Because it is a stinky nasty habit with negative health consequences. Really, smoking anything is bad. Better if we can find another delivery mechanism. Although I'd settle for marijuana that doesn't stink. That alone would be a world-changing breakthrough.
(Score: 2) by mobydisk on Wednesday June 13 2018, @09:29PM (2 children)
So if i said "It would break my hear to see my child stabbing himself" would you reply with "Why? It's better than shooting himself." There's better ways to get medicine than smoking it in a stinky weed. There is the potential for THC to be 10x more effective, at a lower dose, without the side-effects. But your snarky response successfully shut down that entire avenue of discussion.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday June 13 2018, @10:30PM (1 child)
Irrelevant.
"Fragrant weed".
The potential, and the discussion has been constrained by a decades-long failed government policy that needs immediate reversal for more than just medical reasons. There isn't much to discuss here that hasn't been mentioned a million times on SoylentNews or elsewhere.
You want effective treatments without "stink" or even getting high (CBD)? Get the plant descheduled. Not on Schedule 2 or 3, just off completely. Then you will see a lot more of the research you want to see, with much larger sample sizes.
Given the safety profile of this drug, parents should be able to permit their seizure-prone kids to use any delivery method for at least the next 2-3 decades while scientists figure out what other compounds in the full plant are involved in reducing the seizures. Kids can also vape rather than smoke it. Apparently, edibles have been used for this purpose too.
Is it ideal that parents/patients have to guess at an effective course of treatment or experiment with different forms of it? No, but that's how it's going to be for many years. People can figure out if the dose/delivery reduces seizures from hundreds per month to zero, and there is no overdosing.
Back to what I originally responded to. I just have this image of you keeling over and sobbing in the moment you find your kid's pot stash. Really? Maybe save that reaction for finding a pack of cigarettes or the other substances listed.
Astoundingly, cannabis has not been linked to a significant increase in lung cancer or COPD, despite researchers with government grants looking for such negative effects. That could change in the future, but as of right now it is in a different class altogether than tobacco. By the time a type of cancer is conclusively linked to cannabis smoke, we might have nanobots that can cure most cancers without surgery. And then we can wipe the tears away.
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(Score: 2) by mobydisk on Thursday June 14 2018, @03:27PM
Agreed. That was the kind of reply I was hoping for from my original post.