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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: 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]