TEDx Talk: The Surprising Story of Medical Marijuana and Paediatric Epilepsy
by Special-K 27/05/2015This TEDx Talk is about a case in the US that you might have already heard of. Her story was one of the first I'd heard about children being treated with cannabis for rare and fatal forms of epilepsy. It's one that I've seen shared many times but too many people still haven't heard about it.
Josh Stanley, of the Stanley Brothers from Colorado, talks about his inspiring story of meeting Charlotte Figi and her parents and their fight for medicinal cannabis for children. It's an emotional journey following the tale of how a strain of cannabis high in CBD and low in THC has helped Charlotte go from having 400 seizures a week and being fed by a tube through her belly to just 0 - 1 seizures a week and getting back her mobility and life again.
Cannabis is made up of hundreds of chemicals called, including but not exclusive of, cannabinoids, flavinoids, and terpenes. The cannabinoids each have been found to have different healing effects on our bodies although research has been limited due to the classification of cannabis holding back legitimate research into it's health benefits. THC and CBD are the two most common and main active cannabinoids found in cannabis and it seems that CBD has been showing great promise as a neuroprotector and also seems it could help repair brain function.
Here in the UK there seems to be HUGE doubt amongst the general public and even the cannabis community about the efficacy of cannabis as a medicine. It's proving difficult all over the world to really drive home that some people really need cannabis to live. That without cannabis they will die. This is fact and is a stark reality for many people all over the world. Now, imagine one of your children was one of these people that needed cannabis to live. Would you abide by the law and let your child suffer? Would you break the law and stand up for your child's right to health and life?
There are millions of victims of prohibition who do not have a voice. These children battling fatal diseases are one of them.
This touching talk from Hugh Hempel at the University of Nervada is about his journey into treating his terminally ill daughters with cannabis. His daughters suffer from a rare and fatal neurodegenerative disease called Niemann Pick Type C, often referred to as “Childhood Alzheimer's”. It helps to shine a light on why access to medicinal cannabis in the UK is so important and should be being brought into the spot light.
Please, if you can, help share these children's stories. We have thousands of children suffering similar fates in the UK where cannabis is still completely prohibited with no medicinal access at all.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta from CNN used to be against the medicinal benefits of cannabis until he realised he had been lied to.
He presents this well informed and researched documentary on the medicinal benefits of cannabis and how it needs to be reclassified. It also takes a look at some real life cases of cannabis treating some life threatening conditions.
If you're wanting to learn more about medicinal cannabis from a balanced point of view, then this is a great place to start.
If you're a medicinal cannabis user in Swansea, why not come and say hi in our private forums? We'd love to hear your story and how cannabis has helped you. Check out our medicinal cannabis forums here.
The Science of Cannabis Documentary
by Special-K 26/04/2014 Cannabis Documentary Medical Cannabis DocumentaryI spend a lot of my time watching cannabis documentaries and news pieces and thought it would be great to give you guys a place to easily find informative videos on the facts about cannabis so you can educate yourselves and see just how warped main stream media makes the issue of cannabis legalisation.
The Science of Cannabis documentary is fairly new created by youtube user "endpotprohibition" and combines footage from other well known cannabis documentaries such as Dr Sanjay Gupta's Weed and Weed2 documentaries but provides good relevant scientific studies to help back up the claims made in the documentaries. It pulls out some of the most important facts and science behind why cannabis was made illegal and why it really shouldn't be. It's 19mins long and is a very informative and concise video. I highly recommend watching and sharing.
For those interested all the references for the video are below.
References:
420PTown nugs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_rKl...
Blumenauer: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/...
Ahmad, S. R., Karwoski, C., Nourjah, P., & Willy, M. (2006). Estimates of acetaminophen (Paracetomal)-associated overdoses in the United States. Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf, 15(6), 398-405.
Alcohol: http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheet...
Allensworth-Davies, D., Cheng, D. M., Fuster, D., Palfai, T. P., Saitz, R., & Samet, J. H. (2013). No detectable association between frequency of marijuana use and health or healthcare utilization among primary care patients who screen positive for drug use. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 29(1), 133-139. doi:10.1007/s11606-013-2605-z
Alpert, K. I., Barch, D. M., Breiter, H. C., Cobia, D. J., Cronenwett, W. J., Csernansky, J. G., ... & Wang, L. (2013). Cannabis-related working memory deficits and associated subcortical morphological differences in healthy individuals and schizophrenia subjects. Schizophrenia Bulletin. doi:10.1093/schbul/sbt176
Amedee, A. M., Auten, M. W., Birke, L. L., Chandra, L. C., LaMotte, L., LeCapitaine, N. J., ... Zabaleta, J. (2014). Modulation of gut-specific mechanisms by chronic Δ9-thc administration in male rhesus macaques infected with simian immunodeficiency virus: A systems biology analysis. AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses, 30(0), 1-12. doi:10.1089/aid.2013.0182
American Association for Cancer Research: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/07
Bava, S., Frank, L. R., Jacobus, J., McQueeny, T., Schweinsburg, B. C., Tapert, S. F., & Yang, T. T. (2009). White matter integrity in adolescents with histories of marijuana use and binge drinking. Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 31(6), 349-355. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ntt.2009....
Buettner, H., Mittleman, M. A., & Penner, E. A. (2013). The impact of marijuana use on glucose, insulin, and insulin resistance among US adults. The American Journal of Medicine, 126(7), 583-589. doi:10.1016/j.amjmed.2013.03.002
Burnett/Gupta CNN: http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/vid...
Cannabis National Cancer Institute:http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pd...
Chang, S., Cox, B., Hung, R. J., Lazarus, P., Liu, G., Morgenstern, H., ... Zhang, Z. (2013). Cannabis smoking and lung cancer risk: Pooled analysis in the International Lung Cancer Consortium. American Association for Cancer Research.
Tylenol: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/201...
Davis, C., & Thomas, G. (2009). Cannabis, tobacco and alcohol use in Canada: Comparing risks of harm and costs to society. Visions Journal, 5(4), 11, 13.
Prescriptions: http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/canada-...
Gupta: http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/vid...
Gupta doc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrVXR...
MS: http://www.thestar.com/life/2012/05/1...
Autism: http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/vid...
Teen brains: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12...
PBS doc: http://watch.montanapbs.org/video/182...
IQ: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08...
Parliament of Canada drugs:http://www.parl.gc.ca/content/sen/com...
Tobacco: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hc-ps/tobac-ta...
Lungs: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01...
Cancer: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/h...
Tobacco: http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_stati...
Overdoses: http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2012/0...
Ware, M. A. (2013). Cannabis and the lung: No more smoking gun? Annals of the American Thoracic Society, 10(3), 248. doi:10.1513/AnnalsATS.201302-034ED