My eight-year-old daughter needs medical marijuana, says Mark Elliott
WITH all medical options closed in Australia, Mark Elliott will go to jail if he uses medical marijuana to treat his daughter’s life-threatening epilepsy.
IMAGINE, for a moment, watching your child suffer through dozens of seizures a week.
Through the pain, the indignity, the fear.
Then imagine hearing of a treatment sanctioned overseas that has worked wonders for children with epilepsy as serious as your little girl’s, so serious that conventional treatments and drugs offer little help. It has brought them back to life.
Then imagine being told that if you use it you will go to jail.
This is Mark Elliott’s reality.
His daughter, Charlotte, 8, has febrile infection-related epileptic syndrome (FIRES) and at her worst can suffer through up to 40 seizures a week.
He is campaigning for the use of medical marijuana — in the form of Cannabidiol, which has been distilled from the plant and has no psychoactive properties — to be legalised in South Australia.
“It has been proven to reduce seizures where other medicines have been found to be ineffective,’’ Mr Elliott said.
“There are studies coming out of the US, where it is legalised in some states, that show this, including one girl who went from having 300 seizures a week to two or three a month.”
Charlotte currently takes a cocktail of medications to try to ease her seizures and surgery is not an option.
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Because of the intensity of the seizures, children are often left with learning disabilities, behavioural disorders, memory issues, or an inability to move. Sometimes they die.
Mr Elliott wants to give his daughter a chance at life.
He is advocating for local clinical trials of medical marijuana through a hospital, university, or pharmaceutical company.
“I’m looking overseas at the moment for evidence as local neurologists are noncommittal because of the legalities around it,’’ Mr Elliott said.
“One of the common arguments against medical cannabis, is that there is no medical evidence to show what the negative effects of medical cannabis use are.
“But we are expected to give our kids chemically produced medications which have awful known side-effects.
“In Charlotte’s case, her meds cause mood swings, body hair growth, facial deformities, sedation, impaired memory, slurred speech, decreased coordination, confusion, dizziness, headaches.
“In Charlotte’s case, and many other cases, chemically produced anti-seizure medications have not stopped her seizures.
“Most people end up going underground to get it.”
This was the case with Victorian mum Cheri O’Connell who resorted to the illicit substance to treat her severely epileptic daughter, Tara, who was having up to 60 seizures a day and was close to death.
One year on and the eight-year-old is seizure free and doctors at one of Victoria’s leading hospitals have acknowledged the “remarkable improvements”.
Health experts continue to frown on the use of the marijuana plant, but believe it is time doctors consider prescribing laboratory-created, cannabis-based medications.
Dr Scott Smid, from the University of Adelaide, said using cannabis “in its basic form” meant practitioners did not know the strength of the compound.
“It’s much safer, and it can be prescribed in a much more controlled environment, if practitioners had access to pharmaceutical preparations (of cannabis),” he said.
“They could then make that available on a limited and controlled basis to patients that might have particular diseases that those preparations might be useful in treating.
“If there is going to be a debate about the use of cannabis-related medicines in Australia and greater access, it should focus more on those (prescriptions) than homegrown marijuana.”
Professor Jason White, head of pharmacy and medical sciences at UniSA, agreed Australia needed to consider the use of medicinal cannabis.
“I think we should be looking seriously at the cannabis-based medications that have been developed by pharmaceutical companies overseas,” he said.
Dr Smid said there was a lack of “good, proper, rigorous clinics evidence” as to cannabis’ ability to treat pain.
“(Even so, prescriptions) are available outside of Australia and they have been used to treat particular types of pain conditions,” he said.
“We should do our own trials with pharmaceutical preparations.
“I wouldn’t advocate for the access to medical marijuana, more so I’d advocate for greater access to these pharmaceutical preparations in clinical controlled trials.”
FACTS ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA
MARIJUANA is used to treat conditions including glaucoma, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, arthritis and asthma.
THE use or cultivation of cannabis is illegal in South Australia regardless of medical issues.
IN the United States, 20 States including Colorado, California, Alaska and Hawaii permit it with a doctor’s recommendation.
A MEDICAL marijuana TV ad broke new ground during the week when it was aired by the biggest cable TV provider in the US. It will be played 800 times during its two week run.
IN 1987, South Australia was the first state to decriminalise minor cannabis offences. The possession of up to 100g of marijuana, 20g of hash (the resin from the cannabis plant), one non-hydroponic plant or cannabis smoking equipment leads to a fine from $50 to $150 with 60 days to expiate.
DECRIMINALISATION is not the same as legalising. People who do not pay the expiation fine face a criminal conviction if they go to court and are found guilty.
IN South Australia, Opposition substance abuse spokesman Duncan McFetridge is campaigning to reduce the amount of cannabis for which a person receives only a fine — and is not charged — from 100g to less than 25g. Carrying more than 25g would become a criminal offence.
FAMILY First MLC Dennis Hood wants to increase the maximum penalties for growing up to five plants from $1000 to $2000 and up to 19 plants from $2000 to $10,000.