Jacob Redmond
Well-Known Member
Five-year-old Paige Frate has never said "mama."
Developmentally, the Concord Township girl is more similar to a 2-year-old. She wakes often during the night, captive to frequent seizures that vary in length and intensity. She can have more than 100 seizures a day.
Each seizure could be the one that ends her life.
Paige has been prescribed dozens of drugs to reduce the seizures, but none have worked.
There's one drug that has reduced and, in some cases, eliminated the seizures that plague children like Paige with Dravet syndrome, a rare form of intractable epilepsy: marijuana.
But Paige's family and others with catastrophically ill children don't support Issue 3, the proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot to legalize marijuana in Ohio, or the group behind it, ResponsibleOhio.
Issue 3 would legalize marijuana use for adults age 21 and older. Children under age 21 could obtain marijuana for medical purposes with a recommendation from their doctor and under supervision of a guardian.
But all marijuana sold in Ohio could only come from 10 pre-selected grow sites, owned by investors bankrolling the initiative. Only one site has pledged to exclusively grow marijuana for medical use.
So these families worry Issue 3 would create a marijuana industry that puts profit above the needs of patients, and they say the language doesn't guarantee their children will receive the types and amounts of marijuana they need.
But without action from state lawmakers, many of these parents feel forced to vote for Issue 3 -- how could they vote against something that might benefit their children?
Marijuana As Medicine
Medical marijuana research is a Catch-22 -- marijuana is considered an illegal drug with few researched medical benefits, but researchers are unable to study marijuana because of its illegal status.
But 23 states have legalized marijuana for medical use, and anecdotal evidence abounds.
A strain called Charlotte's Web, named after a child with Dravet syndrome, has gained popularity in Colorado for reducing seizures in epileptic children. The strain has low amounts of THC, the component that gives users a high, and high amounts of cannabidiol, or CBD. An oil extract of the marijuana is ingested orally.
Last year, the wait list for Charlotte's Web exceeded 12,000 patients.
Kids who take Charlotte's Web are down to only a handful of seizures a day. They're walking, talking, riding horses, playing with friends.
Paige has never taken Charlotte's Web, but her mom, Kristina Frate, is certain cannabis would help her.
Frate said she knows several families who have been able to move to Colorado or other medical marijuana states, but not all can. Frate helps run Ohio Families CANN, a pro-marijuana group of families of catastrophically ill children.
Issue 3 would allow patients with certain "debilitating medical conditions," including seizure disorders, to purchase medical marijuana at wholesale if they obtain permission from a physician with whom they already have an established relationship.
Frate said her daughter's physicians support medical cannabis but are afraid to speak publicly about it because marijuana is an illegal substance.
"I should not have to leave my job, our friends, our family, and our doctors we've come to trust over numerous years just to obtain this medicine," Frate said.
ResponsibleOhio Concerns
Medical patients often need larger quantities of marijuana for it to be effective. Some conditions are better served by high-CBD, low-THC strains such as Charlotte's Web, which aren't as profitable for growers.
There's no requirement in Issue 3 that growers grow certain strains or amounts for medical patients.
"That makes it obvious to me that they're about being able to control their profit," said Nicole Scholten of Cincinnati. "Legalization does not equal medicine."
Scholten's 11-year-old daughter, Lucy, has cerebral palsy and suffers epileptic seizures everyday. The dozens of pharmaceutical medications she's tried haven't worked. Meanwhile, she's experienced a range of side effects -- one drug required Lucy to take supplementary oxygen.
Issue 3 also allows up to four flowering plants to be grown per household (with a $50 license), but Scholten said that won't help patients who need marijuana concentrates. The 10 commercial grow sites are also the only locations where chemicals can be extracted from marijuana to make concentrates for use in food products, lotions, and medicines. So even if medical patients grow cannabis at home, they couldn't extract the effective ingredients for medical purposes.
ResponsibleOhio spokeswoman Faith Oltman said Issue 3 will help families like the Scholtens while making it more difficult for other children to illegally obtain marijuana. The amendment requires commercial growers to sell to dispensaries medical marijuana "sufficient to satisfy patient demand for them in this state."
And after four years, the Marijuana Control Commission, a new regulatory agency, would evaluate supply and demand. If demand is not met, the commission could issue an additional commercial growing license.
"Growers are going to be required to meet the demand not only for the personal use market but the medical use market too," Oltman said. "Growers will be producing these strains and the types of marijuana that are associated with epilepsy."
ResponsibleOhio investor Alan Mooney raised some eyebrows earlier this year when video surfaced in which he pitched a"tsunami of money" to potential marijuana investors. But Mooney said in an interview that tending to ill children is the prime motivation behind his involvement.
Mooney said his Licking County marijuana farm, co-owned with Dayton physician Dr. Suresh Gupta, will only grow medical marijuana strains for patients and medical research.
"Physicians -- over a 1,000 of them -- have told me 'I'm scared to death I could lose my license for opening my mouth right now, but here's my money and I'm behind you,'" Mooney said.
Mooney highlighted a provision in the amendment calling for recreational marijuana tax revenues to help patients purchase medical marijuana. Mooney said he plans to build a $250 million research facility to produce new medicines.
"The potential is to to open the door to all of these things in a highly intelligent, adult, responsible way -- that's where we get the name," Mooney said.
Each of the 10 growing sites plans to start with 100,000 square feet of indoor space, eventually growing to 300,000 square feet. But even if all 10 sites grew medical marijuana, experts aren't convinced that would be enough space to meet medical patients' needs.
Washington state grower Boris Gorodnitsky said extraction labs would take up much of that space, leaving less than half for growing flowering plants that produce useable marijuana.
"You need room for aisles, processing, drying -- even with the most efficient space use, you're looking at half that facility to actual [grow space] and half of that to flowering plants -- that's not very much," Gorodnitsky said.
Gorodnitsky, who has been growing cannabis for medical use for 12 years, said actual demand would depend on how easy it is to obtain a doctor's certification.
Legislators Won't Legalize
A recent poll shows 84 percent of Ohioans support legalizing medical marijuana. Scholten and Frate said lawmakers could stop Issue 3 by passing medical marijuana legislation before Election Day.
But Republican leaders who control both chambers of the General Assembly say Ohio lawmakers have no plans to legalize marijuana use before then and will continue to support Issue 2, a legislature-sponsored constitutional amendment to block monopolies from being added to the Ohio Constitution.
And medical marijuana advocates won't have much help from Gov. John Kasich, now a GOP presidential candidate, who said he opposed legalization while on the campaign trail earlier this month.
"He will do anything within legal means to help, but he doesn't feel that medical marijuana is the answer," Kasich spokesman Joe Andrews said. "He's been told by physicians there are other means of helping outside of marijuana."
Ohio Families CANN has hired a lobbyist to help change hearts and minds in the Statehouse -- former state representative Lynn Wachtmann.
Wachtmann, a conservative Republican, opposed marijuana legalization bills when he served as the chairman of the House Health and Aging Committee. Wachtmann still opposes legalizing recreational marijuana, but said lawmakers should move quickly to authorize a medical marijuana pilot program.
ResponsibleOhio "is on a different mission than we are and I think there's even potential -- though hard to know for sure -- that it could set us back with these families," Wachtmann said. "Smoking pot or eating brownies -- that's not what these kids need. These kids need research on what parts of the plant, if any, can help them."
Legislation that would have legalized high-CBD, low-THC marijuana stalled in the Ohio House, and the bill's sponsor said he doesn't plan to push it further. Rep. Wes Retherford, a Republican, said the goal of his bill was to allow children's hospitals to research the substance.
Meanwhile, Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus was awarded a federal grant to participate in a clinical trial for Epidiolex, a pharmaceutical form of CBD derived from cannabis.
Retherford said the trial achieves his goal and marijuana should go through the same research and trial process as other drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
"What's happening [in Colorado] is a giant clinical trial," Retherford said. "They're playing with doses. Let the research be done on it."
Kristina Frate said Paige is on the waiting list for the Epidiolex trial, but it doesn't solve the problem. Frate said like prescription drugs, marijuana strains are not one-size-fits-all, and some children might need THC or other components from the plant.
"Our families don't have time," Frate said. "The meds our children take today are not FDA approved for their age, so for them to sit back and say this needs to be studied is ludicrous."
News Moderator: Jacob Redmond 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Parents Question Whether Issue 3 Will Meet Children's Medical Marijuana Needs
Author: Jackie Borchardt
Contact: Email The Author
Photo Credit: John Kuntz/Northeast Ohio Media Group
Website: Cleveland News
Developmentally, the Concord Township girl is more similar to a 2-year-old. She wakes often during the night, captive to frequent seizures that vary in length and intensity. She can have more than 100 seizures a day.
Each seizure could be the one that ends her life.
Paige has been prescribed dozens of drugs to reduce the seizures, but none have worked.
There's one drug that has reduced and, in some cases, eliminated the seizures that plague children like Paige with Dravet syndrome, a rare form of intractable epilepsy: marijuana.
But Paige's family and others with catastrophically ill children don't support Issue 3, the proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot to legalize marijuana in Ohio, or the group behind it, ResponsibleOhio.
Issue 3 would legalize marijuana use for adults age 21 and older. Children under age 21 could obtain marijuana for medical purposes with a recommendation from their doctor and under supervision of a guardian.
But all marijuana sold in Ohio could only come from 10 pre-selected grow sites, owned by investors bankrolling the initiative. Only one site has pledged to exclusively grow marijuana for medical use.
So these families worry Issue 3 would create a marijuana industry that puts profit above the needs of patients, and they say the language doesn't guarantee their children will receive the types and amounts of marijuana they need.
But without action from state lawmakers, many of these parents feel forced to vote for Issue 3 -- how could they vote against something that might benefit their children?
Marijuana As Medicine
Medical marijuana research is a Catch-22 -- marijuana is considered an illegal drug with few researched medical benefits, but researchers are unable to study marijuana because of its illegal status.
But 23 states have legalized marijuana for medical use, and anecdotal evidence abounds.
A strain called Charlotte's Web, named after a child with Dravet syndrome, has gained popularity in Colorado for reducing seizures in epileptic children. The strain has low amounts of THC, the component that gives users a high, and high amounts of cannabidiol, or CBD. An oil extract of the marijuana is ingested orally.
Last year, the wait list for Charlotte's Web exceeded 12,000 patients.
Kids who take Charlotte's Web are down to only a handful of seizures a day. They're walking, talking, riding horses, playing with friends.
Paige has never taken Charlotte's Web, but her mom, Kristina Frate, is certain cannabis would help her.
Frate said she knows several families who have been able to move to Colorado or other medical marijuana states, but not all can. Frate helps run Ohio Families CANN, a pro-marijuana group of families of catastrophically ill children.
Issue 3 would allow patients with certain "debilitating medical conditions," including seizure disorders, to purchase medical marijuana at wholesale if they obtain permission from a physician with whom they already have an established relationship.
Frate said her daughter's physicians support medical cannabis but are afraid to speak publicly about it because marijuana is an illegal substance.
"I should not have to leave my job, our friends, our family, and our doctors we've come to trust over numerous years just to obtain this medicine," Frate said.
ResponsibleOhio Concerns
Medical patients often need larger quantities of marijuana for it to be effective. Some conditions are better served by high-CBD, low-THC strains such as Charlotte's Web, which aren't as profitable for growers.
There's no requirement in Issue 3 that growers grow certain strains or amounts for medical patients.
"That makes it obvious to me that they're about being able to control their profit," said Nicole Scholten of Cincinnati. "Legalization does not equal medicine."
Scholten's 11-year-old daughter, Lucy, has cerebral palsy and suffers epileptic seizures everyday. The dozens of pharmaceutical medications she's tried haven't worked. Meanwhile, she's experienced a range of side effects -- one drug required Lucy to take supplementary oxygen.
Issue 3 also allows up to four flowering plants to be grown per household (with a $50 license), but Scholten said that won't help patients who need marijuana concentrates. The 10 commercial grow sites are also the only locations where chemicals can be extracted from marijuana to make concentrates for use in food products, lotions, and medicines. So even if medical patients grow cannabis at home, they couldn't extract the effective ingredients for medical purposes.
ResponsibleOhio spokeswoman Faith Oltman said Issue 3 will help families like the Scholtens while making it more difficult for other children to illegally obtain marijuana. The amendment requires commercial growers to sell to dispensaries medical marijuana "sufficient to satisfy patient demand for them in this state."
And after four years, the Marijuana Control Commission, a new regulatory agency, would evaluate supply and demand. If demand is not met, the commission could issue an additional commercial growing license.
"Growers are going to be required to meet the demand not only for the personal use market but the medical use market too," Oltman said. "Growers will be producing these strains and the types of marijuana that are associated with epilepsy."
ResponsibleOhio investor Alan Mooney raised some eyebrows earlier this year when video surfaced in which he pitched a"tsunami of money" to potential marijuana investors. But Mooney said in an interview that tending to ill children is the prime motivation behind his involvement.
Mooney said his Licking County marijuana farm, co-owned with Dayton physician Dr. Suresh Gupta, will only grow medical marijuana strains for patients and medical research.
"Physicians -- over a 1,000 of them -- have told me 'I'm scared to death I could lose my license for opening my mouth right now, but here's my money and I'm behind you,'" Mooney said.
Mooney highlighted a provision in the amendment calling for recreational marijuana tax revenues to help patients purchase medical marijuana. Mooney said he plans to build a $250 million research facility to produce new medicines.
"The potential is to to open the door to all of these things in a highly intelligent, adult, responsible way -- that's where we get the name," Mooney said.
Each of the 10 growing sites plans to start with 100,000 square feet of indoor space, eventually growing to 300,000 square feet. But even if all 10 sites grew medical marijuana, experts aren't convinced that would be enough space to meet medical patients' needs.
Washington state grower Boris Gorodnitsky said extraction labs would take up much of that space, leaving less than half for growing flowering plants that produce useable marijuana.
"You need room for aisles, processing, drying -- even with the most efficient space use, you're looking at half that facility to actual [grow space] and half of that to flowering plants -- that's not very much," Gorodnitsky said.
Gorodnitsky, who has been growing cannabis for medical use for 12 years, said actual demand would depend on how easy it is to obtain a doctor's certification.
Legislators Won't Legalize
A recent poll shows 84 percent of Ohioans support legalizing medical marijuana. Scholten and Frate said lawmakers could stop Issue 3 by passing medical marijuana legislation before Election Day.
But Republican leaders who control both chambers of the General Assembly say Ohio lawmakers have no plans to legalize marijuana use before then and will continue to support Issue 2, a legislature-sponsored constitutional amendment to block monopolies from being added to the Ohio Constitution.
And medical marijuana advocates won't have much help from Gov. John Kasich, now a GOP presidential candidate, who said he opposed legalization while on the campaign trail earlier this month.
"He will do anything within legal means to help, but he doesn't feel that medical marijuana is the answer," Kasich spokesman Joe Andrews said. "He's been told by physicians there are other means of helping outside of marijuana."
Ohio Families CANN has hired a lobbyist to help change hearts and minds in the Statehouse -- former state representative Lynn Wachtmann.
Wachtmann, a conservative Republican, opposed marijuana legalization bills when he served as the chairman of the House Health and Aging Committee. Wachtmann still opposes legalizing recreational marijuana, but said lawmakers should move quickly to authorize a medical marijuana pilot program.
ResponsibleOhio "is on a different mission than we are and I think there's even potential -- though hard to know for sure -- that it could set us back with these families," Wachtmann said. "Smoking pot or eating brownies -- that's not what these kids need. These kids need research on what parts of the plant, if any, can help them."
Legislation that would have legalized high-CBD, low-THC marijuana stalled in the Ohio House, and the bill's sponsor said he doesn't plan to push it further. Rep. Wes Retherford, a Republican, said the goal of his bill was to allow children's hospitals to research the substance.
Meanwhile, Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus was awarded a federal grant to participate in a clinical trial for Epidiolex, a pharmaceutical form of CBD derived from cannabis.
Retherford said the trial achieves his goal and marijuana should go through the same research and trial process as other drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
"What's happening [in Colorado] is a giant clinical trial," Retherford said. "They're playing with doses. Let the research be done on it."
Kristina Frate said Paige is on the waiting list for the Epidiolex trial, but it doesn't solve the problem. Frate said like prescription drugs, marijuana strains are not one-size-fits-all, and some children might need THC or other components from the plant.
"Our families don't have time," Frate said. "The meds our children take today are not FDA approved for their age, so for them to sit back and say this needs to be studied is ludicrous."
News Moderator: Jacob Redmond 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Parents Question Whether Issue 3 Will Meet Children's Medical Marijuana Needs
Author: Jackie Borchardt
Contact: Email The Author
Photo Credit: John Kuntz/Northeast Ohio Media Group
Website: Cleveland News
