Billy

As in previous stories we’ve shared, the battle for medical cannabis legality isn’t unique to the United States.  In Ireland, a fifteen-year-old young man named Billy Caldwell continues to suffer from refractory epilepsy.  For more than 3 years, his mother, Charlotte Caldwell has been waging a war against the Department of Health Northern Ireland.  

 

Back in 2017, when he was then 12, Billy was the first person in the UK to be prescribed cannabis oil, but last month, his General Practitioner was told he could no longer do so.  Desperate to get her son the medication at any cost, they traveled to Toronto to purchase the product, and upon their return to the UK, the medication was seized and Ms. Caldwell took her story to the airwaves with the press.  While on a treatment plan consisting of cannabis oil, her son had gone a remarkable 300 days without a single seizure.  After the medication was removed from her on Monday, Billy suffered a seizure the following day.  

While his mother attempted to go through proper channels, she was given repeated responses that while officials could sympathize, cannabis is a Schedule 1 drug and must be seized, and urged the family to explore options with the Department of Health Northern Ireland.  The Caldwell’s have continued to fight the healthcare system with the support of elected representatives to plead her case, and finally her efforts appear to be paying off after multiple years.  He has been referred to the Refractory Epilepsy Specialist Clinical Advisory Service, which provides a forum for the discussion of difficult cases that have proven hard to treat. Ms. Caldwell has taken legal action in a bid to secure long-term access to the medication.  Recently rules were relaxed to allow some cannabis-derived medicines to be prescribed to patients in the UK by specialist doctors in limited circumstances.

 

Ms. Caldwell said: “This gives new hope to children like Billy. It is beyond valuable to me to know that as long as Billy gets his cannabis oil every day he will be safe.  He won’t have a seizure. It feels like a safety blanket.”

Watch this news clip on cannabis and epilepsy

 

Watch the Video Here

Chuck’s Story

Ask Chuck Coburn and he’ll tell you that he’s a hippy.  Born in 1966, Chuck grew up in the south and every Sunday morning you were in church and being reminded vehemently about the importance of walking the straight and narrow path.  More than one pastor delivered the same message – marijuana is bad and will destroy you and your loving family will be heartbroken over your use of the “smoke.”  Like many of his generation, he said that the sad irony was that the plant wasn’t the enemy, nor the devil.  The men of influence and power, like the pastors, abused that power and that abuse took the form of fire and brimstone messaging about cannabis.

 

During the course of his adult years, he kept his use of cannabis a secret, while secretly confident that it kept him from losing his sanity when the terrors of high school were overwhelming him, but more importantly, it had the same calming effect when his father would drink and abuse his mother.  It was later in his life when he was given a diagnosis of Parkinson’s and additional health maladies.  Attempting to be candid with his doctors, he spoke of his severe anxiety and agreed to Klonopin use.  During subsequent visits to his doctor, he expressed his fear at the tolerance he was building to the drug and the increase in dosage he was having to employ in order to get the intended relief.  His doctor advised him to “take them as I said to.”  

 

He lost 102 pounds and nearly lost his life.  His wife, an RN, broached the topic of medical cannabis.  His thoughts returned to the admonitions of his pastors and the “devil’s weed.”  He asked himself, “where were THEY when I shook and cried from withdrawals resultant from the doctor recommended pharmaceuticals?”  

 

Today he uses Rick Simpson oil for tremors and buffers his anxiety.  He jokes that he can “hold a fork and wipe my butt without issue. To those of you out there who are confused, it’s possible to shake so much that cleaning your backside is impossible.”  The RSO gives him back his abilities and his life. 

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