NJ to allow medical marijuana for kids. Safety still under debate
NBC News
Parents who believe their sick children would be helped by medical marijuana won a partial victory in New Jersey Friday. Using a conditional veto, Gov. Chris Christie modified a bill to allow prescriptions of edible medical marijuana for children. Parents of qualifying children will need the approval of two doctors, a pediatrician and a psychiatrist, at least one of whom must be enrolled in the state’s programa
New Jersey isn't the first state to allow medical marijuana prescriptions children. Eighteen states, plus Washington, D.C., allow use of medical marijuana. A number of them provide prescriptions to children, with parental supervision, to treat a host of ills, ranging from autism to cancer to seizures. However, not all doctors, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, support medical marijuana prescriptions for children.
In July, NBC chief medical editor Dr. Nancy Synderman reported that some doctors are concerned the remedy hasn't been clinically tested and could have long-term side effects.
About those concerns:
Medical marijuana for kids? Some praise results while others worry about risks
Zaki Jackson was 6 months old when doctors diagnosed him with a form of epilepsy so severe that it sparked as many as 250 seizures a day.
For years his mom, Heather Jackson, feared for his life. “He would stop breathing,” she told NBC chief medical editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman. “All the air leaves his lungs and he does not take another breath until that seizure is over.”
After 10 years and 17 medications, Zaki wasn’t getting any better. Then, finally, his doctor wrote a prescription for a medication that calmed the electrical storms in Zaki’s brain. The surprise was that it wasn’t for a standard anti-seizure medication -- it was a prescription for marijuana.
Zaki’s case isn’t unusual as it may seem. Eighteen states, plus Washington, D.C., allow use of medical marijuana. A number of them provide prescriptions to children, with parental supervision, to treat a host of ills, ranging from autism to cancer to seizures.
Critics, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, argue that the remedy hasn’t been clinically tested in kids and might have some long-term ramifications.
Zaki’s parents were surprised at first and a bit taken aback. “We are Christians,” Jackson said. “We are conservative. And we’re using medical marijuana. That’s a kind of big hump for people to get over. Despite the stigma associated with cannabis, we owed it to Zaki to give it a try.”
Jackson said the results were immediate and stunning. “I probably stared at him for a good three hours after his first dose and then I fell asleep. I didn’t feel any seizures after his first dose,” his mother said.
In fact, it’s been eight months since Zaki’s last seizure and he's finally starting to do normal kid activities, like ride a swing.
Zaki's pot is provided specifically for him by a team of brothers who legally grow medical marijuana. It has been bred to have low levels of TCH, but higher levels of another cannabinoid called cannabidiol, or CBD.
While both cannabinoids impact pain, nausea and seizures, CBD isn’t psychoactive, said Dr. Margaret Gedde of the Clinicians’ Institute for Cannabis Medicine. That means that kids using this type of marijuana won’t get high.
Cannabinoids work by hijacking normal brain circuitry.
In other words, the cannabinoids in pot are very similar to substances our own brains naturally make, called endocannabinoids. These substances serve to quiet excessive activity, whether it’s in the immune system, in the gut or in the nervous system, Gedde explained to NBCNews.com.
When cells become overactive, a switch is thrown and endocannabinoids are released. Once they lock on to receptors in the brain, “a message is sent to tell the cells to calm down,” she said. “It’s a balancing system and it’s what keeps seizures from happening in healthy brains. In these kids the system is overwhelmed. It needs a little extra help.”
That’s where the pot comes in. For Zaki, it’s delivered in a syrup that he takes each day, which contains an extract of purified cannabis oil that is high in CBD, Gedde said.
While the drug seems to be working miracles for Zaki, some doctors believe its safety in children needs to be tested in clinical trials.
“I worry that we just don’t know enough about it,” said Dr. Sharon Levy, of the Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. “I think they’re putting their child at risk of long-term consequences of marijuana use that we don’t fully understand.”
There are plenty of examples of highly touted therapies that turned out to be ineffective, or in some cases downright harmful.
“A couple of generations ago physicians were recommending tobacco as a good method of relaxation or to relieve stress,” Levy said. “It seems unbelievable now.”
While clinical trials are all well and good, there are children like Zaki who need help right now, Gedde said, adding “medicine existed before the Food and Drug Administration.”
While there may still be some questions about the impact of marijuana on growing brains, “this is a substance that’s been used for thousands of years and it has a known safety profile,” Gedde said. “And there’s a long history of women using it in pregnancy. If there was some terrible defect that came up in children exposed in utero, we’d know about it by now.”
Ultimately, for a child like Zaki with a dangerous condition, even approved anti-seizure drugs can cause side effects, Gedde said.
For the Jacksons, it was an easy decision.
“Medical marijuana is definitely saving Zaki’s life,” his mother Heather said. “It’s saving his life and it’s giving him a quality of life."
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
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