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http://www.vancouversun.com/health/...ren+with+chronic+diseases/11615894/story.html
Doctors urge cannabis caution for children with chronic diseases
Research hasn’t caught up to demand, and a lack of funding partly to blame
By TIFFANY CRAWFORD, VANCOUVER SUN December 27, 2015 5:00 PM
Ella Turkington, 5, has intractable epilepsy and autism. Her parents Kim and Rob Turkington administers cannabidiol (CBD) oil in conjunction with her pharmaceuticals - as more families are experimenting with pediatric cannabis - to treat her epilepsy.
When Jonathan Zaid was 14 he was diagnosed with a debilitating neurological condition that left him unable to get out of bed most days because of severe headaches.
For his condition, called new daily persistent headache, he tried 45 different types of medication, and alternative therapies, but nothing worked.
By his late teens, he felt like he was out of medical options. So his mom gave him an unusual gift for his 18th birthday.
She gave him a joint.
“We had heard that it could be a potential therapeutic treatment for my condition,” said Zaid. “It helped a bit but I really struggled with sources of access. Physicians were leery to give it to someone so young.”
Zaid, who founded an advocacy group called Canadians for Fair Access to Marijuana, is among a growing number of youth experimenting with cannabis as a treatment for various chronic diseases. He spoke at a roundtable on cannabis earlier this month in Vancouver.
While he still suffers from headaches, Zaid says the marijuana eased his pain enough that he could go back to school and focus on his course work, something he could not do before cannabis.
There are dozens of B.C. families who want safe and reliable access to a derivative of marijuana, an oil that is high in CBD (believed to reduce certain types of seizures) and low in THC, the psychoactive compound. Kyla Williams, Ella Turkington, and Quinn Barker-Brown (all under age 6) are just some of the children in B.C. showing remarkable success with CBD oil.
But the families say access to a reliable and safe product for children has been a major challenge because the research hasn’t caught up to the demand, and some physicians agree.
At the Vancouver roundtable, Jason McDougall, a professor of pharmacology and anesthesia at Dalhousie University, said more research is needed on cannabis, but there has been a lack of funding because of the stigma.
Some research has shown CBD oil can reduce the number and severity of seizures, including a review this fall in the New England Journal of Medicine that cited an open-label study of children and young adults taking Epidiolex, a purified cannabis extract with less than 0.1 per cent THC. The preliminary report found among 137 patients who received 12 weeks of treatments the median reduction in seizures was 54.4 per cent.
However, there is a major gap in science when it comes to how it can be used to treat children with other diseases.
Medical cannabis has been available to Canadians as a treatment for chronic illness for more than a decade — to treat a variety of ailments from migraines to fibromyalgia to insomnia — but in that time there has been a surprising lack of evidence-based research, which many experts still blame on the stigma of marijuana as a drug for stoners, hippies, and college dropouts.
For instance, McDougall says there is pre-clinical data that shows cannabis can reduce the pain and inflammation of arthritis, but it’s unclear whether it can be prescribed for juvenile arthritis patients.
Doctors urge cannabis caution for children with chronic diseases
Research hasn’t caught up to demand, and a lack of funding partly to blame
By TIFFANY CRAWFORD, VANCOUVER SUN December 27, 2015 5:00 PM
Ella Turkington, 5, has intractable epilepsy and autism. Her parents Kim and Rob Turkington administers cannabidiol (CBD) oil in conjunction with her pharmaceuticals - as more families are experimenting with pediatric cannabis - to treat her epilepsy.
When Jonathan Zaid was 14 he was diagnosed with a debilitating neurological condition that left him unable to get out of bed most days because of severe headaches.
For his condition, called new daily persistent headache, he tried 45 different types of medication, and alternative therapies, but nothing worked.
By his late teens, he felt like he was out of medical options. So his mom gave him an unusual gift for his 18th birthday.
She gave him a joint.
“We had heard that it could be a potential therapeutic treatment for my condition,” said Zaid. “It helped a bit but I really struggled with sources of access. Physicians were leery to give it to someone so young.”
Zaid, who founded an advocacy group called Canadians for Fair Access to Marijuana, is among a growing number of youth experimenting with cannabis as a treatment for various chronic diseases. He spoke at a roundtable on cannabis earlier this month in Vancouver.
While he still suffers from headaches, Zaid says the marijuana eased his pain enough that he could go back to school and focus on his course work, something he could not do before cannabis.
There are dozens of B.C. families who want safe and reliable access to a derivative of marijuana, an oil that is high in CBD (believed to reduce certain types of seizures) and low in THC, the psychoactive compound. Kyla Williams, Ella Turkington, and Quinn Barker-Brown (all under age 6) are just some of the children in B.C. showing remarkable success with CBD oil.
But the families say access to a reliable and safe product for children has been a major challenge because the research hasn’t caught up to the demand, and some physicians agree.
At the Vancouver roundtable, Jason McDougall, a professor of pharmacology and anesthesia at Dalhousie University, said more research is needed on cannabis, but there has been a lack of funding because of the stigma.
Some research has shown CBD oil can reduce the number and severity of seizures, including a review this fall in the New England Journal of Medicine that cited an open-label study of children and young adults taking Epidiolex, a purified cannabis extract with less than 0.1 per cent THC. The preliminary report found among 137 patients who received 12 weeks of treatments the median reduction in seizures was 54.4 per cent.
However, there is a major gap in science when it comes to how it can be used to treat children with other diseases.
Medical cannabis has been available to Canadians as a treatment for chronic illness for more than a decade — to treat a variety of ailments from migraines to fibromyalgia to insomnia — but in that time there has been a surprising lack of evidence-based research, which many experts still blame on the stigma of marijuana as a drug for stoners, hippies, and college dropouts.
For instance, McDougall says there is pre-clinical data that shows cannabis can reduce the pain and inflammation of arthritis, but it’s unclear whether it can be prescribed for juvenile arthritis patients.
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