Marijuana Health Benefits for Kids: Will Cure Epilepsy Says Study

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A study revealed that liquid oil extracts from the cannabis plant, otherwise known as marijuana, could give children with epilepsy a better quality of life.  

According to CBS News, young Hank Kovach suffered from severe epilepsy since the age of one and his condition "could not be controlled with medicine. Hank's mother, Megan, told CBS that her son would have more than 25 seizures a day.  

She recounts a time when she found her son having a seizure, stating, "One time, I thought he was playing in the other room. He was not playing in the other room, he was convulsing, turning blue. And that's when I thought I lost him." 

As a result, Megan enrolled her son in a trial which tested the effects of marijuana liquid extract on people with epilepsy. CBS News reports that Hank was given Epidiolex twice a day during the trials. 

The liquid extract given to Hank did not contain THC, which is responsible for the state of euphoria, anxiety, and paranoia in people who use marijuana. According to Megan, her son changed dramatically due to the medicine. 

"We instantly saw results. He was smiling again. We saw a decrease in seizures. At this point, he was finally able to gain cognitive skills with therapy," she shared.

According to CBS News, 137 children and young adults participated in the small trial that Hank Kovach tried as well. Parents reportedly said that the number of seizures their children experienced dropped by 45 to 50 percent after 12 weeks. 

Dr. Linda Laux, one of the researchers in the study, talks a little about the results of the study. She says, "[The kids] had better sleep, better attention, better cognitive concentration, better behavior. Some of the kids clearly became more verbal, better coordination."  

Dara Lightle claims that cannabis oil also helped her daughter, Madeline, in an interview with Democracy Now - seen in the video below. Madeline had been living with seizures since the age of five. She was born pre-mature and had a stroke in-utero, which affected the left side of her brain greatly. 

Dara took her daughter to Colorado to try the marijuana oil treatment after seeing that pharmaceutical treatments lead to adverse effects in her daughter, like anger. In Colorado, researchers found that Madeline had seizures 80 percent of the time while she was asleep. 

Either the seizures, the pharmaceutical treatments, or both seemed to have affected Madeline's ability to learn as well. Dara states that after starting the marijuana oil treatment and being weaned off pharmaceutical drugs, Madeline's ability to learn developed.