Call it extracted oil, call it Alepsia, call it Charlotte’s Web, but the fact remains: it comes from the marijuana plant.
Last year, I had a meeting with an extremely conservative state senator in New Jersey. I went along with the mother of an epileptic child, and we talked to him about medical marijuana. We explained that the type of treatment the child needed was high in CBD, and we talked about the fact that it was non-psychoactive.
The Senator listened, and I could envision the little wheels spinning in his head. He had kids of his own. He felt sympathy for the boy, for the family. He was a compassionate man. He was trying to figure out how he could support medical marijuana legislation, and long before the whole Alepsia thing in Utah, he found his answer: “Do we have to call it ‘marijuana’?” he asked. “Can’t we just call it something else?”
My answer was an unequivocal “No.” We couldn’t just call it something else because it IS marijuana.
We also told the Senator that many patients need THC in addition to CBD. I told him about my own experience with medical marijuana during my cancer treatment. I told him about the prescription pharmaceuticals I’d taken that made me ridiculously, unimaginably “high,” that made me hallucinate, that made me exhausted, depressed, and verging-on-suicidal. Conversely, I told him how the THC in marijuana helped me to be clear-headed, present, and yes, a little bit happier in addition to helping with my pain and nausea. Why on earth was feeling a little giddy or giggly from marijuana considered more dangerous than drugs that could make me feel depressed, suicidal, or so uncomfortably high I couldn’t even remember the names of my own relatives?
Prohibitionist propaganda remains so ingrained in some politicians – and even in some newly minted CBD-activists – that “marijuana” is still considered a dirty word. And these folks aren’t just rebranding marijuana with a new name, they are lobbying for legislation that allows only CBD-rich marijuana-but-we-won’t-call-it-marijuana extracts without THC, and that’s definitely not ok.
Groups like Hope 4 Children With Epilepsy are advocating for a CBD-rich marijuana extract called Alepsia in Utah, but the group’s website states, “Hope 4 Children with Epilepsy (H4CE) is NOT advocating for a medical marijuana program.” Utah State Representative Gage Froerer has said of Alepsia, ”This is not medical marijuana. This is entirely the opposite.”
Statements like this just make me want to scream no, No, NO! Alepsia IS medical marijuana and you ARE advocating for a medical marijuana program – albeit a terribly restrictive and limited one that is unlikely to help your children. Please stop calling marijuana by other names and denying that this whole plant can do all kinds of amazing things for the human race. And while you’re at it, please stop talking shit about medical marijuana activists. If it hadn’t been for decades of work by activists, there would be no national attention to these issues. There would be no CNN specials. And there would be no CBD-rich cannabis extracts available anywhere!
Vanessa Waltz continues at ladybud.com: Alepsia + Charlotte’s Web + Extracted Oil = Medical Marijuana. Deal With It.
Categories: Business & Industry, Children, Teens & Youth, Family & Relationships, Policy & Politics, Research
2014 Colorado Cannabis Legislative Update 
Cannabis Patients Alliance 
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