“Everything is being re-imagined. We are shaking the world with a new dream.” _Grace Lee Boggs : Medical Cannabis and pediatric patients.

The title quote from Grace Lee Boggs, a 98-year old philosopher, feminist and political activist who has been labeled “An American Revolutionary”, is passed on from the mother of a child who suffers from seizure and other diagnoses.  What, might you wonder is the cause of her pronoia? (defined as the opposite state of mind as paranoia)  Because of access to medical Cannabis in Washington State, she has some hope for her child.   She has begun to administer a non-psychoactive Cannabis extract to her daughter under an act passed by voter initiative in 1998. Her attitude, like that of many other families in this same circumstance, is one of expectation that there may be the chance to have improved in the quality of life for her family.

In a contemporary manifestation of the Underground Railroad, parents are turning out to be the heroes/heroines in a struggle against the abolitionist policy regarding Cannabis as medicine. Their children, who suffer from debilitating disorders, are the figurative fugitives in this story, and the parents are accessing local “safe houses” that provide the relief from Cannabis that they have sought for years from pharmaceutical drugs.

Current Washington State law states: “Humanitarian compassion necessitates that the decision to use cannabis by patients with terminal or debilitating medical conditions is a personal, individual decision, based upon their health care professional’s professional medical judgment and discretion”.

With the support of a compassionate doctor in Washington State, this mother is able to access Cannabis for her child under the voter initiative, and has now become an expert in many aspects of Cannabis as medicine.  She has learned how to dilute a cannabidiol-rich (CBD) concentrate so she can give a precise milligram dose of CBD, she is aware of potential drug interactions, how to monitor the weaning from the harmful anti-epileptic drugs her daughter has been on, and what to monitor her daughter for regarding any potential side-effects.  So far, the side effects have been mostly beneficial, such as improved sleep and improved behavior. The seizure reduction will likely follow as she slowly titrates the dose upward, as many other families like hers are teaching her to do.  She is learning that whole plant medicine works where single-agent compounds have largely failed her child.

For now this mother has a level of legal protection under the Washington State law: “Persons who act as designated providers to such patients shall also not be arrested, prosecuted, or subject to other criminal sanctions or civil consequences under state law, notwithstanding any other provision of law, based solely on their assisting with the medical use of cannabis”. Like the original Underground Railroad, these families don’t know what their next move will be, or whether it might be to another State where they can continue to provide medicine for their children, to either grow themselves, or access from a qualified facility.  Not unlike the original cargo, their journey has been fraught with confusion, a perceived danger of reprisal from their doctors, child protective services or family members, as they have “come out” on this new “Upperground Railroad” as Frederick Douglass coined a term.  Now not even Canada is  a safe haven, as it was for slaves, for parents such as these who might want to grow their own medicine. (Patients can no longer grow Cannabis in Canada)

However, as in the gospel lore “the wheels keep on turning”, and this gospel train of liberation from human suffering keeps chugging along, parent-to-parent, family-to-family!   How long will it take before Federal Governments won’t be the only legitimate drug dealers for several plants that have the capacity to alleviate human suffering?  How much longer until this plant and others are set free to interact with the human biome as they were likely designed to do, and not be captured and altered by pharmaceutics?

Until that time, it is likely that these parents, empowered by taking healthcare into their own hands with botanical medicine, will continue to “Follow the Drinking Gourd” to their own true north:  the healing of their children, their families and the trickle-down effects to their communities and the planet at large!

Here is a quote from another of these brave parents: “Parents have the right to save their children’s lives when conventional medicine isn’t effective and causing more harm than good.   With an open mind, researchers and doctors can discover what is true about this medicine that has been used for hundreds of years.  Anecdotal evidence is everywhere!”