arrested for can jail for following the advice of the doctor joined us and learned more about the exciting science of medical marijuana welcome to seeing them enjoy a big can watch the executive director of the coalition for medical marijuana in jersey i'm here in the princeton community t studios today with angie patterson the mother of a young man who has an intractable seizure disorder thank you so much for coming here and thank you jack is eleven years old and he we've we first he was first  clinical way of people want to know more clinically they call it's called the seizure disorder with focal and generalized spike and wave discharges that can last up to four seconds without clinical signs so these are the absence eaters that's that's mostly what he had he had two regular seizures tonic clonic seizure is that most of his problems were absent seizures and it also translated into eighty to so about two years ago the beginning fourth grade second but it wasn't until he had the two seizures that eight and ten years of age and we started doing e g is that we noticed that he was having these absence seizures all day and all night so that often all day and all night and he had that generalized tonic clonic seizure the eight and ten year and yes so so about two years ago we started because you can't start with medical marijuana with a generalized seizure disorder you actually have to have intractable seizure disorder so  have to try and fail at least three traditional medicines before you can try medical marijuana so we we started we tried and failed depakote generic keppra on fee brand  got worse he got worse and worse he went from a regular classroom with his friends to now he's in a special ed class so he can't even be in class with his friends he works a can't keep up as a result of trying to wean him off of all these medications his brothers around the house and he getting very he almost drowned last summer because they couldn't control him he has mood swings and his blood pressure were fluctuating so much that i couldn't control him so he had to be rescued by the lifeguard last year thank god one time he had a seizure at night he was sleeping with me because i think he might have died that night we had to call nine one one and come in and help us so  yes yes so during that process the only thing that we were that we were using to help us was the cause pam which he is now addicted to and we have been weaning him off for almost a year now so he's almost  pam and the mic to all because he failed to those and failed them so fabulously and dramatically and almost died he is now eligible to try medical marijuana which is a shame you couldn't just we can try that first so  it took us about six months in all to actually get the marijuana it took a couple of months to find a doctor there are doctors who prescribe marijuana new jersey but it's hard to find someone who will prescribe it to a child so if i had to call it took a lot of time to find someone and and he's a wonderful doctor he has parents tried five hours down to see him because there are so few doctors who will prescribe marijuana for children or are allowed to prescribe it and then the fourth month was actually prime for the card so it took about a month for each of those processes and then to actually get the card and then i also want to say that it's one hundred fifty dollars cash to see the doctor each time and he's not he's not higher than anyone else but it's everything is in cash so you have one hundred fifty for each appointment that i have to see him two hundred dollars for the month for the card the the marijuana itself is four hundred eighty dollars an ounce all of that that's that's cash don't walk in with cash and i think that that we're not exactly sure how much how long the marijuana lasts for him because we're still trying to adjust it for him so that's a lot of money in cash for families and for us if you have a child who has a disability or an illness you already spend way more than anyone else on on medical care and so now i have to come up with cash for all of these things that are covered by insurance and so that he can be all right and so our family sacrifices other things so that he can have what he needs and it's not if that's not right how many times do you actually have to see them medical marijuana recommend i only had to see him the first time i saw him and he looked at the charts he he said that i was approved and he started the process and then some doctors insist on multiple visits before they leave and give me the certification number to get that's enough for us or or how he's doing so we will check in with him so how much we can use medical marijuana three months on the medical marijuana here from new jersey we did try so charlotte's web oil that we order from from colorado one hundred forty other parents who have children with seizures and we share information in doses and and how to how to make it and so through these other parents that have worked this out before me they've taught us how to do it so we do we buy the carve them in the oven to make them psychoactive and then we then we infuse that into coconut oil and then we gave we give him a of what we have right now we give him about five drops of that oil on a gummy bear in the morning and about five jobs at night and we just watch him and you know we start low and slow we started with just a little bit and and watch how he reacts because it when i said psychoactive that we noticing that he is having less absence seizures we don't notice the the eye blinking anymore he's much more focused it helps at the age he is well which is probably just a result of the absence injures that he  the the lack of focus he's only had one seizure since we've been on the medical marijuana and that was when he was sick and he had a fever spikes so i had not even sure that that's something we can control the way when he's sick and his fever spikes up  we get get our marijuana just got a new strain that's very high in c b d which is what we've been looking for for him because that is supposed to be what helps stop the seizures so as we're just a t h c in the c b d trying to find that other medicines or the medicines when they started causing the seizures then we started isn't the cause of him to stop those and then he was having like i said he had over thirty after a while he was getting so much cause pam that he has body wanted that  he's kind of addiction about every two days and he'll go into shakes because he wants it so badly and so i've cut down the one milligram pill into sixteen pieces and used his on one sixteenth of it right now and so i would imagine a couple months he'll be completely off that's the only time i see any any problems in him is from that we but but the three months that i've introduced the medical marijuana he's he's been the the last thing that we were told was the surgery was to do surgery and have surgery that is an option you know so many doctors are going to do brain surgery before they would have a trial medic that's where we were headed that's why we're that's that's that was when we left the neurologists and chose this path good you i think i think one of my main my what i want everyone to know and what i want to say for jack is that number one you shouldn't have to try and fail things before you're allowed to  try medical marijuana i know many other adults and children who are all taking two or three medications different seizure medications and have all kinds of symptoms side effects but they can't try the medical marijuana you can't until it's intractable  the second thing that i that i really want to stress is it shouldn't cost so much money he's a sick child and he needs he needs this medication and it's working for him it shouldn't cost that much and it should be covered and the third thing them in the most important thing that is affecting our family right now and affecting his livelihood is we can't leave he can't leave the state so this summer when we would normally visit my parents in texas and his cousins or our fight a seattle and visit his family really can't even leave the state because we don't want to leave him behind so he can't visit his family can't travel around the country because because it's not available here because he's not allowed to leave the state with it legally so so you know we're working on it it's a turd terrible terrible thing that you know you can't you can't go to pennsylvania and you can't you can't cross the river right right you know it's it's terrible terrible absolutely terrible so so sorry for situation with you and advocates who are working to reform these laws now governor christie recently signed a bill that is going to choir schools to develop policies to allow  children who use medical marijuana to use this medical marijuana in the schools but that sounds like you're able to achieve a constant blood level with just the morning and evening doses of marijuana so so it's the we just haven't we've only because we're just trying to figure out what works best for him and we just started giving him an afternoon dose to try to see if that if that would help and and  but they're very willing to do that for us well the only thing is of course that you would have to go into the schools give it you or the caregiver would have to go you know i mean you're the registered caregiver now you had to get it you had to get a card to how does your husband get a card to know you know one card one card per person so yeah i know it's like one caregiver per person so so that we're you know if they do allow it to be used in the school you know who have reasonable is that really to think that a caregiver can come in several times a day to give you know medicine to someone in a in a in a living situation where you know it's just  unreasonable thing you know i my and my my belief is that we really need that state needs to recognize its role as a caregiver and to arrange for all the patients who are under its care that you teacher hitting his friends to get the medicine to school the nurses allowed to give the nurses right and those were allowed to be to be given and kept there and those are ok to give him yet you know something that is not having any we haven't seen any night negative side effects at all with the medical marijuana we've seen better sleep which trance which better sleep or jack means that he's not having absence eaters that are waking him up so so better sleep means that he's not having the seizures through the night  better focus and being able to to move through his morning to get out of out of bed dressed brush his teeth and get ready to go to school means that he's not having all these absence seizures that are stopping the thought process over what do i have to  to get dressed next so we're seeing only positive things from the medical marijuana and and so i that just your point in having the the medicines that are causing rage in and out and frankly dangerous means he dangerous when he was on those those were allowed but but this isn't was not like i said we have a progressive school and they are willing to they are willing to help us and give him the medicine for us so where were very lucky  so so well that's great and you know he said it helped with the symptoms of a d h d that's that's one of the things that i think really needs to be explained to is that marijuana has such a wide range of therapeutic effects that people often find that they they treat them for the seizure disorder and they find they're doing better in some of the you know with some of the other physical or mental or emotional problems that i was well  just that he has a t h d the dopamine levels are being raised and that's helping him focus as well so bobo it's helping both both of the things that were hindering him from learning and you think about the typical treatment  rather than you know marijuana which is far less addictive and far less of a pain well and i wanted to just add to that if you if a lot of times when you have a seizure disorder they don't want to give you a vet i mean so they do the opposite they give you blood pressure medicine want to seen as it is a blood pressure medicine that was that i think they saw that it helped peoples a d h t so that's what they tried for him and his blood pressure went to it the the reaction in the side effects of having his blood pressure altered like that so it just seemed like every day instead of just allowing him to try that they just threw all these other medications around him and one would cause a side effect that we had to then try to get another medication to help the side effect so as are cleaning him out and getting back to the jack who was friendly and nice and happy and had friends to a child who was withdrawn out of his class pulled into a special ed class  on able to to even interact with his peers and be in his classroom it's horrible it's horrible that he had to go through all of that and now that we're seeing the jack we know start to come back and the symptoms of the absence you it's it's really heartwarming to hear these success stories that medical marijuana you know when it's all other pharmaceutical drugs have been tried you know and he said and he it really is a shame that marijuana isn't first drug you know first line of treatment for these very very devastating disorders so thank you for your accuracy thank you for coming here today and thanks for joining us thank you for more information about the coalition for medical marijuana new jersey join us at our free public meetings on the second tuesday of every month at the lawrence township library in mercer county new jersey from seven to nine p m snacks are served in all welcome remember every forty two seconds someone is arrested for marijuana every forty two seconds someone is arrested for marijuana every forty two seconds somebody suggested for marijuana every forty two seconds someone is arrested for marijuana muddy water every forty two seconds somebody is arrested for every forty two seconds someone is countries arrested for marijuana every forty two seconds someone is arrested for marijuana every forty seconds someone is arrested for every forty two seconds someone is arrested for marijuana it could be you