DENVER — A six-year-old Colorado girl’s daily use of marijuana has changed her from a child who couldn’t walk, talk, or eat into a happy, dancing little girl.
Charlotte Figi suffers from a rare form of epilepsy called Dravet Syndrome. She’s endured violent seizures since she was a newborn. Most weeks, she’d have about 300 seizures a week.
In spite of countless emergency room visits, trips to specialists and children’s hospitals, and more than a dozen pharmaceuticals, nothing worked.
Then, a year-and-a-half ago, as a last resort, her mom tried cannabis oil. The medical marijuana worked immediately.
“It’s potent, it’s strong, it’s spicy, it’s got some kick,” her mother, Paige Figi, told FOX31 Denver as she showed us a syringe full of the cannabis oil.
It’s diluted with olive oil, and mixed with the food Charlotte eats. She takes the medicine twice a day and it has reduced the number of seizures she has to just two or three a week. The cannabis oil doesn’t make Charlotte high. It’s from a strain that’s very low in Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC – which is the mind-altering ingredient in marijuana.
Charlotte’s story will get national attention this weekend as part of a CNN documentary called ‘Weed.’
“When we met Charlotte, she was a catatonic child. She couldn’t get out of her wheelchair. She couldn’t swallow. And now she’s off all of her pharmaceuticals,” said Josh Stanley, whose company custom-developed the strain of cannabis used to treat Charlotte.
They call the strain “Charlotte’s Web.” Click here to read more about children’s use of medicinal marijuana in the story from FOX 31 in Denver.
