The
pharmaceuticals weren’t working. The 15-year-old boy was having several
seizures per day, and his parents were concerned his life was in danger.
So
Suzeanna and Matthew Brill, of Macon, Ga., decided in February to let
their son try smoking marijuana — and his seizures stopped for 71 days,
they say.
The Brills’ decision led to
the boy, David, being taken away from his parents, who face possible
fines and jail time after being charged with reckless conduct for giving
him the drug.
David has now been in a
group home for 30 days, and his seizures have returned. He is separated
from the service dog that sniffed out his seizures, and he is able to
communicate with his parents only during short visitations and phone
calls.
They maintain they made the right decision for their son’s health, despite their current predicament.
“Even
with the ramifications with the law, I don’t care,” said Mr. Brill, his
stepfather. “For 71 days he was able to ride a bike, go play, lift
weights. We were able to achieve that with David medicated not from Big
Pharma, but David medicated with marijuana.”
Ms. Brill said the authorities “want to argue the legality of marijuana instead of taking care of the kid.”
In April, a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recommended approval of an epilepsy medication
that has an active ingredient, cannabidiol, that’s found in cannabis.
The drug treats two rare forms of epilepsy, and, if approved, it would
be the first cannabis-derived prescription medicine available in the
United States. It does not contain the ingredients that make people
high.
But
the science is far from settled on whether marijuana, or components of
it, can effectively treat seizures, and the parents cautioned that what
made sense for them may not for other families.
Dr.
Igor Grant, director of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at
the University of California San Diego, said there is some data to
suggest cannabis can have anti-epileptic effects, “but not terribly
systematic data.”
He said that the
Brills’ experience, as a single anecdote, is not proof that cannabis
works as a treatment, but added that it should not be dismissed.
“I
don’t mean we should rush out and give marijuana to everyone who has
epilepsy,” he said, “but I think that there are probably epilepsies that
would benefit from an alternative treatment if they’re not controlled
by our usual treatments.”
Ms. Brill
said that she had been upfront with David’s doctors about the marijuana
use, and that they hadn’t protested. But then she told the boy’s
therapist on April 19, and hours later the police were at their door.
The
police drug-tested all three of them: Mr. Brill and David tested
positive for marijuana, Ms. Brill tested negative. The parents admitted
to the police that they had given their child marijuana, and the
officers demanded they stop, Ms. Brill said.
“We
complied, and within 14 hours of complying we were rushing our son to
the hospital,” she said.
“And it was one of the most horrific seizures
I’ve ever seen.”
The Twiggs County sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
David
stayed in the hospital for a week before being taken to the group home,
Ms. Brill said.
The parents were arrested and spent six days in jail,
causing Mr. Brill to lose remodeling work, he said.
Mr.
Brill is now delivering pizzas, and Ms. Brill is taking on extra shifts
in a variety of jobs to help raise money for a lawyer. They’ve turned to crowdfunding, but had raised just $1,000 as of Wednesday, with several donations coming after WMAZ, a local TV station, reported on them this past weekend.
They hope the lawyer can help them get David back, a process they believe could take as long as a year.
Despite their legal challenges, they say they did what they needed to as parents.
“Had it not been for me and my husband, my son would probably have been long dead,” Ms. Brill said.
Correction:
An
earlier version of this article misstated the legal status of medical
marijuana in Georgia. The state has allowed the use of cannabis oil for
treatment of some specific illnesses; it is not the case that marijuana
for medical purposes is illegal.
Correction:
An
earlier version of this article misidentified the local TV station
whose reports about the Brills over the weekend prompted several
donations. It was WMAZ-TV, not KVUE-TV.
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