420 with CNW — Mothers in Brazil Take Lead in Advocating for Medical Cannabis for Sick Children

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Brazil’s most populated state, Sao Paulo, home to more than 44 million residents, made history by being the first to pass legislation granting free access to CBD. The legislative victory was largely driven by Brazilian mothers who spent a decade campaigning tirelessly to access CBD for their ill children.

Combining CBD with other medications has shown promise for lowering seizures in individuals with severe epilepsy.

One of the mothers who led the campaign was Maria Aparecida Carvalho. At the age of 10, her daughter, Clárian, was diagnosed with severe epilepsy, which can lead to life-threatening complications, including the sudden cessation of lung and heart function.

The medications prescribed to Clárian had significant side effects, even requiring near-dialysis treatment due to poisoning. Clárian’s prolonged seizures caused immense fear and sleepless nights for her parents, who took turns watching over her.

The story of Charlotte Figi, a U.S. youngster who suffered from the same illness and went on to become a global representative of the advantages of CBD therapy, motivated Carvalho to seek CBD as an alternative. She told her husband right away, suggesting they look into getting it, even from unofficial sources if needed.

However, a few months later, the neurologist treating Clárian succeeded in smuggling some CBD into the nation by bringing it back from overseas. Eventually, with legal assistance, Carvalho obtained a court permit to cultivate cannabis in her compound, allowing her to produce CBD for her daughter and other patients.

Brazil’s current laws permit marijuana use and its extracts for medical and scientific purposes. However, cultivating it remains illegal, forcing the sector to rely on imported marijuana oil and other raw materials, which significantly drives up costs.

San Paulo state legislator Caio França, a center-leftist, drafted a measure in 2019 that would have allowed families to obtain CBD via the country’s public health system. He lobbied his largely conservative colleagues for three years, gradually winning them over with testimonies from families whose children required CBD for treatment.

The measure passed in 2022 with almost two-thirds approval from the state legislature, and Governor Tarcísio de Freitas, a former member of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro’s Cabinet, signed it into law in January 2023. Due to his conservative background, de Freitas limited the law’s scope to patients with three rare conditions, including Lennox-Gastaut and Dravet syndromes, based on research showing that CBD was effective for these specific ailments.

For companies that have for long manufactured medical marijuana products, such as Canopy Growth Corp. (NASDAQ: CGC) (TSX: WEED), the stories coming out of Brazil about the ways in which cannabis products are helping mothers to manage the conditions of their ill kids serve as case studies of how cannabinoids can manage symptoms that conventional treatments have been ineffective in combating.

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