ATLANTA — In front of a packed room at the Georgia Capitol, Monroe County mother Janea Cox pleaded for her daughter’s life at the first hearing on a new medical marijuana proposal.
“I’m going to lose my child if this drug is not approved,” said Cox, whose daughter Haleigh is the inspiration and namesake for House Bill 885, by state Rep. Allen Peake, R-Macon.
“We’re going to break up my family,” a tearful Cox said while her child was a few miles away at Children’s Hospital of Atlanta at Egleston, where she has been for more than 50 days since a severe attack that caused her to stop breathing for several minutes.
Cox said her husband would stay in Georgia to keep his job.
Haleigh’s breathing continues to stop regularly, she said. The mother and daughter were packing for Colorado when the first episode happened.
Peake’s bill would open a door for Georgians to access to a liquid medicine derived from cannabis for treatment of severe seizure disorders.
“It has extremely low levels of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the part that makes you high,” said Peake, and is “low in CBD,” or cannabidiol, a therapeutic compound.
“I would posit this is not marijuana. This is an extract from a chemical from a plant,” said Dr. Michael Greene of Macon, speaking for the Medical Association of Georgia.
The association adamantly opposes recreational marijuana but favors Peake’s bill, saying it includes adequate safeguards and is narrowly enough written.
“If you have a family member with this, your family is consumed with this,” said Greene. And some of the other treatments for severe epilepsy, he said, include drastic measures like severing some of the connections in the brain.
via Monroe mother makes plea for medical marijuana to legislators | State Legislature | Macon.com.
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