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US: Modesto dad treats son's seizures with medical marijuana Ken Carlson Merced Sun Star Friday 09 Aug 2013 The Modesto father decided to try a substance extracted from a familiar leafy plant and since then has become a champion for medical marijuana. David says the compound, called cannabidiol, or CBD, reduces the frequency and severity of Jayden's seizures, and that he has weaned the boy off strong prescription medications. Jayden has Dravet syndrome, a severe disorder in children that often forces desperate parents to try numerous drugs to control the intractable seizures, with limited results. David and son have a connection to Dr. Sanjay Gupta's documentary "Weed," which airs Sunday on CNN at 5 p.m. Part of it will focus on parents in Colorado who use medical cannabis to treat their daughter's seizures. David said the Colorado child's father was serving in Afghanistan when he spotted a YouTube video that shows the Modesto dad giving CBD to Jayden through a dropper. The parents talked with David and started using the untested treatment for their daughter, who had suffered up to 300 seizures a week. In an online piece on the documentary, Gupta writes that medical cannabis has reduced the girl's seizures to a few per month. David expects that clips of his video with Jayden will appear in Sunday's program. The CBD is prepared by a Bay Area medical cannabis dispensary, costing about $800 a month for David. It's not a stimulant, the father said, so it does not give a high to Jayden, who turns 7 next week. As a disclaimer, there is little or no research showing that CBD effectively treats seizures or that using marijuana is recommended for people with epilepsy. David is a former jewelry salesman who simply cites his own experience. "My son's seizure activity is down dramatically," David said. "He's able to walk, swim and ride roller coasters at amusement parks. I used to give him 22 pills a day; now I give him two." David started trying CBD with Jayden a month after a Bee story in May 2011 described their trials with Dravet syndrome and the father's desire to try alternative treatments. Their experiments with medical cannabis got them featured on the Discovery Channel's "Weed Wars" and in the Los Angeles Times and Rolling Stone magazine, and now media outlets in Europe have contacted him, he said. Leaders of the Maryland-based Epilepsy Foundation will be watching Sunday's program, a spokesman said. The foundation has devoted $50 million to research resulting in therapies for epilepsy. "We are very excited about anything that helps to reduce seizures, especially for young people who have intractable seizures," said Ken Lowenberg, vice president of communications. "We have seen this come up a lot, where medical marijuana has been used by people with seizures with various degrees of success. But we don't have any real scientific evidence to say we can recommend it." Gupta, chief medical correspondent for CNN, writes that he's reversed his opposition to medical cannabis after meeting people such as the Colorado family. He adds: "I am especially intrigued by studies like those in Spain and Israel looking at the anti-cancer effects of marijuana and its components." For those concerned about momentum toward widespread legalization, Gupta notes that marijuana is addictive for 10 percent of adults, though it's less addictive than other recreational drugs. There are studies suggesting that marijuana use in teenagers affects brain development and may put them at higher risk for developing psychosis, he writes. David said he's more concerned about eliminating the side-effects of anti-convulsant drugs that his son took for years than any effects of CBD on Jayden's brain. Because of Dravet syndrome, the boy does not speak and suffers from other learning disabilities. "The side-effects of the drugs are crazy," David said. "I want to show the good of (CBD) and how it is changing children's lives." http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2013/08/09/3156979/as-modesto-dad-treats-son-with.html#storylink=cpy
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