Girl, 8, changes law on marijuana
Print Edition
AT just 8 years old, Grace could become Mexico’s first authorized consumer of medical marijuana to alleviate the hundreds of epileptic seizures that strike her every day.
Last month, a judge gave her parents permission to get a cannabis oil despite the government’s opposition in a country engulfed in a bloody drugs war.
Her parents have tried a number of treatments, including brain surgery, to ease their daughter’s pain, but nothing has worked and her condition has worsened.
They now hope that cannabidiol, a cannabis compound, can help her — if they can get it.
Grace, who lives in Monterrey, has a severe form of epilepsy known as the Lennox-Gastaut syndrome.
She moves around in a wheelchair, with her parents tending to her every need.
“When she was a year and half, Grace would say ‘mommy’ and she drank through a straw. Now she doesn’t say a word, she takes a baby bottle and she crawls,” her mother, Mayela Benavides, told reporters.
“She’s like a baby, but one who weighs 18 kilos and is 1.15 meters tall,” said Benavides, a 34-year-old engineer.
Despite surgery and alternative treatments, her epileptic fits “have greatly grown in intensity, force and frequency, with 400 episodes (per day), without counting those she endures while sleeping,” her mother said.
Grace’s parents were losing hope until they learned about a child in Colorado whose epilepsy improved thanks to cannabidiol.
Her father, Raul Elizalde, drove 2,000 kilometers to Colorado to get the medication.
But he was not allowed to buy it because he was not a resident of the state which is among several in the United States to have legalized recreational or medical marijuana.
President Enrique Pena Nieto, whose government is fighting drug cartels in a conflict that has left tens of thousands dead, opposes any legalization.
Meanwhile, Uruguay has created a regulated market while lawmakers in Chile have backed the legalizing of marijuana for recreational and medical use.
Despite Mexico’s prohibition, Grace’s parents requested a permit from the health ministry, which said no.
The family’s attorney took their case to court and, in a historic ruling, a federal judge ruled in their favor.
Fernando Belaunzaran, a former lawmaker who championed a failed bid to legalize medicinal marijuana, said Grace’s case could set a precedent for people who want such treatments for other illnesses such as cancer and multiple sclerosis.
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