Raphael Mechoulam, the Israeli organic chemist and professor of medicinal chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is known for his groundbreaking discoveries surrounding the structure of the cannabis compounds CBD and THC in 1963 and 1964, followed by clinical tests with CBD published in 1980.

It took more than 30 years before his clinical work on using CBD, or cannabidiol, to treat epilepsy became widely accepted. Greenwich Biosciences, which is owned by GW Pharmaceuticals, was able to develop the first cannabis-derived drug that built on Mechoulam’s research. The drug, Epidiolex, treats seizures associated with two rare forms of epilepsy and was approved by the FDA only last year.

Other people are growing their own CBD oil and figuring out how to treat themselves, or their children with cannabis. The point is, for years there has been a tremendous amount of research showing it’s potential, yet clinical trails never really commenced. This is true for multiple diseases, like cancer. Cannabis shows huge potential with regards to treating cancer in the lab, yet for years, no clinical trials…

It’s definitely a head scratcher.

Again, a quick google or Youtube search regarding cannabis and epilepsy will take you straight to a number of people who with epilepsy who have had and are having success.

One example is a girl by the name of Zoey Carty, who was  was diagnosed with frontal lobe epilepsy when she was 6 months old.  Zoey was having 10 seizures a day and, on the advice of her neurologist, she was treated with phenobarbital, a common drug for epilepsy.

As ABC news points out:

Zoey’s mother, Dawn Lee-Carty, was unaware of the drug’s side effects. Two weeks later, she realized the long road ahead when Zoey began to have an adverse reaction. For years, their lives centered around medications, doctor’s visits and numerous hospital admissions. And the frequency of the seizures only increased.Then, in 2016, — when Zoey was 8 years old — Lee-Carty flew to Colorado to learn all about cannabidiol oil after watching an interview about medical marijuana. She said it had a dramatic impact, and that Zoey’s seizures decreased by half.

Washington D.C., where the family lives, allows the use of medical marijuana to those with a license. But the family hit a roadblock when Zoey, who just turned 12, was told that her charter school would not permit the drug to be administered on school grounds.

They are doing what they can and are continuing the good fight, as are many others who have been and are being prevented from taking medicine that helps them.