By CHRISTIANE BARRO
Cassie Batten, whose son suffers severe epileptic seizures, has renewed calls to legalise medical marijuana before the Victorian Law Reform Commission releases its final report in August this year.
The Victorian Law Reform Commission was asked in late 2014 by the Victorian Government to put together a report on legislative change for the use of medical marijuana in Victoria.
The Victorian Government’s decision to take part in clinical trials, together with NSW and Queensland, that test the use of cannabis in treating terminally ill and life threatening conditions, has given new hope in Ms Batten’s fight for legalisation.
Ms Batten’s son Cooper Wallace was left with severe brain damage after contracting meningitis as a child and has consequently developed cerebral palsy and epilepsy.
She said she turned to medical marijuana for Cooper just before his third birthday.
“Seizure-wise, we have tried phenobarbital, phenytoin, epilim, keppra, clonazepam, diazepam, midazolam, vigabatrin and lamictal,” Ms Batten said.
Cooper did not respond to normal medication and continued to suffer from seizures, he then developed Stevens-Johnson syndrome after a reaction to a medication known as Lamictal.
Ms Batten said since starting on a small doses of medical marijuana, “[Cooper] had approximately 35 days in hospital, compared to over 200 days in 2013 alone”.
She is not alone in her advocacy for the legalisation of medical marijuana.
Cannabis oil producer Dr Andrew Katelaris, who was deregistered in 2005 for continuing to supply cannabis oil to patients, said he prescribed medicinal marijuana “for epilepsy, cancer, spasticity, neuropathic pain, Crohn's disease and many others”.
Dr Katelaris said he believed that medicinal cannabis therapy could be used to successfully manage depression and anxiety.
“Without a shadow of a doubt” the benefits of medical marijuana outweighed the underlying side effects, he said.
“Without cannabis Cooper would suffer ongoing seizures, progressive brain damage, and an early death.”
Dr Katelaris said recreational cannabis “would be better called black market recreational cannabis – it is often of poor quality, it may not have been properly dried and contains mould".
“It has been grown to maximise size and smell regardless of its action," he said.
He said what was important was the quantity in the drug of CBD, or cannabidiol, a major compound in cannabis that does not produce the "stoned" effect of recreational marijuana.
“Medical cannabis should be of a higher quality and contain variable amounts of CBD depending on the condition being treated, it will be delivered in a way that optimises effect for the condition being treated,” he said.
Dr Katelaris said epileptic children had responded better to cannabis with high CBD.
Bulleen Plaza Medical Centre general practitioner Dr Abraham said medical marijuana was a good treatment for terminally ill cancer patients, "but for any other patients, no".
It was highly addictive could cause extreme cases of schizophrenia, he said.
“There is no point ending up drug dependent or schizophrenic” especially for “young people with a long way ahead,” he said.
Dr Abraham said Tetrahydrocannabinol, commonly known as THC, contained in medicinal marijuana, “eases down severe anxiety and pain” allowing terminally ill patients to “die in peace and happiness”.
The benefits of consuming marijuana in this case outweigh the side effects of dependency and schizophrenia, considering they are completely irrelevant to a dying patient, he said.
Free Cannabis Victoria founder and cannabis advocate Matt Riley said he wondered whether schizophrenia being a possible side effect of marijuana was a good enough reason for it to be prohibited.
“Schizophrenia is a medical condition correct? Wouldn't you think that death is the biggest medical risk there is? But death isn't a reason to prohibit tobacco or alcohol, so a lesser medical risk is not a reason to prohibit cannabis, it is merely a justification for prejudice,” he said.
“There are all sorts of variations in all sorts of cannabis 'strains' but the ones that are referred to as 'medical' tend to be the high CBD strains.”
“These are seen as the best strains to use when fighting cancer, for example,” he said.
Ms Batten expressed great concern for her son if the law reform did not pass in August.
“We will continue to be forced to break the law – we recently ran low on supply and Cooper went into status epileptic (suffered repeated seizures) for nine days,” she said.
Ms Batten believes medicinal marijuana has so far only had a positive effect on Cooper.
“Without it he wouldn’t be alive.”
The first trial of medical marijuana in which Victoria will participate – due to start in the middle of next year – will be open to children with severe, drug-resistant epilepsy, Victoria's Health Minister Jill Hennessy told the ABC.
"There's a series of experts that oversee the eligibility for who gets to partake and we'll be doing all we can to support Victorian families and Victorian kids who meet that eligibility criteria to participate in the trial," she said.