Cannabis is a plant that’s causing furor around the world – this is because society is moving forwards and it’s being proven that cannabis is a plant with medicinal properties rather than just a soft drug (as it was seen just a few years ago). Cannabis is slowly being accepted as a medicinal plant. In this article we’re going to deal with a study done on cannabis and epilepsy.
This specific kind of epilepsy is called Lennox Gastaut, and occurs in kids between 3 and 5 years old, resulting in multiple epileptic fits during these years. These fits 
can, in many occasions, cause children to fall over and severely injure themselves. This illness has also been linked to developmental issues, mental disabilities or behavioral issues.
This study is quite important to further research on medication, as many patients become immune to these medications after prolonged use. The star of the study is a cannabinoid called Cannabidiol (CBD). CBD has quite a lot of medicinal properties and doesn’t produce psychoactive effects unlike THC.
225 people with this specific kind of epilepsy were chosen for this study from hospitals around the US and Europe. A comparison was done between patients that were given an oral CBD supplement and others that received placebos, both for two weeks, as well as their normal treatment. In both cases patients suffered from less fits, although patients that took CBD observed 37% less seizures, while those that were taking placebos showed a decrease of 17% – as you can see, the study clearly shows that patients treated with cannabidiol showed a much higher decrease in seizures.
Doctor Villanueva, the man in charge of the four patients held at Hospital la Fe (Valencia) states that he also observed an improvement in the severity of the seizures in general, reducing the possibility of a patient falling and injuring themselves. He also noted that this treatment didn’t produce any sort of secondary effect on the patients, allowing them to live much more comfortably.
The medication used in this experiment is called Epidiolex which contains pure CBD. It’s also been approved by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), meaning that within 6 months it’ll be available to patients with LGS and Dravet Epilepsy.
In our case, as in Europe, The European Drug Agency was petitioned in 2017 and it’s thought that the decision will be taken towards the start of 2019.
Without a doubt, Cannabis is proving to be potentially one of the most medicinal plants in the world, and its recognition as an important monument of modern medicine is sure to come around soon.
