LF: Minnesota mom who gave cannabis oil to son will not face trial

Title: Minnesota mom who gave cannabis oil to son will not face trial - drug warriors furious
Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press
URL Source: http://www.twincities.com/localnews ... a-brown-madison-has-signed-off
Published: Apr 17, 2015
Author: Tom Cherveny
Post Date: 2015-04-20 21:21:27 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 39400
Comments: 118

Angela Brown, left, visits with supporters, including Patrick McClellan, outside the Chippewa County Courthouse in Montevideo, Minn., in September. McClellan, of Minnesotans for Compassionate Care, testified at the Legislature for the bill that will allow the use of medical cannabis. He made the trip from Bloomington to show support for Brown. Forum News Service: Tom Cherveny

Angela Brown of Madison, Minn., has signed off on an agreement that will lead to the dismissal of a child endangerment charge against her for giving her 15-year-old son cannabis oil to treat his seizures and pain from a traumatic brain injury.

Brown said her attorney, Michael Hughes of Bend, Ore., informed her a week ago that he and Lac qui Parle County Attorney Rick Stulz worked out an agreement that will allow for a "continuance for dismissal'' of the child endangerment charge. If she pays a $100 court fee and has no violations for 90 days, the gross misdemeanor charge will be dropped.

Brown said she signed the agreement Thursday and expected it to be entered in court by the Lac qui Parle County attorney.

Brown had been set to stand trial on the charge Wednesday.

"I was shell-shocked and actually upset; he's getting exactly what he wants,'' said Brown of her initial reaction when asked by her attorney if she would OK the agreement.

Brown learned of the agreement while in the Twin Cities on April 10 for the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival and the debut showing of "Pot (The Movie),'' which documents the fight for medical marijuana, and in which she appears.

By approving the agreement, Brown said she spares her son Trey the trauma of having to testify in the trial. The prosecution intended to subpoena Trey, according to Brown. She said it would have been traumatic for her son to have to testify.

She said her attorney filed statements from her son's medical provider warning of the harm it could cause him.

Brown was charged in June with child endangerment after surrendering a small amount of cannabis oil to law enforcement. The family had traveled to Colorado to obtain the oil to treat Trey. He suffered the traumatic brain injury when he was struck by a baseball at age 11.

Brown and her husband, David, believe their son would be eligible to receive the cannabis oil when use of medical cannabis for some medical conditions becomes legal in Minnesota on July 1.

The legal fight has been a financial blow to the family, and the ordeal very stressful for the parents and their three children, Brown said. They have been fearful that she would be taken away and put in prison. She and her husband have a gofundme.com fundraising site to accept funds for their medical and other costs, and now the costs to move to a new home.

Brown said they have decided to move to Colorado where David has accepted a position with his former employer, the Corrections Corporation of America.

The ordeal has put Angela Brown into the limelight as a spokeswoman for those calling for laws to allow for the use of medical cannabis.

Trey Brown, center, looks at a cellphone photo taken of him outside the Chippewa County Courthouse in Montevideo, Minn., in September. Trey's mother was facing criminal charges at the time for giving her 15-year-old son medical cannabis to treat his pain from a traumatic brain injury. (Forum News Service: Tom Cherveny)

Her family's story is part of the newly released documentary film, and Brown has appeared on national television programs to tell it.

While it has been difficult for her family, she believes the ordeal has served some good in that she has been able to call attention to the issue. She remains committed to it.

"I'm going to continue to fight. It's not done,'' she said.

As more states move to legalize cannabidiol, early research shows the substance failed to help some patients and even worsened others

Studies are under way to test the effectiveness of a marijuana extract that has been hailed as a wonder drug by some parents whose children suffer severe forms of epilepsy. But as initial findings from several researchers trickle in, the results are proving mixed.

A dozen states in the past year, including Florida and Kentucky, have legalized the substance—cannabidiol, or CBD—despite a lack of hard evidence of its effectiveness in controlling seizures. Another nine states are weighing CBD legislation. Some of the bills have been named after children in those states with severe epilepsy and whose families were desperate for an alternative after trying other medications that failed.

The early research results show that while some children appeared to improve after taking CBD, others didn’t respond, or even worsened. Doctors say the findings underscore the need for more research on the extract.

These parents don't even know what they're giving their children. They don't know because their drug dealer doesn't know.

There's no "quality control", no consistency between batches, no screening for contaminants, no idea of drug interactions with other medicines the child may be taking, no clue about side effects.

How much CBD is in that oil? What is the proper dosage? How many times per day? What other cannabinoids are in that oil? Will those cannabinoids actually make the problem worse?

Her son's doctor advised against it. Not gonna stop her. She a vocal advocate for marijuana as medicine. How would that look?

One source stated that some guy was making it in his garage and widely distributing it to desperate parents...

Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.

There are other unscrupulous types who are selling whatever they whip up as a blend, often the main Charlotte blend mixed with other active-THC material.

So there are some scammers out there trying to get in on the cannabis oil market and parents need to check carefully who is supplying them and their reputation.

Humans can be relatively stupid and gullible creatures. We will believe anything if you put the right sales spin and fancy marketing on it.

So here we are over 100 years after the snake oil peddlers were done away with by the 1906 Food and Drug Act, which attempted to regulate medicines and curb the abuses of “travelling “doctors” with dubious credentials, selling fake medicines with boisterous marketing hype, often supported by pseudo-scientific evidence.” Sound familiar? Yes….Look around you. History is indeed repeating itself and the cannabis snake oil salespeople are out in full force to sucker you out of your hard earned cash before prohibition ends.

The ruse was simple. Wander into a town of unsuspecting people proclaiming to have the cure all for their illness and disease and sucker the townspeople into buying up all of your bullshit snake oil preparations. The way they would pull off the trick is to have accomplices in the audience that would claim that the preparation had really helped them. They would sucker people into believing their bullshit based on the testimonies of those who had supposedly used this new cure all and had been healed. Yeah…Let that soak in for a minute. Check the landscape and you can see that this ruse is more alive than ever, and the internet and social media have made it easier than ever to pull off. The quasi-legal state of cannabis and the lack of oversight or regulation make it extra easy picking for these modern day medical hucksters.

A half year ago, Project CBD assigned a writer to investigate and report on Medical Marijuana Inc., a penny stock umbrella company that markets “hemp oil” products infused with cannabidiol (CBD), a medicinal component of the cannabis plant. Originally we had hoped to shed light on the complex financial machinations of Medical Marijuana Inc., a subject that had been addressed by a few stock market analysts but not by journalists in general interest publications.

Project CBD was poised to publish Aaron Miguel Cantu’s research when we heard complaints from several sources that people were getting sick, in some cases “violently ill,” when they ingested “Real Scientific Hemp Oil,” Medical Marijuana Inc.’s flagship product. We decided to delay the release of our report until we had a chance to look into whether there was any truth to these allegations.

Our investigation proceeded in an unanticipated direction, involving analytical lab tests, hemp oil production tours, and a crash course in scientific data regarding toxic solvents, heavy metals, and other contaminants. We have presented our findings in this report.

Despite the fear that CBD-rich marijuana extracts can increase the risk of serious psychiatric disorders and long-term cognitive problems, we believe that the serious long- term effects that accompany the use of anti-epileptic drugs and a lifetime of intractable seizures cannot be ignored. The positive results that some people with epilepsy have been seeing from CBD-rich marijuana extracts are giving so many parents what they have been lacking for so long – hope.

Many people with severe epilepsy have tried a myriad of mind-numbing medications, brain surgeries, invasively implanted electrical stimulation devices, diets and alternative therapies, with little to no relief of their symptoms. While there may be some harmful effects from these CBD-rich marijuana extracts, they must be weighed against the very real dangers and challenges a constantly seizing child faces every day – a child who has no other treatments left to try.

Early results are promising, but more research is needed (and it is happening).

Do these "quality growers" know what they're selling? What's the amount of CBD in each drop of oil? How many drops per dosage? How many times per day? Any other cannabinoids in their product?

"SATIVEX® is provided as a buccal spray in a 5.5 ml vial, with each 100 microlitre spray providing 2.7 mg delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and 2.5 mg cannabidiol (CBD)."

"Patients should be advised that it might take a week or more to find the optimal dosing level. The median daily dosage of SATIVEX® in the extension phase of the 4-week clinical trial was 5 sprays per day."

No one should have to suffer because you've been on a bum trip since the Summer of Love '67 in Frisco.

Deckard is a snake oil salesman. The quality of his product isn't important just his sales.

Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on. Robert Kennedy

Gatlin and GrandIsland hate children and wish to see them suffer by not allowing parents to do what they believe is best for their own children, using whatever means necessary to alleviate their suffering including the use of non-fed.gov approved medicines.

To put it another way, they are both fascists who believe that ALL children belong to the almighty State and both of them bravely cheered Reno killing the children at Waco.

It was pointed out that your medical studies that you bank your credibility on are about as official as some fat southern slob saying PBR beer causes the drinker to fart less.... and now I hate children? lol

Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on. Robert Kennedy

Why do you wrap your silly little discussions within a teenie-weenie HTML box with tiny, little font?

Can you grow up and just discuss the issues without all the keyboard strokes of a Liberace in disguise?

Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on. Robert Kennedy

“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul

Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.

“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul

Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.

“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul

Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.

“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul

Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.

“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul

Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.

The D&R terrorists hate us because we're free, to vote second party

“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul

Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.

“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul

Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.