“A new strain of marijuana has motivated hundreds of families with epileptic children to pack up and move to Colorado to legally obtain the drug. The jury is still out on whether this special pot strain does indeed have measurable benefits, or if it’s even safe, but drug companies are racing to replicate its effects in pill form.

The therapeutic pot strain, called Charlotte’s Web, is bred not have THC — the active ingredient in marijuana. Its namesake is 5-year-old Charlotte Figi, a Colorado girl who has Dravet’s syndrome…

CBD [cannabidiol, a non-psychoactive component in marijuana bred at a higher concentration in Charlotte’s Web] has shown some signs of promise of suppressing seizures in animals, but testing in humans is still in its infancy. A small number of case reports exist with conflicting results, and researchers have conducted just four placebo-controlled clinical trials that focused on CBD’s efficacy as a treatment for epilepsy.”

Feb. 21, 2014