[Music]
it's me Brave Michaela again I just
wanted to tell you how my cannabis makes
me feel it makes me feel tired like rest
time tired it makes me have the munchy
[Music]
Munchies that's an easy to remember
Friday the 13th 2012 was the day we got
told she had a MK in her chest her
oncologist came and said the
chemotherapy wasn't doing what it was
supposed to they were going to recommend
us to start considering full body
radiation and a bone marrow transplant
we knew that wasn't necessary we knew
that what we were going to do would be
right so that day we gave her her first
dose of cannabis oil 6 days later it was
in full remission medical marijuana is
legal in 20 States and DC but there are
still legal use cases that are very
controversial like medical marijuana for
kids some claim it's a wonder drug for
epilepsy severe autism and to quell the
harsh side effects of chemotherapy
others de cry the long-term effects of
pumping weed into still growing bodies
we headed to the small town of Pendleton
Oregon a state where medical marijuana
is legal to visit Michaela comto an
8-year-old who takes massive doses of
concentrated THC to treat her leukemia
her family believes in cannabis's
Curative effect that pot can literally
shrink
[Music]
tumors I like lemon you like just eating
sour hey that's the disher I can put
bread in the dish I'm going to put this
croissant in the dishwasher no you can't
do that okay fine where's going to go
then that should make it s you Michaela
is about to take the THC equivalent of a
third of an ounce of the highest grade
medical marijuana roughly 10 bong hits
she does this twice a day this is
bubblegum and this is orange and then I
give them to Daddy a lot of people
complain about it when they get too high
too high the psychoactivity of it is
very extreme compared to just smoking a
joint one pound will yield between 45 to
80 g depending on your process and how
often do you take these every
day and how do they make you feel
energized and happy so I take this and
I'll fill up one side of the
capsule and sometimes I keep it in my
mouth for a little bit so I can taste
the flavor
cuz then it tastes
yummy in the conversation around medical
marijuana for children dosing is a major
issue how much is too much Michaela's
treatment is about delivering the most
amount of THC that she can tolerate
psychoactive properties and all this is
like the medicine basket saturation is
key in treating cancer you have
receptors on every cellon organ in your
body the more cannabinoids you can
intake the more effective the treatment
would be and it protects the the nerves
from the damage caused by the
chemotherapy cocoa butter lotion it's a
cannabis infused essential oil blend
that rolls right on so it's just like a
Tiger Bomb but yeah you drop it right on
your tongue yeah every now and again
Michaela likes to have medibles or
infused goodies or
candies and she'll eat these things on
top of her oil that's when she gets the
more noticeable psychoactive effect
Michaela loves to eat
these you feel your dose kicking in
in the absence of any formalized
production the THC oil that Michaela
takes is made at Stony girl farms in a
DIY garage operation there are a lot of
people who including the federal
government who don't feel that children
should have cannabis but we feel that
it's more important to save the child's
life than be concerned about the child
having THC in their system can you guys
take us through the process of making
the oil absolutely this is our
processing area the trimmings from all
of this process as you see is going into
here is actually what we're going to be
making the oil out of so we'll start by
taking this and we'll put it into our
food processor and we'll just quickly
grind it
up fire hazard is a very big problem
with this make sure to do this outside
don't do it in your kitchen we're going
to put one lound of material in this pot
and then we're going to add to that two2
gallons of 190 proof alcohol so that's a
really intense color huh it's very a
very very intense color in fact there's
there's many many colors in that when we
start to pour it out you'll see that
there's lots of Reds and purples and
Blues in it as well it's
really quite
colorful watch the color of this as I
pour it it should be a real reddish
color now we're going to take this
mixture of alcohol and oil and we're
going to go ahead and pour it right
directly into our fried
look at all those red colors in the
center of that what we're going to do is
evaporate these alcohol fumes we don't
want to meet the fire
[Music]
department guess what that time is
now we don't want any alcohol Rim uh
left for the
patients you can see it's quite thick so
if you touch it to your tongue it's
still a
drop does this drop get me high right it
very well can
okay in addition to cannabis Michaela
takes traditional cancer meds too how do
you think the Cannabis helps her like
what well the Cannabis has made us so
Michaela really has minimal symptoms she
was very very very ill and in a lot of
pain she didn't want to eat and very
thin looking the very first dose of
cannabis we gave her she instantly said
she was hungry and she smiled and she
was happy we get our baby back she plays
now and she's a child again as much as
Michaela's folks prize the paliative
effects of cannabis it's the Drug's
supposed Curative power that makes him
such zealous advocates in conversations
with Brandon he often uses the word
apoptosis how exactly does THC allegedly
shrink tumors THC attaches to cannaboid
receptors in our bodies and translocates
bad mitochondria and cancer cells to
produce RNA that disintegrates the walls
of the endoplasmic reticulum
peer-reviewed medical studies have
backed up this claim but only to a
degree there is no control when it comes
to this word called cancer the only
thing we did have control over was
saying no to radiation therapy and yes
to giving her cannabis it won't work for
every single person every single
person's different and it doesn't just
come to house at once Michaela has
become something of a celebrity in the
weed World inspiring other parents to
give their sick kids cannabis including
their babies
[Music]
Abel's first medicine that was
introduced to him when we uh started
treating him cannabis oil infused into
organic agabi nectar
hey
[Music]
hey I love
[Music]
TJ he had um stage three Wilms tumor he
didn't want eat he didn't want to play
he just kind of laid around all day then
you introduced the Cannabis yeah and
that day he made like a huge turn he he
started eating and playing and it was
completely different he was screaming
running around the house you know bare
feted like just a normal kid at this
point we should mention that the medical
community at large doesn't think that
pot can cure cancer and furthermore that
giving weed to kids presents more risk
than therapeutic reward Michaela's
oncologist refused to comment on the
story and never gave her a prescription
for medical marijuana the dispensary in
Portland wrote the prescription which is
perfectly
legal Brandon has a dispensary card that
allows him to be the delivering agent of
medical
marijuana the way things work in Oregon
is that each patient that is prescribed
marijuana even a child is allowed a
caregiver and a grower to grow six
plants Brandon is able and Michaela's
caregiver when Michaela first began her
cannabis treatment she moved into
Frankie's home Clinic
we visited his garage grow room and
found another layer in the community of
Believers in the healing power of weed
you can kind of consider it like a
alternative medicine hospital of sorts
well you have inpatients do you say well
we have had a couple yes doesn't
necessarily work for everybody sometimes
we get people too late and and different
cancers different diseases respond right
differently and and you know they won't
let us do much science on it so at at
this point in time it is really a if
you're part in the pond a Grassroots
move M you know we moved here from state
of Alabama to uh grow medical cannabis I
had a
dream of uh cannabis curing uh cancer IM
me diseases I woke up in the middle of
the night Googled found a movie called
run from the Cure I found the
information to be compelling I ran in
and woke my wife up and uh probably
sounded and looked like some kind of
maniac and told her that uh cannibis
cured cancer and uh we started research
and we researched literally for months
because it just sounds so Preposterous
the condition against this plan it's
been so thorough for so long that to say
that cannabis has any medicinal benefits
much less the ability to heal disease
sounds to people like you have totally
gone off your rocker I guess it took a
some researching to convince me that you
know it actually that there was a
possibility that it did cure cancer
which was very profound and then um
Michaela came along witnessing Michaela
go through what she went through and
seeing how well she did only further
convinced us take a look at what other
kids look like who were going through
similar treatments I think the evidence
is overwhelming she's the healthiest
child on chemotherapy yeah she's a
bundle of energy every day all day long
it's not because of the chemotherapy I
do think it will be proven you know
we're not legal federally we're just
going to continue to try to do what we
feel is the right thing and hope that
the federal government will allow us to
do so all right so we're going to read
if a peacock finds a pot leaf the four
Rasta pigs they were known as medical
marijuana patients but Peter didn't
actually know why they needed it so he
decided to stop by and ask he knocked on
the door who's there man one of the pigs
called from behind the door hello I'm
Peter the peacock from next door they
quickly opened the door and snatched
Peter in It's a Good rosta Hat he's got
a
bong what can we do for your man the
four roster pigs said in un
well actually I was just wondering why
you need medical marijuana the four Rosa
pigs took turns telling Peter of how
they'd been losing sleep ever since the
wolf moved in down the street uh-oh
eventually they went to a doctor and
found out they had
insomnia their doctor recommended
medical marijuana because it was natural
and wouldn't harm their bodies but it
would help them sleep Peter gets his
medical marijuana license tries it and
finally he feels so much better with a
smile on his face face he fans out his
colorful wings and he is happy again
thanks to medical
marijuana yeah that's good stuff Kevin
sbet is the director of The Institute on
drug policy at the University of Florida
and a former Obama administration drug
policy
adviser this is Kevin Hey Kevin it's
Krishna from Vice so what is your
general position then towards medical
marijuana well my position is that
marijuana definitely has medical value
but we don't need to smoke vaporize or
eat it to get that value medical
marijuana as it currently stands is a
joke it's a joke you know we don't smoke
Opium to get the effects of morphine it
needs to be separated just like a
hundred years ago when we separated
opium from its recreational and
medicinal properties it's something that
we definitely need to pursue frankly
with more Vigor than we've pursued in
the past why do you think that hasn't
happened yet on the federal level
because it should be lab scientists
Pharmacists and doctors in in certified
Laboratories as opposed to guys mixing a
a mixture in their backyard and growing
something in their basement don't use it
as a cover for legalization and make it
truly legitimately medicine but for
Michaela's family weed is already a
legitimate course of treatment and then
this is your dream journal the big big
dream by Michaela comto so what is this
dream about a big humongous ice cream
lime
chocolate
and strawberry bubble gum bubble gum I
had a dream about a a bunch of banana
syrup all over ice cream mhm that's
Rocky Road that's um rainbow sherbet and
that's orange sherbet a bunch of
ladybugs are crawling all over oh no
what did that feel like ticklish is
ticklish blueberry root beer and
bubblegum big day we're all getting
ready for something do you know what
that something was
that's a bunch of food plates oh now the
big tree now the big
tree the big tree the big tree it
snapped and broke and fell all the way
into the river it went down the hill it
went down the hill it went down the hill
roll roll roll roll roll into the River
Splash I've got to B the giggles
[Music]
and 1 2 3 4
5 it's hard to imagine what it's like to
have your kid diagnosed with cancer but
it's clear that Michaela and her folks
are empowered by what they believe to be
marijuana's positive effects they like
other proponents we met have Dawn the
Robes of the converted with Evangelical
Zeal whether weed might in fact be the
cancer drug of the future remains to be
seen
[Music]