Two sisters from Australia have come to Canada seeking help for a degenerative lung disease that could quickly prove to be fatal if not treated properly. And they are receiving it in Victoria, thanks to an alternative treatment centre that is supplying the children with cannabis oil.
The concern, however, is what happens when Tabetha, 13, and Georgia-Grace Fulton, 8, return home in a few months.
Prior to their arrival in Victoria this summer, the sisters were being treated in Australia with steroids — drugs whose side-effects, including osteoporosis, have drastically reduced their quality of life, says mother Bobby-Jo Fulton.
The family came to Canada, the first country to make legal the use of medicinal marijuana by non-residents, seeking an alternative means of treatment.
“In the end, they want to go back home,” said Alex Abellan, founder of National Access Cannabis on Quadra Street, an alternative treatment centre that is supplying the sisters with cannabis-based medication. “But they want to be able to continue this treatment in Australia.”
Abellan contacted Fulton after seeing a story documenting the family’s plight. The girls’ mother had resorted to using cannabis oil illegally in Australia, and was told by Australian authorities to stop or risk being arrested.
“I saw online that she was being pretty much persecuted in her own country,” he said. “She had to stop [using cannabis oil] and put her children back on the medication the medical system said they should be on, but it was hurting the children.”
He has given the family free use of a two-bedroom apartment during their stay and has also co-ordinated treatment with a pediatric lung specialist.
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in June that patients in Canada had the right to consume medical marijuana in forms other than smoking it, such as extracts, oils and cookies. Cannabis oil is made by cooking marijuana at a low heat, extracting the medicinal, but not psychoactive, ingredients.
The medical profession, however, has not fully embraced the legal decision.
According to one representative, who could not comment publicly on the matter, doctors are split almost in half over the issue. The profession is also unsure of how to regulate cannabis oil and at what strength it would be administered.
A professional standards document from the B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons notes: “Few reliable published studies are available on the medical benefits of marijuana. The amount of active ingredients in marijuana varies significantly, depending on the origin and method of production of the substance.”
The Fultons do not plan to stay in Canada forever.
“We plan on returning to Australia when our government allows the children to use cannabis as a medicine,” Fulton told the Times Colonist via email.
“Presently in our country the treatment for the girls is corticosteroids … [which have] side-effects. We have proven here in Canada, with the help of Alex, that cannabis oil treatment works for the girls without any side-effects.”
Both children have a degenerative lung disease that often requires them to breathe with help from an oxygen tank.
According to Fulton, their reliance on oxygen tanks has decreased dramatically with the use of cannabis oil.
“The girls are now off the oxygen completely for the day and only using [it] nocturnally,” she said.
“Although the girls will not recover fully, they can at least live a more normal life, and that’s all we are asking for.”
