Loving parents will do just about anything to ease the suffering of a child. They will do even more to keep an ailing son or daughter away from the cold hands of death.
Those with children know this to be true. Parents make sacrifices. It can’t be helped. It is love and more. The tendency to protect and care for young family members is coded in their genetic makeup. It is nature’s way of ensuring the survival of a species, even among lower animals.
This is why it came as a shock to find so much resistance among state legislators years ago to permit the sale and distribution of THC to the families of children with health issues to ease their crushing pain or symptoms or, in extreme cases, extend their lives. But in 2019, after much arguing and debate, lawmakers finally relented. They passed a measure to allow it.
THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) is found in cannabis and said to be effective for many medicinal uses. It is said to control epileptic and other seizures. It is used in the UK on patients with multiple sclerosis to relieve a number of horrid symptoms associated with the debilitating disease.
Today, three years later, parents in Georgia who need it to control or manage the paralyzing seizures of sons and daughters are still having to obtain THC illegally. It remains lawfully unattainable in this state.
The reason for the delay — and maybe longer unless the issue is addressed in the General Assembly — are the individuals or companies that applied for but did not receive one of six licenses available in Georgia to grow marijuana, produce THC and make it available to qualifying individuals. Those who failed to get a contract are holding up progress by protesting the selection process used to determine the state’s suppliers. There is even a pending lawsuit.
While no one wants to willingly break the law, count on a caring mom or dad to do just that if it means relief for a child. And they are. They’re finding sources for THC, mostly outside of the state.
Legislators need to find a solution to this mess. There are families here, in Brunswick and the Golden Isles, who are depending on it for their children or an older loved one.
How a lawmaker in all good conscience can sit back and do nothing while children and adults suffer needlessly is beyond all comprehension, especially that of a parent seeking comfort for a child who would benefit from the drug.
