RALEIGH Legislation to let doctors use oil from hemp plants to treat drug-resistant epilepsy will make the new treatment available only to a small number of patients who take part in pilot studies, rather than a broader patient base as many families have hoped.
Some patients are already calling doctors, hoping to sign up for the hemp oil treatment only to learn they might not be eligible to receive it.
People need to know what the bill is not, said Dr. Mohamad Mikati , an epileptologist and chief of child neurology at Duke University. The only way you can access it (hemp oil) is through a study.
The hemp oil bill cleared the General Assembly with overwhelming support only one no vote, in the House. Gov. Pat McCrory scheduled a signing ceremony for 9 a.m. Thursday.
This law will help ease the suffering endured by children (for) whom no other treatments are effective against their seizures, McCrory said in a statement last week.
The bill authorizes neurologists to conduct pilot studies to evaluate the medicinal use of cannabidiol or CBD, extracted from hemp, for patients with intractable epilepsy.
Rep. Pat McElraft, a Carteret County Republican who sponsored the measure, told a Senate committee last week that its main purpose was to allow families who have gone to Colorado to procure the hemp extract to come back to North Carolina and legally continue the treatment.
But patients who possess medicinal hemp oil without being enrolled in a pilot study will still be in violation of state drug laws, said Barbara Riley, a staff attorney in the Research Division involved in writing the bill.
This is a feel-good measure that may only affect a handful of people, said Rep. Kelly Alexander Jr., a Democrat from Mecklenburg County who has sponsored another cannabis-related bill.
Duke University and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center are in the planning phase to conduct a small clinical trial for Epidiolex, GW Pharmaceuticals CBD plant extract, only on patients with specific intractable forms of epilepsy. The trials are in conjunction with an international study of 100 patients. Doctors say the clinical trials will only include patients fitting specific criteria, and each trial will include no more than 10 patients.
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Few to benefit from bill allowing study of medicinal hemp as epilepsy treatment