Yes, Mexico Legalizes Medical Marijuana - But What’s ’Medical’ Use And Who Will Benefit? Jorge Valencia - Fronteras Desk
go to original July 15, 2017

Margarita Garfias cares for her son Carlos Antonio in their middle-class neighborhood in Mexico City. Carlos Antonio, 13, had been suffereing from frequent seizures until he began to take daily drops of a marijuana-extracted oil last year, Garfias said. (Jorge Valencia)

Margarita Garfias lives in a typical middle-class building in Mexico City. There’s a doorman, and up a short elevator flight, an apartment with a small balcony and enough rooms for her, her husband and their son and daughter.

Carlos Antonio, the younger of the two, suffered a cardiac arrest just after birth and was diagnosed with near loss of brain function. Since then, Garfias has dedicated herself to taking care of him, becoming well acquainted with his frequent epileptic seizures and the thousands of dollars the family has spent on medicine and occasional hospitalizations.

But early last year, Garfias started giving Carlos something she got on the black market: oil extracted from marijuana. He now seems more connected and the seizures seem to be in the past, she said. A jar about the size of an eye-drops jar containing the oil cost her about $35.

"Only rich people can get afford to get sick in this country," Garfias said, sarcastically.

... The Health Ministry has until the end of the year to issue its rules. In the meantime, mothers like Margarita Garfias say they’re not going to wait.

Breaking the law isn’t her biggest worry. She said she’d rather get arrested than see her son get sick.

Read the rest at Fronteras Desk

Related: How Much Marijuana Do You Need to Relax? Science May Finally Have Figured It Out. (Mic)

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