Greenleaf 06-07-17

Legal Weed:
Hemp, Hemp Hooray Part 2,
A victory for Families of Mexico
By Mark M. Ward
@ReadLegalWeed
It has been 80 long years that the US government has prohibited
cannabis from crossing the Mexican border into its territories.
For nearly a century no expense has been spared by our government,
whether be it monetary, or be it the freedom of our good
citizens. But what if you were to be told, that as of recent the US
is now legally exporting cannabis, in oil form, across its border
into Mexico? Recently, the California-based company Medical
Marijuana, Inc. (MMI) has become the first enterprise to legally
import CBD oil into Mexico and do just that.
I first started chronicling the endeavors of MMI in DOPE
in August of 2016, in “LEGAL WEED: Hemp, Hemp Hooray, a
Victory for Families of Brazil”. In the issue I brought to you the
story of a courageous mother by the name of Katiele Fischer that
risked her freedom by illegally importing CBD oil into the cannabis
barren country of Brazil in order to treat her daughter Anny’s
devastating illness. While successfully treating her daughters
CDKL5, a rare form of epilepsy, Katiele was caught and charged
with illegally smuggling cannabis products into the country. She
then issued a lawsuit back against the federal government and
ANVISA, Brazil's FDA and won making Medical Marijuana, Inc.'s
Real Scientific Hemp Oil the first-ever CBD product approved for
importation into Brazil.
Currently Medical Marijuana, Inc. is the first publicly
traded cannabis company in the US, traded under the ticker
symbol MJNA. The primary business is currently high-concentrate
CBD products made using the hemp plant, which has led to
momentous import authorizations for the company first in Brazil,
and now Mexico and Paraguay, but the company does claim
they also are positioned to move into marijuana (THC) as well.
The announcement came after years of intense scrutiny on
Mexican authorities from medical marijuana activists and advocates
who were pleading on behalf of two families with children who have
severe forms of epilepsy. First of the two girls to receive an import
permit was Alina Maldonado Montes de Oca, a young girl from the
small town of San Andres Tuxtla in the state of Veracruz. Alina
experienced her first seizure when she was just an infant. Almost
immediately Alina’s seizures became more frequent and intensified,
peaking at 25 to 40 mild attacks per day, with grand mal seizures
occurring up to twice per week. Doctors soon found that she had
hypoxia, an oxygen deficiency to certain parts of the body, which
affected her brain development and caused both epilepsy and
infantile cerebral palsy. Young Alina was barraged with 14 different
Graciela Elizalde Benavides, age 10 who suffers
kinds of medication, each one with an array of painful side effects,
from Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and is using CBD oil
including liver damage and gastritis.
to combat her symptoms.
J30