In this groundbreaking study by the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers enrolled kids with Dravet syndrome, a very rare and often deadly form of epilepsy that causes multiple, prolonged seizures that can cause brain damage, and treated them with CBD oil.

CBD oil reduces seizures

Devinsky and colleagues around the country tested a CBD extract in the form of GW Pharmaceuticals’ product, Epidiolex on 120 Dravet syndrome patients. Half took it for 14 weeks and half got a placebo.

The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, and claims participants saw up to a 40 percent drop in the frequency of seizures. Even better than that, three patients stopped having seizures, period.

Seizure frequency dropped in the cannabidiol-treated group by 39 percent from nearly 12 convulsive seizures per month before the study to about six; three patients’ seizures stopped entirely

As stated by Dr. Orrin Devinsky, one of the doctors involved in the latest study, it’s not quite accurate to call CBD “medical marijuana,” as “cannabidiol is the major non-psychoactive compound present in cannabis or marijuana.”

There’s no doubt for some children this is just been an incredibly effective and game changing medication for them.

These are some of the children I care for [who] were in wheelchairs, were barely able to open their eyes in an office visit and really showed no emotion and, now they come in, they’re walking, they’re smiling, they’re interactive. It’s like a different human being in front of you.

GW Pharmaceuticals is seeking U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for Epidiolex.

Living proof

If it wasn’t for the medical marijuana, 13-year-old Jack Ziokowski wouldn’t be living the life he is now.

The young boy’s epilepsy was causing him to suffer up to 20 seizures a month before his parents looked for an alternative: CBD oil. Once he was using the medicine, the results were staggering, too.

When we started the CBD, we went six months seizure-free. – Jenny Ziolkowski, Jack’s mother

But, as the video by NBC Nightly News shows, it seems the public still needs to be educated about what exactly CBD is; specifically, that it doesn’t contain THC, the psychoactive component in cannabis.

While doctors call it groundbreaking, with the potential for dozens of other applications, they say that CBD is still hard to research, because cannabis is still a Schedule 1 drug, meaning it has more restrictions and controls than most.

As for Jack, he’s now taking lower doses of his other medication, with fewer seizures and living life like he should be, as a kid.