A Young Girl Who Inspired the CBD Movement Dies At 13

After being an inspiration to medicinal marijuana, a 13-year-old has lost her life after being hospitalized due to pneumonia, breathing problems and seizures. On Tuesday, Charlotte Figi, a 13-year-old girl, who helped sparked the CBD movement, was hospitalized with COVID-19 symptoms, although she tested negative for the virus, according to her mom, Paige Figi. “Charlotte is no longer suffering. She is seizure-free forever,” a family friend wrote on Paige Figi’s Facebook page, announcing Charlotte’s death. “Thank you so much for all of your love.” Charlotte’s death came after the family had been sick for a month. Her symptoms began to worsen which led her to pediatric intensive care. She was treated as if she had COVID-19, with all the attendant protocols, but her test was negative, Figi told Daily News. On Sunday, Charlotte was discharged. “Our entire family had been ill for close to a month starting early March, but did not initially fit all of the criteria for COVID-19 testing,” Paige told Daily News. “For that reason, we were told to self-treat at home unless the symptoms worsened.” Charlotte was diagnosed with Dravet Syndrome after having continuous seizures at only 3 months old. After spending years under various medications, they all failed to reduce the number of seizures, and eventually, her mom began researching medical marijuana. Before CBD oil, Charlotte was suffering as many as 300 seizures a week at just the age of 5 – due to the severe form of epilepsy. She used a wheelchair, suffered cardiac arrest repeatedly, and had trouble speaking. After taking the oil, which was later named Charlotte’s Webb after her, the girl was then able to live a normal life. Having low levels of THC, which is the compound that makes a user high, and with high levels of CBD which is thought to quell brain tremors, showed results for treating epilepsy. But being illegal in most states, the treatment was controversial. After her parents said it worked people began flocking to Colorado in a desperate bid to improve their children’s symptoms. With federal limits for the research of marijuana and individuals with health effects, Charlotte’s family along with other families shared personal stories on using it for a seizure disorder and in 2018, the US health regulations approved the first-ever CBD prescription drug to treat rare cases of epilepsy for children.