Last year, Billy Caldwell became the first child to be prescribed medicinal cannabis oil by Britain’s National Health Service to treat his intractable seizures. He was also given permission to travel with his mother into the United Kingdom with cannabis oil, after which Billie reportedly went 250 days without a seizure.
Recently, his doctor was ordered by the British Home Officenot to renew Billie’s CBD prescription or he’d face disbarment.
As a result, Charlotte Caldwell traveled to Toronto to purchase her son’s lifesaving CBD oil.
Upon her return, she was stopped at Heathrow Airport in London, where it was confiscated. She then went to the Home Office to meet minister of state, Nick Hurd to ask for her son’s medicine to be returned. Hurd refused.
Ms. Caldwell said she feared the seizures “would eventually kill” Billy and warned of the dangers of missing his first treatment in 19 months.
“I’ll just go back to Canada and I’ll get more and I’ll bring it back again,” she said, per The Guardian.
From Northern Ireland, Caldwell described CBD as “a small bottle of oil that’s keeping my son alive” and said “my son has a right to have his anti-epileptic medication in his country, in his own home.”
She vowed to obtain more cannabis oil to help Billy, 12, who suffered hundreds of seizures a day before he began taking CBD oil.
“It’s Billy’s anti-epileptic medication that Nick Hurd has taken away. It’s not some sort of joint full of recreational cannabis,” she said at a press conference.
Billy’s physician, Dr. Brendan O’Hare, agreed that preventing Billy from accessing medicinal cannabis was an ethical issue. He confirmed that the reduction Billy’s seizure “frequency is huge,” with CBD oil.
Caldwell told reporters the customs officers at the airport were “absolute gentlemen … really, really nice.” One had tears in his eyes as they took the CBD oil her, she said.
Caroline Lucas, a vice-chairwoman of the all-party parliamentary group for drug policy reform in England, said: “Rather than cracking down on parents who are trying to help alleviate the suffering of their children, we should be legislating according to the evidence and giving people the treatments they need.”
