Senate Bill 3 is Personal, pt. 2.

Let me tell you about how all CBD helps manage MTLE.

In last week’s Distilled post I shared my story of living with medial lobe temporal epilepsy (MTLE). I lived without a diagnosis for years despite frequent MTLE seizures. Years later, after a particularly hellish seizure, I was diagnosed and had access to prescription meds that managed my MTLE.

But thousands of Texans with MTLE don’t have access to those meds. Many don’t even have a MTLE diagnosis. For these Texans, hemp-based products offer affordable and accessible relief. SB 3 and its latest incarnations would take that access away.

Low-THC cannabis helps suppress the brain activity that causes MTLE.
The current hemp marketplace offers an accessible alternative to prescription meds.
The Texas Compassionate Use Program (TCUP) is inadequate to help Texans living with MTLE.

CBD is good for the brain.

CBD is a chemical compound (a cannabinoid) that exists naturally in the hemp plant along with dozens of other cannabinoids. CBD is proven to reduce seizure activity and severity in most types of epilepsy including MTLE.

My previous Distilled post describes how MTLE turns the brain into a warzone. It originates in the brain structures that regulate how emotions and memory are processed. When the neural activity within these structures goes haywire, abnormal signals from the neural activity overwhelm the brain’s defenses. CBD acts as a neural shock absorber that keeps the brain functioning during a seizure. In fact, the worse the seizure, the better the shock absorber.

Prescription epilepsy meds don’t provide this type of relief. Meds target a single brain function based on the person’s epilepsy. CBD acts as a zone defense across multiple brain regions all at once. Hence CBD is effective across a broad spectrum of epilepsies and isn’t epilepsy-specific like the meds are. Nobody disputes the fact that CBD helps epilepsy, and in particular MTLE.

So what’s the problem with SB 3?

Hemp prohibition supporters make the selling point that the bills legalize CBD. What the bills actually do is ban every form of CBD that isn’t purified in a lab through a highly regulated and cost prohibitive process. The bills ban all affordable full-spectrum CBD products that Texans currently rely on.

What is the CBD purification process? CBD is one of dozens of cannabinoids that exist naturally in the hemp plant. The hemp plant cannot be grown to exclude all of the other ones – it’s not like the seedless watermelon. The bills prohibit and criminalize any hemp-based product that contained even trace amounts of these other cannabinoids, including the vast majority that are non-intoxicating.

In order to comply with the bills, hemp farmers are required to put their products through a costly purification process in order to “purify” the CBD from other cannabinoids.

The products are required to be tested by expensive, accredited laboratories.
The farmers must register their products through an onerous licensing process at the Department of State Health Services.
“Each location” used to process or manufacture hemp requires a $10,000 annual fee.

The bills don’t clarify whether “each location” includes the third-party labs, state agency offices, or any other “location” the test product goes through in the lengthy process. The bills’ required regulatory maze designed to make compliance nearly impossible to afford. SB 3 does not “legalize” CBD.

Trace amounts of THC makes CBD more effective.

The boogeyman behind these bills is THC, the only hemp cannabinoid with clear psychoactive effects. In high doses, THC gets a person high. Hence the stigma. In the hemp plant, THC is present in trace amounts (in contrast to marijuana). At trace levels, THC does not cause intoxication.

In fact, THC might make CBD more effective in slowing down epileptic events. Research indicates that CBD’s remedial effects are more intense when hemp’s other cannabinoids are not extracted. The other compounds combine with CBD to create an “entourage effect” that enhances therapeutic outcomes for various conditions including epilepsy.

The science specific to THC and its effects on epilepsy is mixed. But the cautious research results apply to generalized epilepsy, not focal epilepsy like MTLE. In low doses, THC does not appear to worsen seizures such as MTLE events. No scientific evidence that I could find supports the position that THC makes CBD less effective.

Congress legalized hemp in the 2018 Farm Bill by defining it as cannabis containing only trace amounts of THC – less than 0.3% by dry weight. Congress sought to support the hemp industry but first needed to remove hemp from marijuana’s classification as a controlled substance. Texas followed suit in 2019.

TCUP does not help Texans living with MTLE.

The Legislature created TCUP in 2015 to allow limited access to medicinal cannabis for certain medical conditions. Epilepsy is included as a qualifying condition, though focal epilepsy is not specifically identified.

TCUP supporters argue the program already provides sufficient access to Texans living with epilepsy. That’s not actually true.

TCUP allows for only a handful of licensed dispensaries statewide.
TCUP limits cannabis prescriptions to those from specially registered physicians.
TCUP prohibits the use of health insurance to pay for cannabis prescriptions (sound familiar?).
TCUP imposes strict dosage requirements.

The Legislature’s expansion of TCUP is warranted and well intentioned. In my opinion and based on my MTLE experience, the program isn’t enough. The existing hemp marketplace provides affordable and accessible relief to MTLErs.