{"id":7862,"date":"2017-11-16T05:38:52","date_gmt":"2017-11-16T05:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.420magazine.com\/?p=6825"},"modified":"2017-11-16T05:38:52","modified_gmt":"2017-11-16T05:38:52","slug":"colorado-girl-suing-u-s-attorney-general-to-legalize-medical-marijuana-nationwide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/colorado-girl-suing-u-s-attorney-general-to-legalize-medical-marijuana-nationwide\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado Girl Suing U.S. Attorney General To Legalize Medical Marijuana Nationwide"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/colorado-girl-suing-u-s-attorney-general-to-legalize-medical-marijuana-nationwide\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p>Alexis Bortell is hardly the first child whose family moved to Colorado for access to medical marijuana.<\/p>\n<p>But the 12-year-old is the first Colorado kid to sue U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions over the nation&#8217;s official marijuana policy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As the seizures got worse, we had to move to Colorado to get cannabis because it&#8217;s illegal in Texas,&#8221; said Bortell, who was diagnosed with epilepsy as a young child.<\/p>\n<p>The sixth-grader said traditional medicine wasn&#8217;t helping her seizures and doctors in her home state were recommending invasive brain surgery.<\/p>\n<p>But a pediatrician did mention an out-of-state option: Medical marijuana.<\/p>\n<p>Shortly after moving to Larkspur, Bortell&#8217;s family began using a strain of cannabis oil called Haleigh&#8217;s Hope.<\/p>\n<p>A drop of liquid THC in the morning and at night has kept her seizure-free for 2 1\/2 years.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d say it`s a lot better than brain surgery,&#8221; Bortell said.<\/p>\n<p>But Bortell said the federal prohibition on marijuana prevents her from returning to Texas.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I would like to be able to visit my grandparents without risking being taken to a foster home,&#8221; Bortell said on why she&#8217;s joined a lawsuit that seeks to legalize medical marijuana on the federal level.<\/p>\n<p>Since the 1970s the Drug Enforcement Agency has classified marijuana as a Schedule One drug, which in the eyes of federal policy makes marijuana more dangerous than meth or cocaine and on par with heroin.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;How is that rationale? It&#8217;s not compassionate either, but rationality? It&#8217;s just outrageous,&#8221; said Alexis&#8217; dad Dean Bortell.<\/p>\n<p>He showed his backyard fields, where he grows five acres of marijuana plants used to derive the medicine that helps his daughter and patients he&#8217;s never met.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When you look at it from a distance and you see it saving their lives, me as a father and an American, I go, what are we doing? How could you possibly look at someone who`s benefiting from this as a medicine and threaten to take it away?&#8221; Bortell said.<\/p>\n<p>Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana.<\/p>\n<p>Alexis&#8217; New York attorney Michael Hiller argues it should be legal nationwide.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As it pertains to cannabis, the (Controlled Substances Act) is irrational and thus unconstitutional,&#8221; said Heller, who added the U.S. government &#8220;made a representation that cannabis has medical application for the treatments of Parkinson`s Disease, HIV-induced dementia and Alzheimer&#8217;s disease and yet at the same time the United States government maintains that there is absolutely no medical benefit for the use of cannabis. That is of course absurd.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Denver attorney Adam Foster represents marijuana businesses.<\/p>\n<p>He said he thought the lawsuit was clever but admitted its success might be a long shot.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Whenever you sue the government, the deck is really stacked against you,&#8221; Foster said.<\/p>\n<p>But he added the federal government might have a hard time arguing medical marijuana has no known medical benefits.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We now live in an era where 62 percent of Americans live in a state where the medical use of cannabis is legal at the state level,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Alexis Bortell said she hopes her lawsuit will normalize medical marijuana but also legalize it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ll be able to be treated like what you call &#8216;normal&#8217; families,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Bortell is joined in the lawsuit by another child, a military veteran, a marijuana advocacy group and former Broncos player Marvin Washington, who played on the 1998 Super Bowl-winning team.<\/p>\n<p>The federal government has already lost its first motion to have the case dismissed.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/colorado-girl-suing-u-s-attorney-general-to-legalize-medical-marijuana-nationwide.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>News Moderator: Ron Strider <a href=\"http:\/\/www.420magazine.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">420 MAGAZINE \u00ae<\/a><br \/>\nFull Article: <a href=\"http:\/\/kdvr.com\/2017\/11\/09\/colorado-girl-suing-us-attorney-general-to-legalize-medical-marijuana-nationwide\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Colorado girl suing U.S. attorney general to legalize medical marijuana nationwide | FOX31 Denver<\/a><br \/>\nAuthor: Rob Low<br \/>\nContact: <a href=\"http:\/\/kdvr.com\/contact\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Contact FOX31 Denver &amp; Channel 2 | FOX31 Denver<\/a><br \/>\nPhoto Credit: Facebook<br \/>\nWebsite: <a href=\"http:\/\/kdvr.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">FOX31 Denver | Denver, Colorado News, Weather, Sports and more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alexis Bortell is hardly the first child whose family moved to Colorado for access to medical marijuana.<br \/>\nBut the 12-year-old&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.420magazine.com\/2017\/11\/colorado-girl-suing-u-s-attorney-general-legalize-medical-marijuana-nationwide\/\" class=\"read-more\">[Read More]<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1614,9,1,3],"tags":[4182],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7862"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7862\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}