Tristan Cahalane

Ireland’s Colarado-bound diaspora.

Not all looking to get high.

Maureen Meehan, in High Times, writes:

Another Irish immigration to the US is taking place, but this time it is not because of the potato famine or the economic deprivation it caused in Ireland for decades.

This is the story of Irish people who regard themselves as the first “international medical cannabis refugees” seeking treatment in Colorado.

Yvonne Cahalane left her small community in Cork, southern Ireland, for Colorado with her 2-year-old son Tristan who suffers from Dravet syndrome and has up to 20 seizures every day.

Growing desperate, Yvonne launched a crowdfunding page and raised enough money for herself and Tristan to travel to Colorado last December. Tristan is being treated with CBD oil and THCA, and has regained the ability to speak and his seizures have subsided.

Since that time, another Cork mother, Vera Twomey, has thought of doing the same with her 6-year-old daughter who also has Dravet syndrome, a rare and catastrophic form of intractable epilepsy that begins during infancy.

With around five cases of Dravet syndrome in Ireland and 8,000 Multiple Sclerosis patients, it is becoming more and more common for families to be forced to decide between their home and their health.

Irish Are Emigrating in Search of Medical Marijuana (High Times)

Related: Cannabis drug would help my daughter (Joe Leogue, Irish Examiner, March 7, 2016)

Thanks The Hemp Company