Creating hope

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8A» NEWS

tuesday, december 9, 2014 B denverpost.com B the denver post

6

Creating hope

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The stainless steel machine that creates Preston’s CBD oil is one of a kind. Medical marijuana providers use a variety of methods to extract CBD and other compounds from marijuana and turn them into a medicine. Preston’s provider, Jason Cranford, custom-designed his extractor to suit his unique method, which is described here.

FROM 7A

Instead, there was Facebook, where she bonded with Dravet moms in ways that seemed impossible for her to do with the people she met in her everyday life. In Colorado, those moms now come to her house for dinner. “We just kind of feel like we get each other,” Ana said. “We connect on a level that other moms don’t get.” This new community in Colorado has generally split into two groups, centered on the state’s two largest providers of marijuana extracts rich in a compound called CBD that the kids take. The most famous is the Realm of Caring. Its best-known patient — a little girl named Charlotte Figi, who is the namesake of the group’s CBD product, Charlotte’s Web — has been featured in two documentaries and dozens of news stories. Today, the Realm of Caring serves more than 350 patients in Colorado, with an affiliate group in California serving about 150. “It’s been an amazing support community,” said Charlotte’s mother, Paige. “These were parents who didn’t leave the house.” Because the Realm of Caring is based in Colorado Springs, parents who move to the state — often inspired by news stories about Realm patients — frequently locate there. That is what Ana did when she arrived in Colorado in late June. But, by this summer, the Realm’s waiting list topped 10,000 names, forcing some families to seek other options. Many, including Ana, turned to Jason Cranford, a Boulder County man who owns several medical marijuana businesses but chooses to serve young patients out of his home. Cranford’s group is the Flowering Hope Foundation, and it has more than 120 patients. Its signature strain — Haleigh’s Hope — is named after Haleigh Cox, a Georgia girl who went three years without smiling at her mom or dad. On the emergency flight out to Colorado with her mom, Janéa, Haleigh stopped breathing three times. Soon, as Haleigh slowly improved, Janéa volunteered to schedule appointments for new patients at the Flowering Hope Foundation. “This is bringing hope to so many families,” Janéa said. “We feel like family.” Parents from both organizations have led a political movement to push pro-CBD laws in state legislatures across the country. In addition to the 23 states with medical marijuana laws, an additional 11 states have legalized CBD in some form. In states such as Alabama and Utah, where conversations about liberalizing cannabis laws never previously received much attention, the families’ stories broke through. “The power that these parents have is unequaled,” said Dr. Alan Shackelford, a Denver physician who has recommended medical marijuana for many kids coming to Colorado, “because a committed parent trying to help a child can move mountains.” But one thing parents can’t do is guarantee whether medical marijuana will help their children. For some, CBD has been a godsend. For some, it has been a dead end. Despite the positive signs, Milly still worries about which side Preston will fall on. To help Ana settle, she committed to staying in Colorado Springs for a couple of months after the move. But the transition had been harder than either she or Ana expected. And when the seizures continued, Milly decided to stay longer. She rented a house near Ana’s. Sitting at her kitchen table during the stretch of days without a grand mal, Milly thinks about how difficult Preston’s journey in Colorado has been and about how, even now, little seizures continue to shake his brain daily. Is that progress? Her thoughts turn to the moment when she first heard about CBD — in the TV documentary where she saw a smiling Charlotte Figi riding a bicycle. “Looking back on it,” she said, “all we could see was hope and something that was helping these kids. And they were families just like us. That’s what clicked it and made it believable.” She paused in her thoughts. “I’m not saying it’s not believable. I’m just saying things are not always — it’s a story. It’s a story. I don’t know.” Another pause. “I want it to be true.” Quiet. “I want it to be true.”

Processing the plant

Creating the active ingredient

Lab techs begin by breaking down marijuana plants into small pieces. Cranford’s signature strain is a plant called Haleigh’s Hope, named after one of his patients.

Heat is needed to activate the CBD and THC in the plant. The process is called decarboxylation because it causes the evaporation of C02 molecules in the compounds.

TETRAHYDROCANNABINOLIC ACID

OH

O

THC is the most abundant cannabinoid found in the pot plant.

OH O

H

H

OH

CANNABIDIOL CBD is used as a neuron protectant for seizure control.

O H

A. Plant material goes into the tanks, which hold 10 pounds each.

B. Twenty bottles, or 320 ounces, of organic safflower oil is used to make the infused oil. The heated oil is fatty, which means it dissolves cannabis compounds well.

C. After a good

A

The extraction starts when the oil is mixed from tank to tank. It strips the trichomes a little at a time. After eight hours of running from one tank to the other, one tank is full of infused oil. The oil is transferred to the smaller tank, where the glass bottles are filled.

Detail area

soaking, the trichomes on the plant material dissolve into the oil. A trichome is a small, sticky gland on the plant that holds the active chemicals in marijuana, like CBD and THC.

C

Trichomes

Organic safflower oil

All the braided hoses are Teflon-lined to prevent oil from sticking to the sides.

The finished oil is put into glass bottles. In other methods of making CBD oil, a chemical solvent is used and must be evaporated away, with the leftover CBD-rich slurry then mixed into cooking oil. Cranford’s method uses nothing but safflower oil and marijuana plants.

B

Safflower is a thistle-like plant, with seeds that are used to make oil for cooking or other uses. Other CBD producers use olive, coconut or sesame oil for their products.

The whole process takes 12 hours. It makes 5 gallons at a time, which fills about 700 bottles of highly concentrated meds.

Source: Jason Cranford, BioTech Severiano Galván, The Denver Post

Preston’s birthday On his first morning as a teenager — Nov. 1, six days after his party — Preston shuffles out of the bedroom wearing fleece pajamas with dinosaurs on them. Breakfast is his choice, so he chooses fried potatoes, slices of cheddar cheese and tortilla chips. Milly lights a vanillascented votive candle to sing happy birthday to him, and, on the third try, Preston huffs in and blows out the flame. » 9A

wheel deal. In celebration of his 13th birthday, Preston finally gets a bicycle of his own — one with training wheels. He had been eyeing sister Sydney’s bike for a long time, taking every opportunity he could to sit on it.