The battle to get CBD to patients in Ireland just got a huge helping hand, with support from a heavy-hitting medical professional backing the oil as a possible medicine.

Dr. Colin Doherty, a neurologist at St. James’s Hospital in Dublin, is backing the campaign for CBD medicine legalization – with caution.

“It is possible to state with confidence that this drug will not work for everyone, will cause intolerable but probably not dangerous side-effects in a few, but for those for who it will work it may be life-saving,” warned the doctor.

It’s a long time coming for the Irish patients suffering from epilepsy in the anti-CBD country. The poster child for Ireland’s CBD activists is Ava Barry, a six-year-old with Dravet syndrome, was experiencing multiple seizures a day – some lasted as long as 90 minutes and were so violent that they could lift her body off of her bed.

The medicine only has trace amounts of THC

Cannabis in Ireland remains illegal across the board. Unfortunately, the medicinal oil in question has been lumped into the ban on pot. CBD oil is light in THC, and is therefore non-psychoactive.

Without medical marijuana in the country, Ava’s mother was forced to try around 11 different drugs to control her life-threatening episodes. Nothing worked as well as the CBD oil.

The family was traveling around the globe as medical refugees to obtain the oil for their little girl.

“We want to access this treatment for Ava here in Ireland, we don’t think our little girl should have to leave our own home and move to another country to be without all the major benefits a loving and caring family life that she has here provides,” explained Ava’s mother.

Sign the petition

Parents in Ireland are fed up with their government’s stonewalling of medical cannabis oil for their children.

Ava’s mother, Vera Twomey, is taking action with a petition for CBD.

“We feel she should be entitled to be treated in her own country. We beg the government to see that a small child like Ava has battled every day with seizures lasting from two minutes to two hours. She has astonished doctors with her progress and we are proud of her but imagine what she could achieve if we accessed medication that is proved to work.”

The petition has 22,244 supporters. Her goal is to collect 25,000 signatures and present them to the Minister for Health, Simon Harris.

RELATED ARTICLE: Ireland’s Minister of Health Promises to Look into Medical Marijuana

The three-strike rule

Those caught in Ireland with the illegal herb are usually given three chances. The first two times could result in fines, and the third time is a larger fine and/or imprisonment for up to a year.

For now, officials are hesitant to recommend the cannabinoid oil as a medicine before more clinical trials are completed.

Lorraine Nolan, head of the Health Products Regulatory Authority, said the medical community is getting there, “but we are not there yet in terms of having the evidence to authorize them as medicines.”

“We could probably come up with some way of administering the drug before the definitive evidence is across the line,” he said.