Seven-year-old Mykayla Comstock was diagnosed with leukemia last year. To deal with the debilitating side-effects of chemotherapy, Mykayla has turned to another medication: Cannabis oil.

According to ABC News , Erin Purchase enrolled Mykayla in Oregon’s medical marijuana program within three days of her leukemia diagnosis last July. Initially, doctors were concerned Mykayla did not respond well after treatment and suggested she might need a bone marrow transplant. Mykayla started taking the cannabis oil pills, and Purchase says that by early August, Mykayla was in remission and the transplant was no longer necessary. "I don't think it's just a coincidence," Purchase said. "I credit it with helping -- at least helping -- her ridding the cancer from her body."

"It helps me sleep," Mykayla told the Oregonian ,"The chemotherapy makes you feel like you want to stay up all night long." Cannabis has also been widely credited with reducing pain, nausea and vomiting in chemotherapy patients, benefits Mykayla’s mother Erin Purchase says are impossible to ignore. "She's like she was before," Purchase told the Oregonian. "She's a normal kid." A medical marijuana patient herself, Purchase grows her family’s medicine and administers cannabis oil pills to Mykayla daily. She credits the plant with her daughter’s recovery.



"She was stoned out of her mind," Comstock said. "All she wanted to do was lay on the bed and play video games." Comstock employed the help of a private lab, which detected THC in his daughter’s system. He contacted the Gladstone police. After reviewing Mykayla’s medical marijuana paperwork, the department told Jesse their hands were tied.



For a minor to legally enroll in Oregon’s medical marijuana program, a guardian must consent and agree to the role of caregiver. Purchase says she will continue to give Mykayla cannabis for the duration of the two to three years of chemotherapy she has left.



Mykayla's father objects. "She's not terminally ill," Comstock pointed out. "She is going to get over this, and with all this pot, they are going to hinder her brain growth. It's going to limit her options in life because of the decisions her mother has made for her." Still, the thought of such a young medical marijuana patient does not sit well with everyone. After a visit with his daughter this August, Mykayla’s father Jesse Comstock, who lives in North Dakota, took issue with the treatment.

A video of Mykayla paints a different picture of her cannabis use. In a clip posted to the "Brave Mykayla" Facebook page , Mykayla articulates a youthful understanding of how "cannabis cures sickness," saying that “It can help you eat; it can help you sleep...and it also helps you to feel like a normal person.” She looks like a normal, happy kid, but where most 7-year-old girls have hair, Mykayla wears a brown and pink knit hat.

Comstock’s fears for his daughter are in line with many other Americans who are concerned that exposing a developing brain to marijuana’s psychoactive effects could be harmful. Like many other medications, the long-term effects of adolescent use of marijuana are unknown. Opioids like Oxycontin and Percocet are used to treat pain in cancer patients, including children. They are also far more potent than pot and regularly linked to overdose. Marijuana, however, is known to be a relatively benign substance, with zero deaths and few health risks.

Still, weighing the pros and cons of medical marijuana is a complex task. Research has linked adolescent pot use to neurospychological damage, but it has also linked cannabis to cancer-combatting activity . Cannabidiol (CBD), one of many cannabinoids in cannabis, shows especially promising potential to treat a range of conditions. In California, 6-year-old Jayden David relies on a carefully constructed ratio of CBD to THC to treat his life-threatening seizure disorder, Dravet's syndrome. And Mykayla is not the only tiny medical marijuana patient in Oregon. According to ABC News