Alex Renton, 19, died in July 2015 after a battle that involved the groundbreaking use of medicinal cannabis.

The mother of Alex Renton has admitted she gave her son medicinal cannabis weeks before it was approved by the Government.

Rose Renton told TV3's 3D on Sunday that she secretly administered Elixinol to her 19-year-old son in the Intensive Care Unit at Wellington, after she was sent it from another parent.

"Yeah, I gave it to him," she said.

Marion van Dijk Alex Renton's mother, Rose, admits she gave her son Elixinol before it was approved by the Government.

"When no-one was around, I'd put it down the back of his mouth with a syringe. A mother would do anything."

Alex Renton died on July 1 after being in Wellington Hospital for three months, sedated with a range of drugs to stop him having mysterious seizures.



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His mother campaigned to have medicinal cannabis used in his treatment, before Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne approved the one-off use of Elixinol, a cannabidiol (CBD) product from the United States.

Supplied The cannabinoid oil used to treat Nelson teenager Alex Renton.

It was hoped CBD would reduce the seizures and allow them to bring him out of the coma.

Rose Renton, who supports the use of natural remedies, told 3D she felt the oil was her son's last chance.

She said she knew administering the drug was illegal but she did not care.

"They never listened to a word I said, ever. They never took any care. Why should I feel like a criminal for giving him something I know his body would respond to and need?"

Rose Renton denied that the cannabis oil she administered had any harmful effect.

"The CBD oil could interact with some of the epileptic drugs because they are metabolised by the body in a similar way."

She did not believe she was putting him at risk, she said.

"Not when you see the drugs I saw. There's no way. I don't believe that at all.

"And at the end of the day Alex would say, 'I'd rather die with an overdose of CBD oil than any of the s..t that they put me on.'"

Rose Renton believed it was the other drugs that killed him.

"They would say, the doctors and the hospital would say, it was the encephalitis and the refractory seizures, but I believe they could have dealt with Alex very differently from day one."

But Renton's doctors disagree.

"The cause of Alex's death was constant seizures, which in the long term are non-survivable," they told 3D.

"The pharmaceutical medicines given to Alex were used to keep him sedated to stop his seizures. It is incorrect to suggest they caused him any harm."

Meanwhile, Wellington hospital told 3D the oil was of no value.

"At no stage did we observe any meaningful improvement in Alex's clinical state after starting the CBD oil."

Rose Renton believed the hospital had no idea she was giving the drug to her son - until now.

The fight was not over for Rose Renton: "That's what Alex has left us; that's what Alex wants us to question and that's what Alex would want us to learn. If we choose to use medicinal cannabis in New Zealand then we should have that choice."





