Elizabeth Ganga

eganga@lohud.com





WHITE PLAINS – Amanda Houser, 9, had a message for the politicians in Albany controlling the fate of legislation to legalize the medical marijuana that could help control her seizure disorder.

"I want to be like the other kids, and I want to eat real food and I want these seizures to stop," she said at a news conference Friday in White Plains held to pressure the state Senate to pass the Compassionate Care Act, which would broaden access to medical marijuana.

Amanda suffers from uncontrolled seizures, several daily on a good day and several every minute on a bad day, said her mother, Maryanne Houser of Suffern. After trying eight different drugs, she now takes three and she's on a strict diet. Meanwhile, stories are coming in from other states about the great improvement in children taking marijuana-derived medicines, Houser said.

The family worries the seizures eventually will take Amanda away from them.

"Our children are suffering needlessly, and too many children are dying," Houser said.

Though the Assembly has passed legislation to legalize medical marijuana several times, it has not made it to the floor of the Senate for a vote. But supporters hope this year, with several Republicans having signed on, the momentum is strong enough to push the bill through.

"I think we all know the medical benefits that can be derived from marijuana are too great to be ignored any longer," said Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, D-Scarsdale, who organized the news conference, which included other Assembly members.

The officials argued there's overwhelming support for legalizing the treatment, with a recent Quinnipiac poll showing 88 percent of New Yorkers in favor and 20 states having passed similar legislation. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has announced a plan to let a limited number of hospitals prescribe marijuana for research purposes. But the Assembly bill would let it be used more widely.

The Assembly has included the Compassionate Care Act in its budget, making it a subject of negotiations with the Senate and governor. Sen. Jeff Klein, D-Bronx, the leader of the Independent Democratic Conference, which shares power in the Senate with the Republicans, supports the bill.

Mellina Kessaci, a 3-year-old from Scarsdale, suffers from as many as 100 seizures a week that put her family through "a nightmare that will not end," said her mother, Dalila Kessaci. Knowing a treatment is available that Mellina can't get because they live in New York is terrible, she said.

"Each time we see our daughter seizing," she said, "we feel helpless at her side and terrified for her life."

Twitter: @eganga