Zoe gets cannabis med help

Zoe Jeffries, 7, with her mother, Karen, who says her daughter is more settled since being able to take a medicinal cannabis oil spray. Photo / File

A 7-year-old Rotorua girl has been allowed to take medicinal cannabis for her severe seizures and her family have already noticed positive signs of improvement.

Karen and Adam Jeffries have been approved by the Ministry of Health to give their daughter Zoe the cannabis oil-based mouth spray Sativex for the next six months.

Zoe has uncontrolled epilepsy, spastic quadriplegia cerebral palsy, microcephaly, cerebral visual impairment and is tube-fed. She has had severe seizures since birth.

The Jeffries began researching medical cannabis in 2013 in the hope of finding a drug to reduce the hundreds of seizures their daughter suffers each day. Zoe will have been using Sativex for three weeks tomorrow.

"[When we first heard the news] I think we were a little bit shellshocked. It's been such a long journey and to finally get the green light [but] we're a bit stuck between a rock and a hard place because now we have work out how we're going to buy it, so it is a bit deflating too," Mrs Jeffries said.

Sativex is the only approved cannabis-based medicine registered with Pharmac, but is not funded. It can be prescribed by a doctor but each case needs Ministry of Health approval. To date, there have been 97 ministerial approvals, and there are currently 27 users of Sativex. Each bottle lasts around four weeks and costs $1050. The Jeffries paid for the first script with a well-timed tax return and have set up a Givealittle page to help fund repeat scripts.

"[Zoe] is a lot more settled overall, she definitely is having less spasms. We are definitely seeing positives, seeing her more relaxed. [At school] she was more settled and not freaking out with all the noises and was able to cope longer in a classroom setting."

Mrs Jeffries said they remained "cautiously optimistic" but realised it wasn't a cure-all for Zoe's condition.

"We just want to give her a better quality of life. We have glimpses of Zoe's personality come through all the drugs that is suppressing what's underneath. This gives us hope, I guess. We don't have all our eggs in this one basket but we do hope. We want to have no regrets and that we have tried everything."

Mrs Jeffries is a trustee of United in Compassion NZ, a trust who aimed to educate New Zealanders on the potential therapeutic benefits of medical cannabis as well as facilitating New Zealand-based research.

Chief executive Toni-Marie Matich said they had been working constructively with Mr Dunne who had tasked her with a working group within the Ministry of Health on this issue.

"I am meeting with the minister to discuss our initiatives which we do regularly and will be discussing if a submission can be made to Pharmac or presented by our organisation."

United in Compassion NZ will host a national symposium of international experts next year in Wellington.

-Zoe's Sativex Givealittle page: https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/medsforzoe/

- Additional reporting, Herald on Sunday.