Chemicals in pot ease boy’s brain seizures

Kunkel’s 11-year-old daughter and a friend made a card decorated with messages of hope and kindness, Day said.

“My wife and I were driven to tears,” said Day, a former Marine. “These are not shadowy guys trying to make tons of money with guns strapped to their bodies.

“They really care about their community.”

When Day first bought an ounce of Sour Tsunami 3 at a Seattle dispensary, it cost $300.

Day turned the dried flowers into a concentrated extract that he added to Haiden’s applesauce.

It seemed to calm Haiden’s frequent seizures. But the ounce amounted to just a week’s supply, meaning Haiden’s marijuana could cost his parents roughly $15,000 a year, out of pocket, because insurance won’t cover a federally prohibited drug.

Day invested more than $2,000 in growing lights and equipment, but his first plants died because his soil was too acidic.

Kunkel said the pound he gave the Day family has a wholesale value of more than $2,000.

It should last about four months, enough time for Day to grow and harvest new plants.

Cooley and Kunkel aren’t the only entrepreneurs who stepped up to help, Day noted.

Dax Colwell of New Leaf Enterprises announced last month a plan to provide low-cost or no-cost CBD concentrates to patients with severe forms of epilepsy.

Day said he got some free medicine from Colwell in concentrate form. But because Day has made his own extract and other parents don’t know how, he said he would leave Colwell’s medicine to those parents while he produces his own.

Inspired to do more, Cooley has given 2 pounds of high CBD marijuana to four dispensaries so that it can be donated to patients facing economic hardship.

Pot entrepreneurs are involved in other holiday giving, such as food and toy drives, Kunkel said, but they tend not to publicize their good deeds.

John Davis, CEO of Northwest Patient Resource Center, said his and other dispensaries have provided free or low-cost products to needy patients year-round.

“I understand why some in the medical-marijuana community want to remain quiet,” Day said. “We’re just in awe of their generosity.”