My little boy

11 Jun 2019 01:59
Published by: Kian French

Alfie suffers from a rare and severe form of epilepsy which could see him suffer up to 150 seizures a month.

None of the medical options in the UK were safe or effective. After Alfie was hospitalised 48 times when he was just five, we travelled to Holland where medical cannabis is available. After his first few treatments, his seizures went away almost completely.

But this life-saving option was not available on the NHS.

I could not watch my son suffer so much. So, I started a petition on Change.org to save Alfie's life and allow him to legally access medical cannabis.

This time last year, after over 708,000 of you supported my petition, Alfie became the first child in the UK to be given permanent access to medical cannabis.

Now, he is not missing school and has learned to ride a bike - he is living a normal life and it all start on Change.org.

Without the platform, which helped to mobilise hundreds of thousands of people, I may never have got my campaign to legalise prescribed medical cannabis on the front page of papers or on BBC breakfast TV.

But most importantly, without the people power that surged through my campaign - my cheeky little boy may not have his health today.

This week, I’ll be sharing with you more details of our family's journey to create change; what it really felt like when my petition was on less than 10 signatures to when it was over 708,000 - I hope you stay tuned.

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