A limited study on the perceived effectivity of cannabis use by patients for symptom relief at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital and the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital
1.1 Title and Research question
Charlotte Figi (Maa & Figi, 2014), a little girl who was born with Dravet syndrome, was 5 years old when she began losing milestones and her family was told that Charlotte “had reached the end of the road”. Many anticonvulsive and anti-epileptic medications failed Charlotte, she had significant cognitive and motor delays, required a feeding tube, struggled to walk and talk, and was experiencing up to 50 convulsive seizures per day. Charlotte's mother started was desperate and through her …show more content…
In South Africa Charlotte would not have been able to received adjunctive therapy, since the medicinal use of cannabis is not legal in South Africa. When entering the debate on cannabis legalisation it is vital that there is sufficient empirical evidence to support policy shifts in legalising medical use of cannabis in South Africa. In this debate there is three major precondition for legalisation, namely gathering sufficient information on: the harms associated with cannabis use, the impact of medical cannabis use on non-medical use, and the quality of the evidence supporting medical use of cannabis. This study will look at the uses of cannabis in South Africa, and its perceived effects on symptom relief (Parry & Myers, 2014). The title of this study will …show more content…
This topic is important in the context of parliamentary debates around legalisation and decriminalisation, in a democratic country such as South Africa such a decision necessitates empirical data from those individuals using cannabis medicinally.
The aim is to develop and administer a questionnaire on cannabis use, with the purpose of determining cannabis’ top uses and the effects this will have on legalization. Cannabis is used in South Africa on the general public’s opinion of the medicinal use of marijuana as either positive or negative with the aim of public education. The researcher will gather academic literature on the medicinal use of cannabis and its effects, both positive and negative and critically analyse the results of questionnaires against academic research in order to conclude whether the participant’s experience measures up to research