'I'd Be Dead' If Not For Medical Cannabis: HdG Sophomore
HAVRE DE GRACE, MD — Connor Sheffield wants to be able to go to school.
“I don’t want to be home-schooled,” the 15-year-old told Maryland lawmakers last week. “I love going to school.”
There is just one problem. In Maryland, there are no guidelines for schools to administer his medication, which involves putting a few drops of medical cannabis under his tongue.
Instead, his parents have to pick him up, drive him off campus, administer the oil and check him back in to school.
“I can confidently say that if I hadn’t started using it, I would not be here,” Connor told Patch regarding medical cannabis. “I think I’d be dead.”
A sophomore at Havre de Grace High School, Connor has had digestive issues his whole life. He suffers from a progressive condition called gastrointestinal dysmotility and psuedo-obstruction.
“I feel like I have lived at the hospital more than at my house,” Connor said. “I currently only have half my intestines.” An endoscopy bag empties his bowels.
“I was living in constant pain and remember begging my parents and the doctors to stop trying to help me and let me die because I didn’t want to live anymore,” Connor told members of the Maryland House Health and Government Operations Committee on Feb. 19. “I was 12 years old.”
He had been in the operating room more than 30 times by the age of 13, he said. At one point, he had to be fed through his veins, then got a feeding tube. Doctors told the family to think about palliative care.
When he started taking medical cannabis, Connor was 4 feet, 3 inches tall and 76 pounds. His hair was falling out from malnutrition because he could not eat.
“My intestines don’t move or absorb properly,” the teen told lawmakers at a hearing on the bill named for him — “Connor’s Courage.” The measure would require state education officials and the Maryland Cannabis Commission to establish guidelines for administering medical cannabis in schools.
“I have gained 30 pounds and a foot in height since my first dose of medical cannabis” a little more than a year after he began taking it, the teen said. In January, his feeding tube was removed.
Connor is one of about 150 minor patients with a prescription for medical cannabis in Maryland, according to William Tillburg, executive director of the Maryland Cannabis Commission.
About two-thirds of the patients have seizures, autism and severe anxiety, according to Tillburg, who said the children took the medical cannabis using tinctures, capsules or tablets.
“This is not something that is being smoked. This is not something that is being vaped,” Tillburg said.
He reported he was at the Feb. 19 hearing about “Connor’s Courage” in an informational capacity. He advised the lawmakers that in the 11 states where similar legislation was approved, school nurses associations were involved in creating language that covered them legally.
Delegate Mary Ann Lisanti, a Harford County Democrat who sponsored the bill, called it “common sense” and a “necessary step in the implementation of Maryland’s medical cannabis program.”
Delegate Steven Johnson, who identified himself as a pharmacy owner and co-sponsored the legislation, called House Bill 331 “essential” to ensure kids have resources to succeed “and in some cases to survive.” Said Johnson: “It’s our obligation as legislators to ensure those who need the medications can get the medications.”
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In Maryland, there is no legal way for schools to administer the medicine because it has not been included in their guidelines. His parents must take him off campus when he needs it every few hours.
“It stops the pain and nausea so I can function like a normal person,” Connor told state delegates. “Today, I’m here with a problem, and only legislators can” solve it.
Between fourth and ninth grades, Connor went to school a total of 70 days, according to his father, who said the school system provided a tutor for three hours a day.
This year, he has attended Havre de Grace High School all but 14 days, including five when he was advocating for a change in the law in Annapolis. The other absences were mainly attributed to doctor visits, his parents told Patch.
Michael Sheffield, Connor’s father, said he never thought his son would end up taking medical cannabis but that it was a last resort. They visited specialists in Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston as well as Johns Hopkins in Baltimore seeking help.
“We’d exhausted all options in Western medicine,” he said, speaking with Patch Feb. 12 after the Havre de Grace City Council officially gave its support to Connor’s Courage.
“Connor was choking when he was eating,” his father said, and could not hold down water.
A friend who works at Nature’s Care & Wellness in Perryville had suggested medical cannabis. The Sheffields did not subscribe to the idea; but when nothing else was working, on Dec. 27, 2018, Michael Sheffield said he would “be damned” if he would accept the best they could do for his son was to provide palliative care and watch him die.
Putting drops of oil under his son’s tongue worked almost immediately.
“Within 20 minutes, everything changed,” Michael Sheffield said. “He’s not on any other medications.”
Connor said he was shocked by the support he has gotten from his city and lawmakers around the state.
“I was very surprised when I found out someone wanted to get behind” medical cannabis, he told Patch. “It’s the ‘devil’s lettuce,'” he said of common beliefs about marijuana. “But if used for its medical purpose, it is a miracle drug.”
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