A dental technician and mother of four, Ana Alvarez lives in a flat in Lima that she has converted into a cannabis laboratory. It is, she says, for the love of her son that she has become one of Peru’s leading advocates for liberalising drug laws in the conservative country.
Now 17, Anthony suffers from a rare and severe form of epilepsy called Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, as well as tuberous sclerosis, which causes tumours to grow on the brain and other organs.
“After three days of taking marijuana oil, Anthony started to reconnect with life, he began to socialise, he began to sleep, he began to eat, and little by little he started to recover,” she says. “The change after three days was something extraordinary and from that moment my fight began.”
Dorothy Santiago, a 29-year-old naval officer, was her co-conspirator. Santiago’s five-year-old son, Rodrigo, has the same clinical condition as Anthony.
“Rodrigo took cannabis oil and his seizures stopped for two days. He started to eat, he started to sleep. Because he never slept, we could not believe it!
“He began to connect with people. He had never been able to make visual contact with anyone except me,” she adds. “We know this is not a cure but it gives our children quality of life. We want it to be available to other children with the same condition.”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jun/13/mothers-in-the-drugs-lab-women-in-peru-treating-their-sick-children-with-cannabis
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