Sierra Riddle received an unwanted visit from a human services agent last week after making the decision to use hash oils to treat her son’s aggressive form of leukemia instead of chemotherapy.
Last year, after receiving the unfortunate diagnosis, Landon, Sierra’s three-year-old son, had begun to undergo the traditional treatment of radiation and chemotherapy per the doctor’s request, which he in turn experienced the heavy side effects that coincide with this toxic form of treatment. The little guy became aggressively ill, reportedly vomiting numerous times a day, and correspondingly suffered nerve damage in his legs due to the effects of this antiquated therapy. The side effects were so harsh that Landon had even gone a period of 25 days without being able to eat.
Before starting the misunderstood and seemingly controversial marijuana compound treatments of THC and CBD oil, Sierra claims that Landon was ingesting a laundry list of medications that were in fact ineffective.
“Around the clock, he’s usually on liquid morphine, Ativan, Promethexane. And it just really didn’t seem to be helping,” Sierra explained.
At the time of diagnosis, Landon’s mom claims she truthfully was unaware of the medicinal properties that marijuana possesses, but was willing to try anything that would prove effective for her son’s condition because “we didn’t have anything else to lose.”
Like many other citizens across the United States, Sierra wasn’t residing in a state that recognized marijuana as a form of medicine which forced her to move Landon and herself to Colorado where the plant has been legalized for medical and recreational purposes.
In January of this year, Landon started ingesting highly concentrated forms of THC and CBD oil and was proving to cause his cancer to subside.
“As soon as we started taking the oil, his platelets have been a regular healthy person’s level and they can’t understand why,” Sierra avowed.
Back in July, Sierra made the tough resolution to take Landon off of chemotherapy and to continue with the hash oil treatments as an alternative, but the doctors were apprehensive that discontinuing Landon’s chemotherapy could plausibly put his life in jeopardy.
Shortly after, one of the doctors involved with Landon’s case threatened to report Sierra for refusing the treatment for her son, an agent from human services paid her a little visit to express their concerns.
Sierra told CBS Local Denver that she has not missed any of Landon’s scheduled appointments, but still refuses to use chemotherapy for her son unless his state turns dismal.
“I just want to say, no matter what I am not going to give him chemo, but I’m not going to risk losing him either,” Sierra declared. “I’m not going to push it that far.”
Sierra was scheduled to meet with Landon’s doctors and human services to further discuss the issue at hand on October 2.
Editor's Note: This article was originally published on The 420 Times on October 3, 2013