Molecular biologist in Nashville says she saved her son's life with CBD oil

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — A Nashville scientist says she saved her son’s life with CBD oil.

Dr. Annabelle Manalo Morgan is a cellular biologist who promotes cannabis studies all over the world.

It started out for very personal reasons. Macario Morgan was born into a nightmare: 200 seizures a day.

In desperation, doctor’s removed 40% of his brain. He was on seven medications and on his way to a limited, bleak life.

That’s when his molecular biologist mom, Dr. Morgan, created a CBD oil compound for him. She took him off the other medicine cold turkey, so all he took was the CBD oil. Nothing else.

Everything changed.

“He is five years old today. He will start kindergarten in the fall. He has no developmental deficits. If you saw him, you would never know there was a thing wrong with him. He is not autistic, delayed, nothing. He is a normal 5-year-old boy,” said Dr. Morgan.

As you can imagine, Dr. Morgan is a champion for medical use of cannabis and CBD.

While Dr. Morgan loves telling her son’s story, she knows it’s not enough. She says the medical community will never embrace cannabis until they have the studies, the clinical trials, and the data to prove it works.

“It’s frustrating to me as a scientist that I believe in it so much but I don’t have enough studies to back what I want to be able to share with people,” said Dr. Morgan. “And what I believe should be available to the world. How do you solve that? You do studies, but studies take time.”

Dr. Morgan lives in Nashville with her reggae artist and producer husband Gramps Morgan. But she is part of 11 clinical trials around the world, cannabis to treat Parkinson’s, cannabis to treat autism, all brave new frontiers.

Part of the problem with CBD oil is, it's kind of cure-all. You’ve heard it: put it on your knee, take it if you can’t sleep. The oil is everywhere and the claims are for everything.

And then there are those who can’t separate the CBD molecule from marijuana.

“How do we start thinking about this as a medicine as opposed to something in a gas station that we can try or put in our ice cream?” said Dr. Morgan. “How do we take away the stigma of getting high off cannabis and taking those molecules and using them towards medicine?”

That really is her own point. Let’s start studying CBD. Let’s get the facts the medical community requires, because to Dr. Morgan, the miracle of her son could be commonplace, not really a miracle at all but an intentional prescription for a specific condition.

“So we need to start creating specific medicines or specific substances for specific conditions or ailments,” Dr. Morgan said. “If it's a headache, then this CBD is for headache and that includes proper formulation and adding the other right stuff with it.”

“If I didn’t do this, my son would most likely be tied to a wheelchair, wouldn’t speak, would still be eating out of a tube. But luckily his mom is a scientist,” Dr. Morgan said.