U.s. congressman Rodney davis proudly representing the 13th district of illinois

U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) today announced that he is co-sponsoring bipartisan legislation to ensure that children and individuals with epilepsy and other debilitating seizure disorders have access to Cannabidiol (CBD) Oil and therapeutic hemp.

“If one of my children suffered from seizures, I couldn’t imagine being told by a doctor that we’ve run out of options or being forced to split up my family to send a child to a state where CBD is available and legal,” said Davis. “While the state of Illinois has taken steps to legalize the use of supplements like CBD for medicinal purposes, not all states have followed suit. This bill is a narrow, commonsense approach to give individuals and families in all states the access to this potentially life-changing supplement to help treat and deal with seizure disorders.”

Currently, more than 300,000 children in American suffer from some form of epilepsy. Many of these children experience more than 100 violent seizures a day— any one of which could be fatal without proper care. There is evidence that CBD oil has been shown to reduce the amount and duration of seizures in children suffering from epilepsy and other seizure disorders.

H.R. 5226, the Charlotte’s Web Medical Hemp Act of 2014, would enable individuals to access this potentially life-saving supplement without having to split up families geographically in order to receive treatment.

This legislation is an incremental approach to providing relief to those suffering from ailments that could benefit from CBD oil and therapeutic hemp. It removes CBD oil and therapeutic hemp from the federal definition of marijuana in the Controlled Substances Act. Therapeutic hemp is defined as having no more than .3% THC, which means it has no hallucinogenic effects of traditional marijuana.

In May, Davis supported an amendment to H.R. 4660 to prohibit federal interference with state’s laws that permit the use of medicinal marijuana. The amendment was adopted by the House on a vote of 219-189.

Additionally, two weeks ago Davis supported an amendment to H.R. 5016 to allow legitimate marijuana-related businesses that operate according to state law to access the banking system by stopping bank regulators from prohibiting or penalizing financial institutions from providing services to those businesses. This amendment was also adopted by the House on a vote of 231-192.