A drug made from Marijuana shows promise in treating two rare forms of epilepsy that have thus far been difficult to treat.

Two new studies tested the drug "Epidiolex", which is a purified solution of cannabidiol (CBD), a compound found in Marijuana.  It does not produce a "high", but CBD may be able to help treat patients with epilepsy who haven't benefited from standard epilepsy medications.

The first study examined 120 children with Dravet Syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy that strikes children in their first year of life; children diagnosed with Dravet syndrome require fully committed caretakers with tremendous patience and the ability to closely monitor them.  Half of the patients in the study were given placebo, the others were treated with CBD.  The patients in the CBD group experienced a 39 percent reduction in the frequency of their seizures on average, compared with a 13 percent average reduction in the placebo group.

The second study involved 171 children and adults with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, which causes "drop seizures" in which patients go limp and fall to the ground.  Patients in the CBD group experienced an average reduction of 44 percent in the frequency of their drop seizures, compared with an average reduction of 22 percent in the placebo group.

Both studies ran for 14 weeks.  Epidiolex is not yet commercially available and has not been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. 

Dr. Elizabeth Thiele is the director of the Pediatric Epilepsy Program at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and worked on both studies.  She says the CBD medicine "is not a silver bullet, but there are children who benefit from this more than they have from other treatments".