The TV Star Who Is Travelling the World in Search of Stories on Medical Cannabis

Two years ago, Helen Kapalos told her viewers the story of families who were compelled to turn to the black market in order to find treatments for relieving and curing their children’s illnesses. This harsh experience opened her eyes to medicinal marijuana and its applications, as well as prompting her to embark on a project to discover the truth lying behind the treatment.

‘A Life of its Own’ is the name of the project, which was financed by herself with the help of a few investors. Its purpose is that bringing viewers closer to an open debate about the acceptance and application of treatments that include the use of medical cannabis. With this in mind, she has analysed the situation of her country, Australia, and travelled to places such as Israel and the United States, where legalisation is in a more advanced phase.

Kapalos has talked to physicians, scientists, researchers, patients and legislators. Viewers of the documentary can see interviews both in favour and against the treatment. Further to this, she has entered centres and homes where medicinal marijuana is being used to alleviate patients’ pains.

She also had the opportunity to interview the oncologist Moshe Inbar, of the Sourasky Hospital Cancer Centre in Tel Aviv, who commented on the plant’s virtues in the area of medicine. She moreover visited Tikun Olam, one of the largest plantations in Israel.

The presented is also seen interviewing the man regarded as the man known as the Godfather of medicinal cannabis, Professor Raphael Mechoulam, who started his research work 50 years ago and has ever since held and shown that CBD, the cannabinoid found in the cannabis plant, is highly effective for controlling epileptic seizures in children.

Regarding epilepsy, Kapalos has commented that it “was the most heart-breaking aspect, the medication was so gruesome it either caused more seizures, them to go blind and sometimes fatalities. On cannabis, they were seeing fantastic results. They were not high dosages, not high in [mind altering substance] THC, not smoking it […]. I started thinking, why are some people not being given access to this?”

The hard work of this TV presenter unveils the reality behind the treatment, as well as the plant’s beneficial properties, to a country that has yet to legalise cannabis. It should also serve to dispel the myths and eliminate the stigmas still surround its use. Patients will now have to wait and see whether this message has any effect on Australian legislators.