The federal government won’t spend money to study it, and leading medical associations won’t recommend it, but marijuana has a growing legion of believers in the plant’s potential to combat untreatable epilepsy in children. The shift in public opinion began three years ago in Colorado when news spread on social media that Charlotte Figi, a 5-year-old girl suffering with 50 seizures a day, was making dramatic improvement while taking an oral cannabis extract. The success of that strain named Charlotte’s Web, generated international media attention, including two CNN documentaries. The public attention encouraged the Epilepsy Foundation to speak out. The top leaders of the organization for the 2.5 million people diagnosed with the neurological disorder called on the federal government in February to cease classifying marijuana as a harmful and addictive drug with no medicinal value, so research may be allowed to flourish. via Demands for medical marijuana research grow in N.J., nation driven by hopeful patients, families | NJ.com.