Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1482660
17 adovcate focus cannapatientcare.com october 2022 | cannabis patient care because of my age. Having the positions that I do, a lot of people would see me as just the poster child for something. As if I'm like Wendy from Wendy's, I'm a face, and I don't really have anything to do with what's going on. I have that issue where people just don't see me as someone working. They just see me as a kid, just putting her face on everything and her name on everything." Moving Forward with Advocacy, Education, and Research Knowing she was entering into an atmosphere of resistance, Rylie was still determined to face it head on. Because of the success she found with medical cannabis, Rylie wanted to spread her story and touch as many lives as possible. While still in elementary school, she began her mission to help other fam- ilies know about safer treatment options. During her own initial treatment, she became friends with children in the hospital and was familiar with their stories. "Once I left the hospital, I wasn't sure why other kids couldn't have access to cannabis," she said. "I asked my mom, and she told me that cannabis was illegal. And I said, 'Why don't we change that?'" Rylie contacted and petitioned her local legislators and in 2015, Senate Bill 90, also called "Rylie's Law," was introduced to allow children in Delaware to use cannabis oil to treat a varie- ty of conditions. The bill was passed unanimously in the Senate and House of Representatives. Soon afterward, Rylie helped in- troduce Senate Bill 181, which allowed medical cannabis on school grounds (1). Rylie and Janie have shared the draft of the law with advocates in many states, including Maryland and Colorado, to help them apply the same legislation for their schools. Rylie also worked to have autism added to the list of qualifying conditions that could be treated with cannabis, and helped pass the Compas- sionate Use Law, which gives doctors the ability to prescribe can- nabis for any condition they feel would benefit from it, as long as they have research to support it. There was still work to be done, and Rylie was just getting started. "In third grade, I started the Rylie's Smile Foundation. That's a platform I use to advocate for better treatment op- tions, such as cannabis and increased safe access," she said. Through her foundation, she began public speaking. "The purpose of my foundation is to educate families about medi- cal cannabis, advocate for safe legal access for pediatrics, and support research of cannabis," Rylie explained. In sixth grade she began traveling and presenting, first at the Cannabis Sci- ence Conference. Afterwards, she presented at conferences across the country and around the world, including countries such as Australia, Israel, South Africa, and Hong Kong. Her big- gest learning experience, Rylie recalled, was in Hong Kong. "A lot of people knew nothing about cannabis, and I was called a 'disruptor' by the company that invited me to present. Everyone else at their event was talking about business, technology, and innovation, and I was talking about cannabis, how it's helped me and other people, and my foundation. I got so many people coming up to me and asking strange questions that you would never be asked here. A few people asked me, 'Do you start to hallucinate when you take cannabis?' and 'Do you see circles or spinning things?' They had absolutely no idea what it was like because they had never really heard about it," she said. Janie also recalled reactions from people after a conference in Australia. "The medical doctors were all scared to prescribe it be- cause it had just been legalized there to prescribe to their pa- tients. But they all told me that, after hearing Rylie speak, they were not scared anymore to prescribe it for their patients because they felt like it was not going to harm the children," said Janie. In addition to providing education, Rylie and Janie contin- ued to support the plant medicine that helped them so greatly. "In 2017, I founded Rylie's Sunshine. We grow and process hemp, such as cannabichromene acid (CBCA) and gannabigerolic acid (CBGA) dominant varieties, on our 25 acre farm in Virginia (East- ern Shore of Virginia or ESVA), sustainably and organically, and we make products that are safe for all patients," said Rylie. "50% of what we grow goes out to families in need, and the oth- er half we sell, and the funds go back to our company. We want to own a patent for the safety of the people who want to use our strain for specific reasons. It keeps people from selling im- itations of the strain that we have. If people make imitations, it could be detrimental to the people using it." In working closely with Rylie's Lead Advisor, Dr. Reggie Gaudi- no, from Front Range Biosciences (FRB), Rylie's Sunshine is able to assist FRB in the research of plant performances to make quality medicines. Rylie's Sunshine also recently purchased the Rylie when she was younger after her initial diagnosis.