Twelve-year-old Alexis Bortell uses a cannabis oil called Haleigh’s Hope by syringe twice a day to prevent life-threatening epileptic seizures.

She also keeps a THC spray on hand in case she experiences an aura, or pre-seizure event. Since her only option to potentially prevent future seizures in Texas was to go through an experimental lobotomy, that would have removed a portion of her brain, her parents decided to move to Colorado.

Since she moved to Colorado, the auras now happen maybe once every three to four weeks. Cannabis has been saving her life.

“I’m now over two years seizure-free because of my cannabis medicine. In Texas, our goal was three days, [and] that’s the max I ever got,” Bortell said. “It’s helped me succeed in school more, since I don’t have to go to the nurse every day because of auras and seizures. There was no medicine in Texas that would stop my seizures, and not only that, but [the non-cannabis medicines] had horrendous side effects that would be worse than the actual seizure.”

Bortell is now part of a cannabis lawsuit team, including co-counsel Michael Hiller, Lauren Rudick, Joseph Bondy, and David Holland, who are filing suit against the government. The attorneys argue the Controlled Substances Act that classifies cannabis as a Schedule I drug infringes upon various constitutional rights. They are asking to deschedule the drug under federal law.

“The classification of cannabis as a Schedule I drug violates fundamental rights like the right to travel, the right to be left alone, to preserve your own life with lifesaving medication, and to exercise the right to free speech,” Rudick told Cannabis News Box.

The federal cannabis lawsuit team filed a complaint in September to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The attorneys argue not only that the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) infringes on Bortell’s constitutional rights, but that the explanation for why it is a Schedule I drug is predicated on lies and racism.

Rudick added Bortell has been restricted in her ability to live a normal life all because of the racist policies that existed back in the 1970s, when cannabis was placed in the Schedule I category.

“The original placement of cannabis as a Schedule I substance is supposed to be temporary and supported with medical evidence,” Rudick said. “But the administration ignored medical evidence that indicated that cannabis was not harmful: they criminalized it because the goal was to target people of color and people that are opposed to the current administration. We have statements that confirmed that to be the case.”

When looking at incarceration rates, black Americans are four times more likely to be arrested for a drug crime than their white counterparts, despite the fact that people of both races enjoy cannabis, Rudick said. Even in places like Colorado, more minority kids are arrested for cannabis than anyone else, while in California, police arrest black people for cannabis three and a half times more than white people.

“What is deeply troubling about all of this is that the CSA makes absolutely no sense,” Hiller said. “We know for a fact that the U.S. government knows that cannabis cannot be legally classified as a Schedule I drug, the requirements for which are a high potential for abuse, no medical efficacy whatsoever, and a substance so dangerous it can’t be tested even under strict medical supervision. And we know cannabis doesn’t meet those requirements.”

“We want to stress that this has been treated as a criminal matter for quite some time,” Rudick said.

In some situations, parents may be losing their children if the children use cannabis as a medicine, but the drug is found in their system in areas where medical cannabis is illegal. This at times can be considered child abuse. Rudick commented this issue is an unfortunate consequence of illegality.

She referred to another plaintiff in the case who lives in a state where medical cannabis is legal, but where there aren’t any regulations on selling or growing medical cannabis. Therefore, the parents would have to violate federal law in order to obtain the cannabis for their child, which could potentially be a disaster for their parental rights.

If the court were to grant their relief, Rudick said in the short term, the door to research would be open and cannabis would be able to become a treatment for a variety of diseases; and in the long term, she expects the U.S. to catch up to their international counterparts, like Israel, that has considerably grown its medical cannabis exports, or Germany, that is distributing its medical cannabis pharmaceutical products across the country.

Meanwhile, Bortell has to choose between breaking the law and preserving her own life.

“She is a medical refugee; she moved from Texas to Colorado in search for lifesaving medications,” Rudick said. “Cannabis has been the only medical treatment to give her relief from her life-threatening seizures.”

But since she moved to Colorado, she has essentially been a prisoner there. She cannot be without her medical cannabis even for a minute, so she cannot travel on a plane, onto federal land, go to national parks or lobby for her elected representatives in order to change the law.

“And that’s critically important to her situation because she is only 12: she can’t vote, she can’t use her voice in any other way. Letters or Skype won’t do it. It’s important for her to be there and be able to convince them in person,” Rudick said.

Bortell said every time she looks around her classroom, she thinks about what her classmates will be when they grow up.

“But there’s nothing I can be because the government thinks I’m bad,” she said. “I know they’re wrong. I do hope we can win this case. If that happens, maybe I can be a doctor, or if I need to, run for legislature.”