Many thousands of Australian children and their families are currently affected and this condition costs the country hundreds of millions of dollars annually, with frequent ambulance call-outs, hospital admissions, often with prolonged periods in intensive care and a huge bill for pharmaceutical drugs and tests, most of which show little benefit.
Since 2013, Dr Katelaris has supplied medicinal cannabis to dozens of children with serious seizure disorders. With this safe and effective herbal medicine, he has seen a dramatic reduction in the frequency and intensity of seizures suffered and in addition, most of the children have shown a noticeable improvement in social, intellectual and motor functioning. His current research interest is in developing better seizure medication. He is specifically refining the use of cannabis plant varieties that are cannabidiol-dominant. Cannabidiol( CBD) is non-neuroactive cannabinoid. Dr Katelaris concluded a trial pilot study with twelve children suffering from intractable forms of the disease taking part in the threemonth study. All children had exhausted all other methods of conventional medical treatment. The children were administered an infusion of cannabis in refined coconut oil. By the time they had finished the trial, the condition of all of the children had improved, with at least 70 % experiencing fewer epileptic episodes. Some showed noticeable advances in social interaction and gross motor skills during the trial and the results were very promising, Dr Katelaris said.“ This is the first good news for parents with children afflicted with intractable epilepsy, who until now must suffer not only their affliction, but the severe toxic effects of the ineffective polypharmacy”. Police made 66,684 cannabis arrests in Australia in 2013-14, the highest on record. 87.2 % of those were consumers, rather than providers. Australian Crime Commission Illicit drug data report 2013-14
In 2016 he was working at a‘ wellness clinic’ in Newcastle run by the Church of Ubuntu, where he supplied cannabis oil to children with epilepsy and adults with cancer, still advocating for the legalisation of medicinal cannabis. However, Dr Katelaris admitted he was“ flying blind” when he prepared“ huge doses” of cannabis mixed with coconut oil and injected it directly into the ovarian cancers of two 56-year-old women at the Newcastle clinic in September, 2015. Nearly 18 months later, with further sanctions from the state’ s health watchdog and a referral to police, Dr Katelaris insists health authorities are“ retarding progress”, and that his championing of cannabis oil as a“ safe and effective herbal medication” for broad use is in the public interest.
One of only a handful of compassionate suppliers openly flouting the law by providing access to medicinal cannabis oil for families in the Australian Capital Territory( ACT), NSW, Victoria and further afield, Dr Katelaris has become the most public face of doctors unwilling to wait for the law to catch up with the needs of their patients. While quick to stress he is not operating as a GP, he was conducting clinics on the NSW central coast and Skype consultations with patients in other states, advising them not just on cannabis but also diet and lifestyle. He has spent countless hours teaching patients how to use cannabis to treat conditions ranging from intractable epilepsy to chronic pain and relief from the debilitating sideeffects of chemotherapy.