Charlotte Figi, the little Colorado girl who inspired the CBD movement, has died of coronavirus

Charlotte Figi, the little girl from Colorado Springs who launched a movement leading to radical changes in cannabis laws around the world, has died of complications linked to the new coronavirus. She was 13 years old.

Charlotte's death was announced Tuesday evening by a family friend on the Facebook page of her mother, Paige Figi.

«Charlotte is no longer in pain. She is crisis free forever. Thank you so much for all your love,» she wrote.

In recent weeks, Paige Figi had posted on Facebook that a serious illness had struck everyone in her family and sent Charlotte to hospital. She never explicitly said it was COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, noting in particular that the family had been unable to get tested. The Realm of Caring Foundation, an organization co-founded by Paige Figi, confirmed Wednesday on Facebook that Charlotte's death was due to complications from coronavirus.

«Your work is done Charlotte, the world has changed and you can now rest in the knowledge that you are leaving the world for a better place,» the Realm of Caring Foundation wrote on Instagram.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-theVRBI3W/

Charlotte suffered from Dravet syndrome, a rare and debilitating form of epilepsy that appears at an early age. Since she was 3 months old, Charlotte had suffered hundreds of epileptic seizures a day. Conventional pharmaceutical treatments were ineffective. At the age of 5, Charlotte had difficulty walking and expressing herself, and had to be fed through a tube.

After hearing about a family in California treating their child's epileptic seizures with cannabis oil, Paige Figi researched and contacted a cannabis dispensary owner in Coloradao named Joel Stanley, who, along with his brothers, had helped develop a cannabidiol (CBD)-rich strain of cannabis.

Charlotte's seizures decreased dramatically when she started using CBD oil, so much so that Paige weaned Charlotte off her anti-epileptics. Charlotte was soon able to walk, play and feed herself. Her story has been featured in academic literature. Last month, Paige posted on Facebook that it had been five years since Charlotte's feeding tube had been removed.

In her honour, the Stanley brothers named their CBD variety Charlotte's Web.

Charlotte's story gained global prominence in 2013, when she appeared in a documentary by CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta. The documentary shows Charlotte laughing and playing, her epilepsy contained by CBD.

Hundreds of families moved to Colorado in search of CBD for their children.

Charlotte quickly became a face of the medical cannabis movement across the country and around the world. Today, 47 U.S. states allow CBD products in some form. Hemp has also been legalized at the federal level. And Epidiolex, CBD oil, has just been removed from controlled substances.

«She was a light that illuminated the world. She was a little girl who carried us all on her little shoulders, have written the Stanley brothers in a tribute published Tuesday evening on their website. «... What was her story has become a story shared by hundreds of thousands of people and an inspiration to many millions more on their path to betterment. Charlotte was and will be, the heart of our passion and belief that the dignity and health of a human being is a right.»