“If you’re the parent of a healthy kid, it’s hard to imagine yourself doing what we did. Who spends tens of thousands of dollars on anything that’s not a house, a car, or college tuition? Who lets their child be the first or even one of the first to try any medication? But Sam was not a healthy kid.” Fred Vogelstein shares the story of his family’s quest to get their hands on an experimental marijuana-based drug with the potential to treat his son’s extremely debilitating seizures. It’s a family story of love and hope. But it’s also the story of a set of antiquated and illogical (and maybe even cruel) drug laws that forced a little kid and his mom to travel 5,350 miles to try to get some help. From Wired, Boy Interrupted: one man’s desperate quest to cure his son’s epilepsy — with weed.

+ After years of requests by veterans who found it helped their symptoms, the FDA is finally set to begin trials to see how well cannabis can treat PTSD. Why did it take this long? Politics. (Or maybe the government didn’t want soldiers who had fought in Afghanistan and Iraq to try something really dangerous like smoking a joint.)